How an unlikely collaboration between shaper Chris Christenson and an aerospace engineer from Pennsylvania may alter the future of big-wave surfboard design
For the most part, big-wave guns have looked much the same for the last few decades. Sure, shapers have made incremental changes to volume, fin placement, rocker, bottom contours, etc., but the general shape of a big-wave surfboard looks about the same today as it did 30 years ago. Until now, that is.
Southern California shaper Chris Christenson, who makes boards for Greg Long, Ian Walsh and many more of the world’s best big-wave riders, recently unveiled a unique craft. With a bulbous nose that’s over 9 inches thick (yes, you read that right), shaped from EPS and glassed with carbon fiber, it looks unlike any big-wave board you’ve ever seen.
“This surfboard came about because of an aerospace engineer from Pennsylvania named Roger Birkbeck,” says Christenson. “And the funny thing is that Roger isn’t even a surfer; he’s never surfed a day in his life.”
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Esta historia es de la edición September 2017 de Surfer.
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60 Years Ahead
We had a whole plan for this year. Funny, right? Surfer's 60 year anniversary volume was going to be filled with stories nodding to SURFER’s past, with cover concepts paying homage to the magazine’s most iconic imagery. Our new Page One depicts something that’s never happened in surfing before, let alone on a prior SURFER cover. And our table of contents was completely scrapped and replaced as we reacted to the fizzing, sparking, roiling world around us. In other words, 2020 happened to SURFER, just like it happened to you.
A Few Things We Got Horribly Wrong
You don’t make 60 years of magazines without dropping some balls. Here are a few
THE LGBTQ+ WAVE
Surf culture has a long history of marginalizing the LGBTQ+ community, but a new generation of queer surfers is working to change that
For Generations to Come
Rockaway’s Lou Harris is spreading the stoke to Black youth and leading surfers in paddling out for racial justice
Christina Koch, 41
Texas surfer, NASA astronaut, record holder for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman
END TIMES FOR PRO SURFING
By the time the pandemic is done reshaping the world, will the World Tour still have a place in it?
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
After decades of exclusive access to Hollister Ranch, the most coveted stretch of California coast is finally going public
What They Don't Tell You
How does becoming a mother affect your surfing life?
Four Things to Make You Feel A Little Less Shitty About Everything
Helpful reminders for the quarantine era
The Art of Being Seen
How a group of black women are finding creative ways to make diversity in surfing more visible
