All Aboard the Love Boat

All aboard the Love Boat!

Romance is in the air, love is all around, etc, etc...

This mat has been built for Katelynn Pierce. Katelynn and Matt Pierce married earlier this year and Matt got in with an order saying that Katelynn was after a mat for their honeymoon in January. Perfect timing!

Katelynn is a fairly new mat rider and has only ridden Matt's which are WAY too big for her so job number one was to scale her mat to fit. The rest of the brief was a mat that will be versatile and dependable. With this in mind a Ute was the obvious choice.

The Love Boat is a 200/70 wheezer with free rocker. The grip is proper romantic (hence her name) in pigmented heart shaped patches and the logo is a festival of purple-pink glitter that the photo's don't do justice too. Oh...

And the Love Boat has a Heatered valve.

So, The Love Boat sets sail on Christmas Eve to SoCal and then on to Baja mid January for the Pierce's honeymoon trip.

Here's to you and a long and happy life together Kate and Matt!

Cheers

G

Ding Monkey!

A little while back, I built a mat named Jamu Jamu for Mariah Ernst.

https://customsurfmats.com/blog/2019/6/30/jamu-jamu-something-orange-for-indo

Mariah lives for the most part in Indo and on a heavy day lost her mat which got dragged across the reef on the inside with terrible consequences. A huge tear on the bottom, a smaller tear elsewhere on the bottom and then a slit in the deck.

We really thought it was curtains for Jamu Jamu... Mariah sent her over anyway for me to take a look at.

Anyway, it took some planning and a lot of prep, as the damage to the bottom skin wasn't tidy cuts but jagged rips. However, I managed to weld panels of 70d white material into the inside of the mat to stitch her back together. The only job then was a small pinhole at the tail fixed with a Stormsure patch.

Jamu Jamu has been left fully inflated for 7 hours and no leaks so looks like job done. She might not be the prettiest she's ever been but the contours are true so hopefully all good. It's not ideal to have areas of double thickness material on the bottom but it's better than a huge hole!

Let's see how she goes. Mariah is off for a trip mid Jan so we will find out if our surgical intervention has worked.

Fingers crossed! Glad to see you and Jamu Jamu reunited Mariah!

Cheers

G

Let Them Hate Me... So Long as They Fear Me...

That’s right. This mat is named Caligula. She’s the latest build for Andrew Stphen Buck.

Caligula came about through discussion about a mat I built for Jamie McClellan a little while back named Wheezy Jefferson.

ASB was interested by Jamie’s ride reports of levitationesque glide and 5th gear speed runs and the statemet “hands down the best mat I’ve ever ridden” and decided to give this modified Ruber Bucky (which I am calling the Rubber Bucky - JMC) a go.

Caligula has is a very light weight 70/70 mat with very light weave bottom skin and I-beams. She is also extremely well vented so is a complete free-breather and also has a neagative rocker to really maximise the speed. This will be further maximised by the squared back corners.Squarer corners release more easily so offer less hold but more speed.

I’d definitely say this design is for highly skilled mat surfers.

Caligula and ASB have had waves. After the first session word came through….

“Take a bow Graeme. Caligula is World Class”.

That’ll do.

Cheers

G

Clone to the Bone!

Meet G-Mat 174 (AKA “Dolly”). She is a G-Mat Nouveau Racer, built for James Harvey, down in St Ives, West Cornwall, UK.

So why Dolly? Well, on a recent stay down West I hooked up with Jamo for a couple of very fun surfs. I was riding Unity, my Nouveau Racer on the first day in low tide, hollow, fast breaking waves. James had a crack on her and his feedback was that she was “…the best mat I’ve ridden”. We had been talking about building James a mat for some time and when he got in on ordering one this time around he immediately said “just copy your Nouveau Racer. I want the same dims, materials… everything!”

So there we go… Clone time. Clone to the Bone. Clone Alone. ET Clone Home. Clone Armatrading. Papa was a Rolling Clone. You get the gist... So Dolly is the perfect name for her as Dolly was the first cloned animal:

https://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html

So what did I clone? A 200/70 Nouveau Racer, free rocker, wheezer with full length grip including the front corners. Not an exact clone as the grip is clear Sikaflex EBT for durability and the logo is smaller, closer to the tail and orange so perhaps more of a non-identical twin.

All those qualities make Dolly the perfect mat for Jamo. He primarily surfs Porthmeor which for those who don’t know it is a fast and heavy beach break so a mat that gets in quick and has a load of hold is just the ticket.

Enjoy Jamo!

Cheers

G

Colin's New Companion

Meet TREAL, a modified Ute built for Colin McCrindle in Santa Barbara. Colin is a very evperienced mat rider who I’ve built a number of mats for over the years:

https://customsurfmats.com/blog/tag/Colin+McCrindle

Colin has an eye for nature and a lust for finding out of the way quality wave around the Santa Barbara Central Cali coast. Just take a look at his Instagram account… Amazing!

https://www.instagram.com/colinmccrindle/

Give him a follow!

Anyway, TREAL is a 200/70 build and very well vented so the internal airflo is lomost completly unrestricted. The corners are squarer than normal too with a lightly stretched plan shape. Add to that the I-beams and bottom skin being made with a very light weave 70d navy taffeta and lighter TPU coating and we are looking at a mat that is going to be very fast.

TTREAL is on the way so Cali right now. The tracking says that wild fires are causing hold ups but HOPEFULLY she’ll be with colin before the weekend.

I’m excited to hear about their travels to quiet coves and reefs.

Have fun Colin!!!

Cheers

G

ANALOG

ANAGLOG (yes the caps are deliberate) is a Rubber bucky built for Pete D’Ewart. Pete has had a few mats off me now, being the first person to pay for a mat off me way back. Pete knows all about mats having been a mat surfer for a looooooong time. He’s a big fan of the Rubber Bucky and has the skills to make this model really go.

ANAGLOG is a 200/70 free-breather with free-rocker. The 200d fabric is a fairly open weave, as is the navy 70d bottom skin so a light, fast mat. Pete is a fan of simple panels of grip (like on a 5 Star General). We’ve gone with clear EBT which give plenty of traction and the un pigmented sealant is more durable.

Pete lives in the Pacific North West so some long chilly walls will be just perfect for this mat.

Have fun Pete

Cheers

G

It's Opposite Day!

It’s been a bit slowed down of late with some family stuff going on but I’m back with a mat for Jamie McClellan. This mat, which Jamie has named Wheezy Jefferson iis built by way of wages for Jamie’s work for MatSurfers.com.

Jamie is one of those mat riders that has a special talent. He’s put in the hard hours and surrendered himself to the craft and is, as a result, able to work with very lightweight and plable mats to manage the drift and tap in to that sought after quality of surfmats…

SPEED!

Weezy then is something of an ironic name because Weezy Jeffereson is the very opposite of being wheezy. This mat is a free-breather with I-beams with crescent cut ends and 5 breather holes. What that means is that the internal venting is completely unrestricted.

Weezy Jefferson is bult withnegative rocker, very light weave 70d bottom skin and I-beams and a slightly denser (but still very light) 70d deck. She also has slightly squarer than normal back corners wihich further relaease hold in the tail. The grip is also applied thinly as Jamie is more than able to top it up if needed.

All in all, this is an incredibly lightweight and pliable surfmat that will go like a greased turd off a hot shovel!

At the time of writing this post, Jamie and his family are hunkering down to ride our Hurricane Dorian so Weezy Jefferson is still sat in G-Mat Towers and will go out once things calm down. In the meantime, take care of yourself McClellans.

Cheers

G