Grain Jets To Hawaii

Just before Christmas, a small contingent from the Grain shop flew out to the fabled North Shore of Oahu to meet up with Billabong sponsored free-surfer Dave Rastovich. The plan: to help him build a new Rasta-inspired Grain mini-gun on the Billabong house lawn overlooking legendary Banzai Pipeline. With only eight days to do it in, no shop and limited tools, improvisation was the name of the game - but by day six, Rasta had completed and shaped a graceful new board that caught the eye of competitors heading in and out of the water during the Pipe Masters competition.

Surfing's mecca was in prime form during the eight-day stay as Pipeline, Backdoor and Off-the-Wall were all firing on all cylinders.  But our guys had to fly home before the board could be locally glassed, and didn't get the pleasure of seeing Dave thread tubes at Backdoor.  Just hearing his excitement as he was anticipating the board's performance was almost as good.

This board was co-designed with Rastovich using the same 3D CAD technology that we use for all our custom board designs. Keep an eye on the site to hear about when we'll be offering this board and visit the Grain Website for stories and pictures from the trip.

Board Building Classes - Still Space in January

For the past year, we've been holding a unique class in wooden surfboard building right in our shop in York, Maine. As a result, we've been able to help more than thirty extraordinary new student-built longboards to hit the waves.  And because feedback from our students has been so universally enthusiastic, we wanted to find more new ways to help people build their own boards.

That's why we just added a bunch of new classes for 2009. From each of these classes, students take home a true wood surfboard they built, shaped or glassed themselves working side-by-side with Grain's builders. After our January and March longboard-building classes, we'll be offering classes in building any of our three fish models. And beginning in May, we'll start holding classes in shaping and glassing almost any board in our line - Grain's pros build the wood surfboard "blank", then students add personal details, and shape and glass the board during the week.

There are still a few spots left in our next class which is building Sapling, Steamer, Root or Waterlog longboards beginning January 25.  Two home-cooked meals a day and all the supplies needed are included in the $1,575 tuition. Lodging and dinner are not provided. 

Visit our class page to learn more.

10'-6" Classic Malibu Pintail - in Wood

Working with a lifetime surfer on the west coast, Grain recently designed and built a classic board that every longboarder should consider as minimum equipment in their quiver. Long and lean, with super-pinched 50-50 rails, and a gentle belly overall, this board was designed for noseriding in anything up to about head-high.  The graceful pin-tail is swept  up to a nearly-flat deck with woodgrain bookmatched as it is in all our wood boards. 

We got comments on this board even as it was being built in the shop, but when it was done we all looked upon it with awe. After showing it off around the beach, we shipped this time-tested design to its new owner, and instantly slotted it into our wish list for a new shop-board to demo to visiting surfers and those we meet on the road. Dubbing it "The Northern Pintail", we added this board to our line this week, so check out the boards page for more about it.

Reports from the new owner are great - his buddy called us the first weekend it was in the water to see about ordering one. We told him to get in line behind us.