Smorgasboarder_11_May-2012

HOLY SMOKES!
A few issues back, we featured the
creation of a surfboard from coconut
wood. While we thought that was pretty
out there, it seems there’s not too many
natural materials that can’t be fashioned
into a surfboard...
This little beauty, built by alaia enthusiast
Adam Bell, is manufactured using
material from medicinal marijuana plants
and looks ready for a smoking hot surf.
Retrieved from a burn pile, the wood was
painstakingly wittled down and glued
together, bit by bit. With wood fibres
much the same as balsa, the board was
then glassed after Californian red abalone
shells were inserted for detail.
Adam’s been travelling the world for
the last 11 years and has found himself
following the direction of alternative
surfing. He has studied and experimented
with alaia’s building them in Australia,
South Africa, Canada and California.
Adam explains the inspiration behind his
latest creation.
“The board represents the Green and Red
Triangle. The Red Triangle is the colloquial
name of a roughly triangle-shaped region
off the coast of northern California,
extending from Bodega Bay, north of San
Francisco, out slightly beyond the Farallon
Islands, and down to the Big Sur region,
south of Monterey.
“Around thirty-eight percent of recorded
Great White shark attacks on humans
in the US have occurred within the Red
Triangle. The Green Triangle or Emerald
Triangle, is in Mendocino County north of
San Francisco where most of the medical
marijuana is grown in California.”
For more on Adam’s wild slides see
http://pcockalaias.blogspot.com.au
ABOVE: Are those rolled rails?
FAR LEFT: The raw material.
It takes a fair bit of vision and
dedication to work a pile like that
into a cool surfboard like this one,
but it’s high time someone did.
LEFT-HAND SIDE: Detail of the
abalone insert. Even the joints are
visible... These captions have just
gone to pot...
24 may/jun 2012