089 - The Grit! with Devon for October 23, 2020

Devon Howard sits in for Chas Smith to discuss the Cuervo Surf Classic, why surf brands should stay out of politics, and the first time he got spit out at Pipe and the heavy who sent him to the beach (simultaneously). Plus Barrel or Nah? Enjoy!

@Devon_Howard and @SurfSplendor

Special thanks to AlbumSurf.com for hosting us.

Try the Twinsman!

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@josh_kerr84 all rail on his 5’6” #albumtwinsman pintail / photo by @kanduivillas
A post shared by Album Surf (@albumsurf) on Oct 26, 2020 at 6:52am PDT

DEVON’S BACK!

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This short is comprised of a few sessions where I met up with Florida based filmmaker @drewbmiller. He captured the typical rhythm I’ve settled into after a few decades of goofing off in the surf. I’ve whittled down what I mostly ride into two distinct camps—both of which are an obvious extension of the waves, culture and characters where I’ve lived all these years. For the cruisy, under shoulder high days (which there are many), I find classic style single-fin longboards with a 1966 Australian bent hard to beat. These shapes I ride are a modern classic approach to longboard surfing, and run around 9’9” to 10’. Details can be found in the end credits. When conditions finally push shoulder high, and on up to double overhead, my plan shapes dip down a few feet to a range of mostly egg-inspired outlines (6’10 – 7’2”), and the rails, bottom contours and fin set-ups take on a much more revved up form. I dig how these two design groupings allow an easy transition from one to the next (thank you low rocker and generous volume), but offer discernible shifts in speed, accessibility to different parts of the wave, and help maximize the available space on the face. These few days of surfing, scrunched into a couple of minutes, share the back and forth pacing between long and mid sized equipment—the decisions for which are driven by attitude or conditions, or both. There is absolutely nothing new here in terms of a “horses for courses” approach (thank you Nat Young, Skip Frye, Tudor, etc), but although well into my mid-40s, I’m still passionate about learning what works, what doesn’t, then plugging that back into the never ending design loop. The stoke for staying on the surf prowl explains why the boards and the ride itself just keeps getting better. Thanks for watching. Ps I love the cameo of my mom and dad in here, after all these years they still love to come down and watch my brother and I do the very thing they introduced to over 4 decades ago… @b.h.university @karen_howardart @hhoward007
A post shared by Devon Howard (@devon_howard) on Aug 27, 2020 at 8:39am PDT