Shaping hero – Chris ‘Guts’ Griffiths – part 03 (of 5)
Shaping hero – Chris ‘Guts’ Griffiths – part 03
That a surfboard has a nose and tail
well massaged by your feet, and fins (for directional stability) already
indicates that this thing of beauty is treated like an animal – somewhere
between fish and bird – alive and pulsing, sometimes tamed like a pet and
sometimes wild and out of control, biting back. Some boards move as fast as
arrows and a collection of boards (most serious surfers have many boards at
hand) is known as a ‘quiver’.
In the late 1990s I started getting hand shaped quivers from multiple Welsh, British and European Longboard
Champion Chris ‘Guts’ Griffiths. At this time I began to think of surfboards as
both dolphins and whales. Both, despite the size of whales, are elegant in the
water. Both are mammals – they breathe air, give birth to live young and suckle
them, have hair, and are warm-blooded. Having surfed with dolphins and watched
dolphins surf many times, it would be hard not to see them as shortboards –
quick, zippy, fast turning, arcing, full of tricks. Majestic whales on the
other hand are like longboards, cruising seamlessly, breaching the water to
leave a big impression and steering from their tails.
In surfboard design, Guts taught me
all about the importance of tail shape. Increased tail width means greater
speed, particularly in smaller surf, but less control; wide-tailed boards tend
to lose traction and spin out during a hard turn (or a steep take off). Narrow
tails do not manoeuvre as well, but adhere better to the wave face, and are a
standard on big-wave boards and those designed specifically for tuberiding. I
began to like the roundtail for small to medium sized waves. This is a blunt,
elliptical tail-section outline. Then, for bigger waves, the pintail was key.
This is narrow, streamlined and pointed. This reduced area is in large part
what allows the board to adhere to the face of a giant wave.
Guts’ house in Swansea, South Wales,
was full of surf trophies and kids playing. The shaping bay at the bottom of
the garden in a converted garage was a sanctuary. We’d get covered in foam dust
sanding down spotless polyurethane blanks imported from Clark Foam in
California. If surfboard blanks were soft drinks, Clark Foam was Coca-Cola –
ubiquitous, delicious and damn harmful to health, but trustworthy in quality.
While poorly blown blanks showing imperfections were two a penny in the early
days of surfboard manufacture, Clark had cornered the market with a dependable (but
toxic as hell) product by the 1960s. There was a particular blank I loved. The
boards were modelled on what Australian Beau Young was riding at the time with Gut’s own distinctive
narrow tail designs and rail shapes. Beau was reigning Longboard World Champion, son of Nat,
now the most famous surfing family of all time.
I preferred quite flat bottoms, hard
release edge rails through the tail, meeting softer rails from the middle, a
wide nose and medium weight for turning ability. The classic teardrop nose
concave made a nice section under the nose to trap water, lifting the board for
the noseride, then blasting that water out the back when turning. Guts put a
tiny ‘vee’ shape underneath the tail to loosen it up at high speed, and make
the board accelerate even more through the turns. And of course, the pintail
was fundamental. Guts upped the ante from single fins to a ‘two (small sides)
plus one (large middle)’ fin set-up (essentially a thruster). I could order a
full quiver at once thanks to a board sponsorship budget from Oxbow.
At dawn Guts and I surfed on the
Gower peninsula, catching the morning glass. Slate rock reefs sculpted long and
lancing waves, far more powerful than Cornwall. Guts pushed me to new levels,
always reminding me that good surfing means turning the board in smooth arcs as
well as noseriding. He loved my elegant walking and trim, but knew if I put
more power into the equation, bottom turning accurately, I could tackle faster waves more confidently. Guts was (and still is)
an awesome surfer: fast, graceful and full of power that flows from the core
and thighs.
Guts had a glassing bay in a slate
farm shed up the Gower road. We had a trusted type of fibreglass cloth and
resin that offered the best combination of strength and flexibility. The magic
boards were animal-like, some more dolphin, some more whale, and they almost
seemed to make an ultrasonic buzz when I rode them. Dolphins in pods leap so
high because they work collaboratively to produce strong vortices and eddies in
the water that supplement their muscle power, allowing them to burst higher and
further than their standing body mass should allow. Flexibility in the
surfboard seems to operate in the same way, allowing sudden bursts of power. A
heavy stiff board will plane quickly, but turn slowly. A light and flexible
board will plane slowly, but generate incredible bursts of speed through turns
as the board flexes and snaps back like a sprung coil.
With boards built for speed and fast
waves, defined by their pintails, I cut my teeth on trips to Indonesia,
Barbados and Morocco. I began to like manoeuvring to create speed – putting
myself into sweet spots on the wave, fitting the curl, then taking my foot on
and off the accelerator entirely through trim created by walking the board,
arcing turns and subtle use of the rails. The best Guts boards allowed extreme
torque, always on an edge, dolphins on ecstasy, the board often outracing the
wave, down-the-line Formula One surfing, a blur like Roadrunner.
I liked how the wide nose provided
flotation and planing area, while the soft rails, from the nose to the mid
section, sucked water on top of the deck, stabilising the board within the wave
and counter balancing weight on the front. When the wave got steep, the board
became more parallel to the wave and sped up, planing on top of the water. I
could perform long hang five soul arches. But the hang tens had to be quick. On
the pintailed longboards from Guts the tail would ultimately stop sucking water
onto the deck due to less planing area, the lighter weight, hard rails
throughout the back and the dynamics of the flat bottom curve. At this point it
was time to back peddle and turn the board, gaining speed from climbing, dropping,
cutting back and floating over breaking sections of the wave.
Guts also made me some fantastic wide tailed
(square-tailed) longboard designs that would stay much closer to the pocket and
go a long way on the hang ten before spinning out. These were best ridden in small waves. The flow seemed to fizz out through the
Clark Foam, exploding as fireworks in my toes and fingertips.
Days after my last University degree
exam I defended my European Longboard Title at Le Penon in Hossegor, France,
riding one of Gut’s brilliant boards, fulfilling the only real ambition I had in
competition. Guts and I went from France to the Isle of Lewis, Scotland,
invited by Australian Derek Hynd to the Hebridean Surfing Festival. Hynd, a
star of the ‘70s and ‘80s scene, despite losing the sight of one eye in an
accident, had remained amongst a small group of progressive surfers pushing the
limits of board design (including riding stand up finless foam and fibreglass
surfboards, evolving the roots revival of Polynesian finless Alaias from wood
to modern designs and materials. Sliding across the wave rather than turning,
Hynd was master of ‘the slide’). His Scottish contest was a week long, mobile
event with a healthy prize purse, gathering some of the most experimental surfboard
shapes and riders on the planet (including Tom Curren, Skip Frye and Andrew Kidman). Hynd’s novel handicapping system allowed a
diverse mix to compete with each other, regardless of age, gender, board type,
or previous amateur or professional status. For example, a local surfer aged
over 30 would get five bonus points automatically added to his or her score,
while a professional surfer under 30 would get zero bonus points. Hynd awarded
marks per wave for technical merit, overall style, and artistic impression. It
was, of course, subjective, but far more dynamic than the formulaic system
adapted on world longboard tour surfing at the time, apparently discouraging
experimentation and individuality.
Californian Kassia Meador was there,
bringing a brilliant femininity to longboarding, where cross-stepping became ballet,
riding Donald Takayama built boards.
“Style is everything,” said Kassia,
“because it’s what distinguishes one surfer from the next. It makes surfing
more than just a sport.”
“How do you define bad style
Kassia?” I asked.
“If I saw someone slashing and
bouncing around on their longboard to get speed, or just doing shortboard moves
(like turns, and no cross stepping or noseriding), I’d consider them having bad
style. I’d consider someone with good style to be smooth. You can do turns, but
do them when needed, and with smooth arcs. Don’t force manoeuvres. If you want
to slash it up, ride a shortboard. Longboards are for gliding.”
What is the difference between
Hynd’s ‘slide’ and Meador’s ‘glide’? Big difference! Slide can be thought of as
a masculine glide. Sliding requires a large amount of muscular control, from
the core and thighs, to keep the board slotted in the wave as it slips away
from the rider all the time. Speed is essential to prevent sliding out and
losing control. Glide is far more about staying in trim, often high up on the
wave face, where balance is essential, dictated as much from the top half of
the body as the lower half.
“How do you think longboarding
should be judged in contests?” I asked Kassia.
“It seems to me that most comps
these days favour multiple turns over the smooth footwork and noseriding. I
don’t agree with that. I think style and flow and glide should be rewarded
most.”
Watching Kassia’s footwork on the board in Scotland again revealed a saltwater
ballet. Kassia, and Australian Belinda Baggs, were the modern masters of the
longboard glide. Kassia was a trendsetter. She had a mouth-watering Takayama
board. Just looking at it made you hungry.
The event winner was Tom Curren. Guts came second and Kassia third. Curren, Kassia and Guts all rode for pure
love of breaking glass: anticipation, bottom turn, positioning, cutbacks,
skipping and dipping through the flying shards. Watching them you could
feel every part of the ride. Basically, the complete ride formed an elegant
whole, from takeoff to kick-out, not a set of isolated, dislocated moves.
Curren, Kassia and Guts stole the show
in a week that changed the world. That night Guts and I watched the news
reports in the B&B with two Glaswegian plumbers, away on a job. They drank
whiskey and I could not understand a word they said, but it did not matter
because we were all left speechless from the horrifying footage of nine-eleven.
A global punctuation mark had been made, drawing attention to a new war between
some religions. As a traveller, geographer and writer who would go on to enjoy
the hospitality of Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Shamans, Buddhists, Hindus,
Jains and Vodouisants, this saddened me enormously.
