Aloha, aloha everyone
Wow, all I can say is WOW!!! Well, we just got finished with 4 days of absolute craziness!!! We were given a booth at the HURLEY OPEN and I was invited to shape a board in an amazing portable shaping room complete with bleachers, filmed by FUEL TV.
I wasn't sure what to shape and somehow I got this idea to go back to my first board I ever shaped under a mango tree in Maui over 40 years ago. I didn't know about templates then so I just eyeballed it. Then I thought it would be cool to shape it with a chainsaw, yes, a chainsaw!!!
Then I was talking to Peter Mel and he needed a 7'8 gun for Puerto Escondido. So , I put it all together and, without telling Pete, decided to hand shape his board WITHOUT templates and with a CHAINSAW. Word got around and everyone thought I was kidding but the arena was packed and there was this huge camera, worth $150,000.00 in the shaping room with me. Yes, $150,000.00!!!
So I brought out a blank, took a couple of measurments and just drew by hand an outline. So far I am not getting much reaction but then I pulled out this big chainsaw and cut the board out and started to rough shape it. People were so stoked. I roughed it out pretty well and then finished it off with my Skill planer. The board came out beautiful, even though it took me 3 hours.
Pete Mel was running the jet ski at the contest and I had left a note that I was going to shape his board with a chainsaw. When he saw the board after I was done he was so stoked. I then got to interview him for TV and he was telling how he was honored and so stoked!!! I did about 5 other interviews and we probably will see an article or two. Awesome promo.
We were given a booth as well and we had fixed up pretty nice but I thought it was in a terrible spot. It faced away from the crowd and was super hot so I took off the back wall and instantly had a non stop tidal wave of people walking straight by our booth for the entire event. It was facing the entrance. I have never been with so many people at once and it was real hard the first day but I really got into it and it became super fun. We partnered up with Christian Surfers and we gave away thousands of Bethany Hamilton DVDs and tons of cool stuff. We printed out a thousand new JC stickers and boxes of our catalogues. People were stoked on our bamboo t shirts and we met so many cool people. I 'm calling it a huge success even though Etsuko and I are totally burnt out.
I want to thank CHRISTIAN SURFERS for being virtual slaves to us. They brought us food and killer DEIDRICHS coffee. They carried all of our stuff in and out. They manned our booth so we could watch the finals and do interviews.
They not only helped me but helped EVERYONE there. They brought a huge team and let everyone know they were there to help in any way possible. They even helped LOST... breakdown. How cool is that?
This will probably be one of the most famous surf contests in history and we are so stoked to me a part of it.
Our new rider, Bruno Rodrigues got to the quartefinals and Slater went down in the quarters. Local boy , Brett Simpson won. Amazing waves.
We also want to thank Scott Bass from Sacred Craft for making the shaping room and bruddah Bob Hurley for putting on a great contest. And especially Jesus Christ for bringing so many people to our booth with words of encouragement after a pretty tough year of business. We are making a difference and a lot of people are stoked on what we are doing. I'm ready to get back in the ring... after a good rest.
...mahalo and God bless...JC
