Chemistry Surfboards

Surf For The Sea After Party

Will — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:10:29 +0000

Its that time of year again where everyone pulls out there magic boards, think back to their past contest achievements, and hope to put their name on the prestigious trophy. Its time for the Surf for the Sea.

This year marks the 14th year this event has provided a battleground for local surfers in and around Oceanside. Its a benefit for the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental organizations and was started in memory of the late Harry Bennett.
This year like years past, we are hosting a party on the Saturday night of the event weekend to bring together all the friends who are participating in the event. Anyone can come and join us at the factory for Appetizers, Beer/Wine, Artwork, and Music.

3205 Production Ave. Suite B
Oceanside, Ca. 92058
760-757-1432

Abad and Cheyne on Surfline

Will — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:10:39 +0000

Chris Abad and Cheyne Magnusson are currently featured on Surfline’s “Summer Session:Oceanside”. Chris Abad is also narrating the feature alongside good friend Justin Quirk. Abad is riding his new, and SurfRide exclusive “Lights Out Model” while Cheyne is boosting around town on his Beaker Model. Take time to check out a cool perspective of our backyard with great imagery by photo whiz, Billy Watts.

Abad going straight up on a “Lights Out” model

Cheyne and a backside air joined by his Beaker model

PJ Continues Busy Contest Schedule

Will — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:03:55 +0000

The ever busy PJ Raia has continued his run at almost every possible contest available and the last 2 have ended with pretty solid results.
He recently took a win down at the 48th Annual Coastal Edge East Coast Surfing Championships Presented By Vans And Monster Energy; First Street Jetty, Virginia Beach, VA. Winning the Juniors division in pretty good surf, probably the best the East Coast had to offer that weekend.
He also had a really good run in the Smith Optics Garden State Grom Grudge Match Presented by Dakine; Meters, Seaside Park, NJ, placing second. Being that it was the Grom Grudge Match in his home state, which is really prestigious, he was pretty emotional about the “loss”. This is the closest year he came to the title and he had a really good chance of taking down his good friend Tommy Ihnken. Congrats to Tommy who was on fire for event. Not bad considering PJ has a few more years to take the crown as he is only 16.

PJ laying it down in pursuit of the Grudge Match title

BodyGlove East Coast Tour

Cheyne — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:19:23 +0000

Here are some photos from the East Coast Tour that I’m on with the Body Glove crew. More to come!
cm

The Third Annual Pt. Mugu Contest

Will — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:09:58 +0000

Longtime Chemistry supporter and friend Matt Merel had a really strong showing at the Third Annual Pt. Mugu Contest Presented by Quiksilver. The event took place on the sprawling Naval Base in Ventura County, and the waves were perfect. Matty took first place in the Military division and fifth in the Open Mens division.

Always a popular event for local military wave riders and whoever else can squeeze into the 180-person field, this year’s contest was highlighted by the arrival of a strong southwest swell, hot weather and clean conditions. In fact, the surf was pumping in the four- to six-foot range with sets as big as 10 feet on the face. There were multiple broken boards, leashes and egos…but no injuries.

The warm weather and sunshine helped draw an estimated 9,000 people
to the contest, all of whom came out to support the military and watch some great surfing. Much to the delight of the crowd, Dane Reynolds made an appearance on Saturday, treating spectators to a one-hour demonstration of his trademark barrel riding and airs.

Here are the results:

Military
1st Matt Merel
2nd Jonathan Flick
3rd Brent Travis
4th Nicholas Barringer

Women’s
1st Demi Boesterli
2nd Chelsea Rauhut
3rd Chloe Buckley
4th Amanda Host

Young Guns
1st Jake Kelly
2nd Joe Rickabaugh
3rd Jacob Davis
4th Matty Parker

Bodyboard
1st Jason Livingstone
2nd Jacob Reeve
3rd Thomas Gaulke
4th Mark Gruber

Open Men’s
1st Keoni Cuccia
2nd Jeremy Ryan
3rd Matt McCabe
4th Jessie Mota
5th Matt Merel

Jones and Gleason Enjoy Early August

Will — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:04:18 +0000

With all the hype of the swells backed up on the East Coast little has been known of the little sneaker swell that came in before all the hype surfaced. It seems one came through that surprised everyone and provided the crew with a fun little flurry of waves. Despite Blake Jones’ and Mike Gleason’s busy travel schedule, they managed to catch this swell instead of hearing about it on the internet from some far away place. Check out the whole story on ESM.

Mike Gleason

Blake Jones

David Barr Joins Chemistry

Will — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:29:09 +0000

Its official that Carlsbad, Ca. native David Barr has joined the Chemistry shaping team. Coming with him is over 25 years of shaping experience and 4 new models to add to the Chemistry lineup.
David Barr began his shaping career at the age of 16. At the same time he was a professional surfer on the pro tour. He made the top 20 and stayed there for four years while competing in contests all over the world including South Africa (winning at Jeffrey’s Bay), Hawaii, Australia, Europe, and the East and West Coasts of the USA. Barr credits early mentoring by Dick Brewer and Gary Linden plus seven years shaping for Rusty Preisendorfer. To date he has shaped over 20,000 boards including boards for Taylor Knox, Brad Gerlach, Dean Morrison, and many more.
Inspiration for the new models he is adding to the lineup was pretty much the desire to fill some voids in what we are already offering our customers. The additions are the following models: Tron, Squallow, Throwback, and Kinetic. We are excited to have Dave as he brings not only a great wealth of shaping and design knowledge but a great perspective as a progressive surfer. Along with Jason Bennett who was also a pro surfer, they are great test pilots for the equipment they build. Leaving our customers with a product that has had the appropriate R&D and not just a concept that will hopefully work.

French AquaMan Guillaume

Will — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:20:08 +0000

Guillaume Nery of France base jumps 663 feet deep underwater and can hold his breath for over 3 minutes. If I could hold my breath like this I would pretty much consider myself to have a superpower. Amazing.

Sacred Craft Pics

Will — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:52:51 +0000

Here are a few of the pics from the Sacred Craft Surfboard Expo that we participated in a week ago.
The show turned out to be a lot more successful than we expected. There was a great turnout from the public as well as local retailers. It’s good to finally see a show dedicated to the art of surfboard making and it be successful. We look forward to being an exhibitor at the show next year.

Booth almost set up

Seiver and Rob workin’

Booth Business

Jason and Jun Jo

Rob enjoying the show

Board Lineup left side

Board Lineup right side

Banner Close up

The Shape-Off

Jason — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:46:34 +0000

Last weekend I had the honor to compete in the Tribute to the Masters Shape-Off honoring Simon Anderson. The other shapers in the shape-off were Pat Rawson, Brian Bulkley, Michael Baron, Larry Mable and Matt Biolis. When I was asked to be a part of this I was a little unsure how the whole event would unfold.

I had a couple months to prepare and I searched the internet for the board Simon rode at the ‘81 Bells contest. We where told this would be the board we had to duplicate and I was trying to get an idea what I was getting into. I was real young around the early 80’s and I think I rode my first wave in ’81. The guys I was shaping against where full blown shapers at that time. The only guy who maybe wasn’t was Biolis but I’m pretty sure everybody else was. I only shaped a hand full of 80’s design so I needed to practice, plus we only had an hour and half to duplicate the Simon. David Barr offered to show me a few things and he was the perfect person to learn from on these designs. He was shaping and competed as pro in the 80’s. We practiced a few before the event and after a few I felt ready. I had them down in under an hour and half considering it was a real easy design: flat deck, down rail, and mostly a flat bottom with some vee through the tail.

The day before the event I got to meet Simon, he came through our factory with Gary McNabb. It was funny because he was looking at all the boards we where building and most of them where all thrusters and I thought to myself he probably is thinking these fuckers have all been biting my designs for years now pay up bitches. Actually he is cool and humble guy. We were all hyped that he came through.

Anyway, the day of the event we all got our first look at the board and it was nothing like I was practicing. It was a lot more modern than I expected. Simon was saying he couldn’t bring an old one because he is always trying to improve the design. With all the morning anxiety 12:00pm came up real fast, it was my turn to shape. I got into the room a little nervous while trying to get all the kinks worked out. I started off with a few hiccup’s then after about 20 minutes I put my head down and zoned out all of the people staring at me through the glass and started mowing foam. The hardest thing was the lighting because you couldn’t see any shadows. I had to shape completely by feel. I had to trust my hands because my eye’s where blinded by the sun shinning through the bay windows. I blew threw the board in about an hour. That left me with a half hour to clean it up and fine tune things. All said and done, I was just stoked to get it done in the time period and hit all my numbers. It was a great experience and an honor to meet Simon Anderson and duplicate one of his boards.

Simon Anderson – InnerViews from www.KORDUROY.tv on Vimeo.