Made in Washington

hankj · Post by **hankj** » Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:56 am

New board from Gaelen Fletcher's Machine Surfboards in Olympia. He glassed full time at Pearson Arrow for ten years and still flies down occasionally to work there. Such a nice guy - the whole (little) surfing industry in Washington has ZERO of the attitude too frequent in California - So nice to interact with a cool, understated, universally respectful to everyone surf community. But man the drives are far, it's cold and you can get skunked easily. But when it's firing and there's nearly no crowd it's something special.

This is a more foiled out and slightly more concave version of the last board he made me. This one two inches shorter (5'10"), fins just a hair farther forward, squash instead of round pin, subtle break at front fins instead of harder double bump, more flipped nose. Both boards are killer! Older 6'0" is thick and paddles fast, flies down the line, super stable, very meat and potatoes power oriented performance - very good classsic point break/bigger wave type board. This one is meant to be a little flickier/trickier/quicker to rail but still sit down on the wave well for the shifty/lumpy/sometimes unfriendly surf we have up here.

Can't wait to get it in the water. Will surf it once up here and then San Diego for a week on the 23rd. Will probably surf Blacks a couple of days and around home (Del Mar) if the surf isn't too soft. Hopefully I bring some swell with me!

gumby · Post by **gumby** » Tue Dec 16, 2014 8:16 pm

Board looks killer. Nothing like a Newy to rev up the stoke. Like the climb wall in the back ground. Get a cove pad if you don't have one on there yet.

hankj · Post by **hankj** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:15 am

Thanks I am stoked! 3/8's Cove pad should show up today and if so I'll surf it tomorrow. Which should be kinda a mess with high SE wind and not to big at 6 foot bouy, should have gone today with 9.5 foot buoy and 7 knot straight offshore but last minute my wife had to be on CNN really early this morning and so I got stuck with morning childcare duties which apparently do not include abandoning my kindergartener on a cold, desolate, rip-riddled beach for a couple of hours while daddy plays with the Orcas. I really need to find a reliable babysitter out in Westport. But I digress; stoked to try the board in some gray WA juice before San Diego

If I like it enough my very nice Romo might show up on the for sale thread.

gumby · Post by **gumby** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:09 pm

Yea clean out that closet. I'm beginning to find the wife really is not a fan of me having extra boards around. I guess to many years have passed sence I broke one. Must be getting old.

hankj · Post by **hankj** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:59 pm

gumby wrote:Yea clean out that closet. I'm beginning to find the wife really is not a fan of me having extra boards around. I guess to many years have passed sence I broke one. Must be getting old.

Funny. I try to pass the new boards off casually but she's catching on. As for breaking boards you're not getting old you just need to try harder

Got a really limited session in on this new board today. Surf was really chaotic and somewhere between 7 and 9 foot on the sets, 5-7 where I was able to catch anything. first impressions were paddles like a champ and has a ton of lift when is glides on the wave. My bigger board has more float but duck dives significantly easier if that tells you something about the bottom of this board. It's quite quick turning but also very stable and smooth and draws nice long, classic lines very well. I think this is due to the slight bit of taper compared to my other more "squared off" boards as the rail heads back from the midpoint toward the tail. It might not quite fit my style, which is up and back with basically all maneuvers extensions of tight radius snapbacks. This board feels more like my old Flashpoint in that it seems to prefer a more bent forward flowing style. It would be a really good board for La Jolla reefs and the like, OB in San Diego, drivey beach break. Rode it as a quad and that was good, feels like it would surf nicely as a tri too.

I'll surf in a lot in San Diego and then decide if I'm selling it or the Romo down there.

hankj · Post by **hankj** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 9:21 am

after the holiday trip to San Diego have surfed this board at Windansea/Simmons, Blacks, Del Mar Rivermouth (which was mostly walled but 20% 30mph right barrels thanks to the rains setting up the sand bars really nicely - go if another NW swell puched through), 8th Street Del Mar, 11th Street Del Mar, Blacks, Blacks, Rivermouth.

It's the best board I've ever had no question, though my boards have been limited to 8 Romanoskys, 2 pre-Brian Sunset, 1 pre-Sunset Brian, 1 Choice (Toby from Point Loma), a used Flashpoint, 1 Greg Saurich, an early 80's Skip Frye Fish, a mid-70's Hansen single fin. We were able to keep the stable characteristics of the previous thickened Romanosky knock off Gaelen made me but lighter blank, strategically less glass, foiled it out a lot more and added more concave like my broken Flashpoint. I thought the tail was too narrow when I saw it but it's perfect and my fins fit just fine. Sooooo happy with it and super impressed that it's the shaper's second ever kneeboard.