Like a Boat. But Smaller.

Liz’s board from last year

Grain Surfboards made the trek downeast again this year to the campus of WoodenBoat School where four new boards were built in one of the killer shops they provided to us. Our fifth student didn’t make it to opening day, and we send Adam all the best wishes for a speedy recovery.

But among those present, we had Dan, Tim, and Vince… three more different guys you couldn’t expect to meet all in one place, but their common interest in building their own, and surfing wood put them all right in our grip for the week.

West coast equestrian/shredder, retired fire chief, downeast skate punk artist.

It was also great to have Kim and her daughter Liz back again – this time working on a fine round-tail Sapling for Kim. Liz brought her Root which they had made last year and I think it inspired the other three budding builders as they knocked together a new Root, a Steamer and a Waterlog for themselves.

Kim in full focus

With packing the Pug, travel and all, it was nine-day longboard love-fest, with just one downside: there seemed to be no way to get the students out of the shop. Everyone kept coming back in after dinner to futz on their boards way past sleepytime.

Many hands…

But with ours the only lights on in the shops at night, we seemed to attract off-duty student boat builders from the other classes like they were moths, which gave us some nice social time showing the boards and talking about wood and how boat builders and board builders make it bend into shapes that don’t seem possible.

Uneasy feeling after all that effort.