Tommy Tanaka, son of the late respected Hawaiian shaper Ernie Tanaka, grew up in Santa Monica, California but moved back to Hawaii to live with his dad during high school. He started off body boarding Waikiki and then progressed to surfing. Soon he was competing in summer contests and won Hawaii’s biggest longboard contest, China’s Uemura’s Annual Longboard Contest.

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Arguably one of California’s top shapers, Todd Proctor grew up surfing some of California’s best point breaks including Venture and Santa Barbara in LA’s northern county. After high school, he spend some time traveling and surfing in Australia, South Africa, Hawaii and Mexico. While honing his surfing skills, Proctor found himself interested in learning about surfboards and how they interacted with waves. He shaped his first board in his grandfather’s shed in 1991 and later got a job finishing boards at McCrystal Surfboards in Oxnard, CA. He started his own label in 1992 shaping board for friends and fellow surfers and in 1994 was offered a full time shaping job at Lost Surfboards with Matt Biolos. During his time at Lost, Todd learned about different design ideas and shapes alongside Biolos while shaping boards for a number of Lost team riders.

In 2000, he started Proctor Surfboards in Ventura with a vision for a state of the art board operation and factory. Todd Proctor has been there ever since looking to push surf design and shaping to the next level while providing surfboards of the highest quality on the cutting edge of innovation. They’ve also got one of the best websites I’ve seen for a surfboard shaper with interesting videos and shaping resources. You should definitely check their website out, especially if you surf in California!

I’ve watched a number of Proctor Surf videos and the one board which really intrigues me is the Lil Rascal. According to Proctor, this board is designed for those slow small days when your groveler shortboard just won’t cut it and you don’t want to ride your longboard. Jay Phillips (riding Lil Rascal in video) makes this board look super fun and I’d be interested to see how this board would work here in Hawaii on the South Shore which is known for slower and smaller waves. A lot of us just don’t want to ride longboards most of the time!

After the fallout of Clark Foam last December, epoxy surfboards were thrust into the spotlight once again. With an extremely limited supply of Clark’s PU foam, the abundance of polystyrene foam (foam used in epoxy boards) looked quite attractive. However, the previously bleak future of traditional foam is looking better than ever with more foam companies producing a larger variety of foam types, densities, plugs, etc. which has brought their popularity back up to the pre-Clark shutdown era. There are many pros and cons to both epoxy and traditional PU surfboards which we’ll examine below.

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Al Merrick of Channel Island Surfboards located in Santa Barbara, California has been one of the world’s premiere shapers since the 1980’s. His claim to fame rose as when his top team rider Tom Curren turned pro and exploded on the professional surfing scene. Both Curren and Merrick worked hard tweaking Tom’s boards in attempting to create the higest performing surfboards ever seen in that era. Curren, who has been riding for CI Surfboards since he was a teenager, won 4 world titles on Al’s magical boards. After the 80’s and Curren’s dominance in the sport of surfing, CI Surfboards exploded again with the rise of Al’s most successful protoge and up and coming surfing star Kelly Slater. Throughout the majority of Kelly’s career, he and Merrick have consistently worked together refining and improving CI Surfboards and creating surfing’s most famous surfer/shaper relationship. That relationship was a key force helping Kelly win an unprecendented 8 world titles. Read more…

Makani McDonald of 808 Shapes is one of Hawaii’s top amateur surfers having won a few of Hawaii’s prestigious amateur competitions and has been shaping underground for several years. His ability to efficiently ride both longboards and shortboards provides him great versatility in building big or small boards for a variety of surfers. A native of Kauai, Makani honed his surfing skills while surfing some of the Garden Isle’s world class waves. He has a number of 808Surfer members riding both longboards and shortboards and many of them have raved about his ability as a shaper and surfer.

Kerry is the other half of Hawaii’s famous brother/shaper combo. Like Wade, Kerry has shaped for some of Hawaii’s largest surf shops which most recently include HIC Surf. He now has his own shaping label called Vesso International featuring team riders: Kekoa Bacalso and one of Hawaii’s top longboarders Duane Desoto.

Andy Irons with his Tokoro at the 2006 Pipeline Masters

Wade Tokoro, along with brother Kerry, are probably surfing’s most famous brother/shaper combo today. Wade’s boards are some of the most popular here in Hawaii being ridden by legions of shortboarders and numerous big name touring pros who come to the North Shore every winter season. Some of the bigger names seen riding Tokoro boards include Andy Irons (won 2006 Pipeline Masters on a Tokoro shape), Sunny Garcia, and Jamie O’Brien to name a few. Tokoro, who hails from the East side of Oahu, arguably demonstrates the best surfing ability of all surfboard shapers. You’ll often find him charging 2nd reef Pipe and air dropping into a heaving Teahupoo pit.

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