Mark your calendars, Friday June 17th, for the New England Premiere of Mikey DeTemple’s new film Sight|Sound right here at our shop. In addition to beautiful footage from some pretty exotic locations, there are some fun scenes from right here in our backyard with surfers like Kassia Meador, Ryan Birch, Chris Del Moro, Daniel Thompson, Alek Parker and Mikey himself.

We’ll be pushing the play button on Sight|Sound around 8:30pm. Bring a picnic, a beach chair or blanket. There’s a full moon that night, so be ready to howl. Buy tickets anytime here or at the shop the night of the film.

Look forward to seeing you here.

We know it’s last minute, but we wanted to spread the word to our Japanese friends about Blue Magazine’s Fish Fry taking place this Saturday May 28th, 2011. Whether you’re interested in funky shapes, new processes, art, or just meeting new people, this seems like the place to be. Our friends Akio and Miyoshi from Buoys will be on hand to chat it up and get people in the water on a paipo or behind a handplane.

If I could read Japanese I’d be happy to give you more details, but since I don’t and hopefully you do, here’s a link to some more information.

Have fun. Wish we were there.

Some time ago, we were contacted by Pierce Kavanagh (interview & pics), a thoughtful filmmaker on a mission. When he first called, I wanted to give him an award of some kind just for the things I heard him saying. Why? Because he was making a documentary film that for the first time would try to look closely at the sustainability practices of the industry that supports our habit. I was honored when he said he thought a trip all the way out to our coast would be important for his picture.

Alas, it was not to be. Indie filmmakers struggle with funding and he wasn’t able to boost his budget enough to make it out here. But what did make it here, was this trailer. So sorry we are that we weren’t able to participate more in the making of this pic because this is the conversation that we think really needs to happen if we are all to surf with a clear conscience. And to Pierce, who has made a beautifully shot documentary (with surfing in it) as opposed to a “surf movie” that pretends to be a documentary, we send accolades and hopes that he will continue to make gorgeous films like this one that will help us all to see our own world a little more clearly.

The Manufacturing Stoke world premiere on May 21st is sold out, but they added another showing on May 22nd at Bird’s Surf Shed located at 1091 W. Morena Blvd. in San Diego. Tickets are sold in advance at www.manufacturingstoke.com. Other viewings will be coming up, and we hope to be able to show it here are the shop sometime in the near future.

We’ve dreamt about building a big wave gun for years and we were delighted when Alan C. from Oregon commissioned us to build him one. By the very nature of our building process, our boards are a bit heavier than foam, and if any design benefits from extra weight, it’s a gun. It is even fairly common practice for foam shapers to add lead weights to boards just to add the speed you need to stay ahead of bone-crushing curls. Knowing what unbelievable forces can be put on these boards, we employed a whole host of new construction techniques in order to be sure it will survive the ass-whooping it’s sure to be in for. Starting with the computer-aided design and going right through the building processes, we strengthened just about everything in ways that have never been done before.

You know the old saying, measure twice, cut once? Well we decided that after all the measuring twice that we did during the design process, we might as well build twice. So in addition to Alan’s board, we built a second board for our good friend Allen A. out in Los Angeles. In an incredible act of generosity, Allen decided that the board deserved to be seen and enjoyed by more then just him. He decided to donate it to the Surfing Heritage Foundation in San Clemente and they were overjoyed to get it, saying that it was of significant cultural importance and that they were honored to add it to their big wave gun exhibit. We couldn’t be more proud.

We know that this is a pretty special board for a pretty special type of wave, but for those people that are out there surfing the heavies, we’re adding this board to the lineup, and we’d be honored to build you one.

Twelve-foot Dreadnought.

Allen and his board at the Surfing Heritage Foundation.