What’s Your Board’s Name?
One of the more interesting aspects of surfing is the relationship between
surfers and their boards. If you look at photos
of the old days in Hawaii, and at places like San Onofre, you see surfboards
with names...names like Duke
(for obvious reasons), Keoke, or Sergeant.
In those days, names on boards often merely identified their owners. But,
a more romantic practice evolved, in which boards received names that
inspire the heart.
In the Longboard Magazine video about San Onofre, there is a vintage board shown which is named Nohea after the original owner’s beautiful daughter. In the mid-1960’s, George Greenough created The-Surfboard-of-the-Future, a flexible spoon, which he named Velo.
My good friend Man-O-War recently made a Greenough-style flex spoon; It’s black and mysterious, and he named it Blackbird. In Nat Young’s book on the history of surfing, there is a picture of Ted Spencer on Little Red. In my own quiver is a board named Paradesha, which is the Sanskrit word for Paradise. It’s my beloved Hynson red fin gun,in which he incorporates a Sanskrit Om into his signature.
Today, something has happened: surfboards have become mere things. Surfboards are a form of commodity, an extension of an industry which appears to find its greatest wealth in the form of clothes and accessories. Sure, everyone likes a cool board or what not, but where is the “soul” in today’s surf scene? To what exotic destination does the heart travel?
I have a close friend who’s a well-known and respected shaper. He’s also a Reiki Master. I’ve been meaning to ask him, “Hey...are you putting Reiki into your boards after they’re shaped?”
If he does, it’s something akin to naming your board. By giving your board a name, you give it life...you’re allowing it to have a personality, and it’s really becoming an extension of your nervous system.
If you give your board a name, it’s placing the board in its proper perspective, as the actual center of your surfing experience. All the other stuff is just the trappings of the surfing lifestyle, external to the core revelation of wave riding. That core experience is what links you to the Hawaiian royalty of old Hawaii, to the Californian explorers of the 1930’s through the 1950’s, and to the glory days of the 1960’s. All the other stuff is just fashion.
In the same way that surfing can either be a celebration of nature and grace or an extension of the ego, one’s board can either be a dead thing one uses for one’s own glory, or a living spiritual vehicle that reflects our deepest vision as a person, or perhaps it can have a name which expresses a little inspirational humor.
Along with Paradesha my board’s names are Savitar (the principal Vedic solar deity), India, Vina, Captain Blood, and The Mysterious Turtle.
What’s your board’s name?
~logjammer
Surf Board Art by Krista
Harmon's Surf Board Art