SURFERMAG.COM DESIGN FORUM

Andy Irons had a ride on Rasta's board at King Island and enjoyed it too, and has his own model ready to claim as his prize in Australian Surfing Life's recent Peer Poll awards.

"Most boards are plastic but these are things of beauty," says Garrett. "You can sand your edge on or sand them off, oil them up, refinish them. It's a living thing. It's functional art-art and function without the fashion."

Meanwhile, another Burleigh shaper, Dick Van Straalen, has been producing aluminum-veneer boards with some encouraging early feedback. Engineer Ron Hastead, who has worked with Van Straalen to produce a range of boards for top Burleigh surfer Jay Thompson and other locals, invented their construction.

"Surfers all say it slices," says Van Straalen, who has been fooling around with alternative materials for years. "It's changed peoples' perspectives on what flex means in surfboards. Because they're stiffer, everyone talks about how much speed they generate."

Wood and timber veneer, bamboo, even aluminum-this isn't your average fiberglass shop we're talking about here. And could the sloppy resin bucket and rubber squeegee finally be going the way of the draw knife? Well, when you consider how relentlessly innovative our designing forefathers were when attempting to come up with a stronger, lighter, better surfboard, nothing could be more natural. - Tim Baker

For more information about Dave Franks' timber veneer boards, contact: phanzine@bigpond.com.au