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TRAVEL<br />
SURF TRIP<br />
LEFT: Nick Tansley - The<br />
real deal. BELOW: Nick’s<br />
very first board found it’s<br />
way home. BOTTOM:<br />
Finless experimentation.<br />
PHOTOS: BEN VOS<br />
ABOVE: Just rewards for a busy<br />
start to the morning - breakfast<br />
at Kick Back Cafe, Omaha Beach.<br />
The surf wasn’t on, but there’s<br />
no denying this is a magic spot...<br />
with fine food.<br />
OMAHA BEACH LOCAL:<br />
NICK TANSLEY<br />
RAZOR SURFBOARDS<br />
The next morning we decided to make<br />
a detour in search of some breakfast<br />
and started driving towards Omaha<br />
Beach. On the way we noticed we<br />
weren’t far from a shaper we had<br />
read a fair bit about in our research<br />
of NZ. His name is NICK TANSLEY,<br />
regarded by many as one of New<br />
Zealand’s best shapers.<br />
Nick’s been at it some thirty-five years<br />
and is still finding satisfaction in hand<br />
crafting surfboards tailored to the<br />
individual. He shaped his boards under<br />
the Ocean Curves label from 1981<br />
through to 1991 before changing the<br />
name to Razor Surfboards.<br />
Like many shapers he has scaled back<br />
his operation but is still as stoked<br />
on shaping as he was when he was<br />
sixteen. His reason to this day is the<br />
same as back then. He loved surfing<br />
so much that he thought it would be<br />
pretty cool to create one of those<br />
magical things for himself and possibly<br />
a few mates.<br />
As fate would have it, Nick recently<br />
had back in his possession the first<br />
board he ever shaped and is in the<br />
process of restoring it.<br />
“Yeah, I didn’t hang onto it. I lost<br />
it. It got sold to one of my brothers<br />
mates and then he sold it to someone.<br />
Anyhow, one day it came back for a<br />
ding repair and I thought, ‘I’ll have that<br />
thank you.’ So I went about fixing it up<br />
and making it watertight again. I will<br />
take it for a surf when it’s done for the<br />
nostalgia.<br />
“There’s not a lot of finesse to it but<br />
I did the whole thing including the<br />
artwork, the decal. I always have.”<br />
It sure as hell looked a lot more<br />
impressive than my first ever shot at<br />
shaping a board (see our March 2010<br />
edition at www.smorgasboarder.<br />
com.au). I don’t think anyone will be<br />
marveling over ‘The Stumpy Duck’ in<br />
thirty years to come. But enough of the<br />
past, we asked Nick what his latest<br />
project was.<br />
“This is something I have had going for<br />
a while – a finless board. Not quite<br />
finished yet. I will continue to tweak it.<br />
“I had a desire to try and build a board<br />
that could be finless just for the sake<br />
of it. They just look like sculpture.<br />
I think it will work but then again it<br />
might track too much with that length<br />
of keel and style of it. There is quite<br />
a lot of rocker through the internals<br />
of it though, which will increase the<br />
maneuverability. It’s 6’. I made it for<br />
myself and I am 90kgs. I normally ride<br />
a 6’4” quad. ”<br />
It’s this renewed experimentation in<br />
surfboard design, such as what Nick<br />
is doing, that in our opinion seems to<br />
have reignited shaper’s creative flair<br />
and is what’s driving surfboard design<br />
forward. Such innovation will only<br />
serve to protect shapers from cheap<br />
overseas imports. Factory workers<br />
in China will never be able to keep<br />
up with, let alone replicate such a<br />
continual progression in design. And<br />
from a surfer’s perspective, it is just<br />
so bloody interesting to be seeing and<br />
riding boards that are not just your<br />
stock standard shortboard.<br />
42 may/jun <strong>2012</strong>
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