It’s hard to explain in a headline, but this video from The Surfer’s Journal is a wonderful concept: Take Dan Malloy, eminence grise of egalitarian board design, match him with up-and-coming pro Dane Reynolds, who lives for the shortboard, and send them into knee-high Ventura shorebreak for a board swap. Each throws the other a curveball–Malloy with a finless, sculpted plank, Reynolds with a dog’s breakfast of a board he shaped himself–but the lesson is that a great surfer can surf anything…and make it look like sweet, timeless fun. Witness Malloy falling off a longboard owned by “Thomas” (likely Campbell, the artist and surf filmmaker, but it’s never said), landing in a dive, and with one stroke matching the speed of the wave to finish his ride in a wonderful bit of body surfing.
The video comes courtesy of The Surfer’s Journal, of which I am an unabashed fan. “Reader-supported journalism” was the goal when Steve and Debbee Pezman launched it a decade and a half ago and to this day it remains the model for an enthusiast book–soulful, focused, intelligent. If all magazines were as smart in their vision, as humble in their goals, and as true to their readers, publishing would be thriving today, rather than circling the drain.
“Board Swap” is one of three TSJ videos you can see on the magazine’s website. Others include a meditation on board shaping by Terry Martin and a look at the planing hulls of Bob Simmons, another board designer. Sound esoteric? In a way. But you don’t have to be a surfer to enjoy the passion, commitment, and reporting you’ll see here.
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What is surfing but an outlet for anxiety and stress, an inlet for nature and satisfaction, a connection between you and the ocean, your board acting as some semi-conductor of magnetic and gravitational forces pulsing from the center the sprawling expanse of nature itself?
The sport has spawned a number of offshoots, including wake boarding, skim boarding, skateboarding, and. In addition to being a dynamic sport which can be practiced by people at all levels of ability, surfing is also associated with a specific surfing subculture which some people aim to emulate.