Welcome to a New newsletter… …A new year and decade for that matter. If we’re starting the year as it’s going to continue, we’re scuppered, with junky swells and ugly winds keeping us from the brine. But that means we’ve got more time to be doing what you want… ___________________ This Issue: Take It Easy – Mid Length boards have a rep as learner boards with no performance. We’re putting a stop to the rumours. For Your Viewing Pleasure – When the winds are a-howlin’ and the swell ain’t a-pumpin’ it doesn’t mean you want to end the stoke. Here are a bunch of DVDs to keep the froth flowing… The Only Good Thai Export? - Liao Chih Wei came to us begging for work…now we’re begging him to stay. Meet our new polisher. (photo: © Classic Malibu)	Newsletter :: February ’10 :: ___________________ InBetweeners When too many Christmases of over-indulgence have expanded the waistline and turned your paddle-arms into useless noodles, you might find the trusty 6’3” doesn’t float quite as high in the water. Conversely, when the points aren’t working and beach breaks are your only option, the ol’ 9’6”battleship may not be able to make the drop like those young flippety whipper-snappers in the shories. For both of these occasions, a mid-length is just what you need: enough volume to paddle easily and get in early, but with enough performance and length chopped to be quick on the turns and manageable on the take-off. Here are a few ways we go the middle way…
	The Easy-Rider: Essentially, the Easy Rider is a highly refined mini mal – but don’t let that put you off. With a sting in its tail, this is every bit the performance board. Sizing up at around the mid-seven-foot mark, with about 21 ½” x 2 ¾” around the guts, the Easy Rider has all the volume to get you out in the surf, whether you’re working off the turkey stuffing or stuck in a flat spell. A double-flyered swallowtail keeps things exciting in the back end, livening up the board for drivier turns and a ride much more akin to the board’s shorter peers. The Easy Rider is the quintessential funboard, as much about a laid back paddle as busting the backs out of a few.
		Shorties: If you’re still in denial that you need anything deemed ‘fun’ or ‘mid-length’ but your physique states otherwise, or if you’re wanting the zing of a thruster without the schlump of a fat board but still want float, then we can solve your quandary. There’s no reason to forfeit the performance when you want a board wit a little more foam, but obviously compromises will be needed. We can make a shortboard a little wider, a little thicker, but offset these with a flyered tail or channels so you can maintain a much more progressive style well beyond the time when, on a more conventional thruster, you’d be hanging up your legrope. So our message to you is: don’t leap straight onto a mal on your 50^th birthday. Old dogs CAN be taught new tricks.
Flat Spell Solutions: Swell is a fickle mistress, usually intimately familiar with your work schedule or holiday dates and turning up when you can’t take full advantage of her offerings. So when she has deserted you yet again but you’re still keen to get some stoke in your life, go couch-surfing with a decent film. Here’s a list of ten of the best: - Morning Of The Earth You can’t go past Albe Falzon’s seminal classic. Filmed in the dawning years of the 70s, this captures beautifully the inception of shorter boards, with exceptional footage and surfing, as inspirational today as it was back then. - The Endless Summers (1 & 2) Filmed 30 years apart, Bruce Brown’s timeless duo are a great mix of travel doco, surf flick and slapstick comedy. Good tunes blend with hilarious commentary to give a pair of entertaining flicks to be enjoyed by everyone, young and old. - The Present Thomas Campbell’s third movie is more diverse than his previous offerings, encompassing pretty much every style of surfing imaginable. Beautifully shot in outstanding waves and locations, it has a lot of soul but will still appeal to shortboarders. Thomas’ other movies, ‘The Seedling’ and ‘Sprout’, are a bit more arty but still incredible films, focussing on old-school logging, but with flashes of other craft too. - Picaresque Many of you may have read about this neo-punk logging film in the latest issue of Pacific Longboarder. Featuring some mind-blowing surfing from Harrison Roach and Christian Wach among others, it may be a bit raw for the more traditional cats amongst you, but still a breath-taking display of what older styles of boards can do. - Big Wednesday If you haven’t seen this Ron Howard Hollywood blockbuster, you’re missing a vital part of your surfing heritage. Featuring a cameo by Gerry Lopez himself, this captures the heyday of California’s longboarding and the transition into the world of shortboards. Unmissable. - Fresh Fruit For Rotten Vegetables The mouthful of a title may be a bit hard to handle but the contents is something else. A blend of progressive and old-school longboarding, the action is so energetic you’ll be breaking a sweat just watching it! - Tubular Swells Another classic, the Hoole/McCoy seminal work encapsulates the birth of professional surfing, featuring the likes of Rabbit Bartholomew, Shaun Tomson and Pete Townend, this film is all about the fast-paced, cutting edge shred-mentality that gave rise to the birth of the IPS (the Pro Tour forerunner) in 1976. - Glass Love Andrew Kidman has done it all: surfer, muso, photographer, writer, shaper and filmmaker. Glass Love is the follow-up to Litmus and explores the other side of surfing, away from spotlights, fashions, trends and media. Surfing for nothing but the pure pleasure of riding waves. - Singlefin Yellow This is an awesome spin on the whole surf movie genre. It starts with Tyler Hatzikian shaping a board in Southern California. He sends it on to Beau Young, who explores northern New South Wales with it before sending it on to Japan. The film follows the board as it trips around the world, falling into the hands of renowned surfers and paddled out at an array of breaks, including Waikiki, Malibu and Pipeline, which, given that the board is a heavy, singlefin log, is quite something to behold. - Flow Al Merrick is possibly the most renowned shortboard shaper in the business. Flow documents his life through the eyes of the people who know him best: his team of world class surfers, including Kelly Slater, Shaun Tomson, Tom Curren and Rob Machado. A fascinating flick. Next Month: Artist’s impression – we’ve looked at resin tints in past newsletters. Now we look to other media to get that look you’re after. Classic Malibu Cnr Gibson & Eumundi Rd Noosaville QLD 4566 Ph: (07) 5474 3122 www.classicmalibu.com.au Email: info@classicmalibu.com	Liao Chih Wei - Breaking The Mould - Chih Wei isn’t what you’d normally conjure up when you join the two words surf and Taiwan in a sentence. But the pint-sized polisher came to us with an indefatigable passion for the art of board making. Initially, we started him out on dings, his lack of experience far outweighed by his enthusiasm, and he learned quick. What began as a voluntary situation, where he’d patch up a few of the more basic jobs for the price of an education, soon turned into official employment. With Chih Wei on the payroll. His indoctrination into the world of board manufacture could begin in earnest. Chi Wei comes from an unlikely background. In his own words, he is “the strange one! Everything’s unique.” His parents, both retired, live in Taipei, about 40 minutes from the nearest ocean. Neither surf, his Dad an ex-engineer and Mum a housewife. Likewise, Chi Wei’s siblings aren’t water-inclined either, his brother an accountant and sister the manager of an electronics factory. So he really is very much walking his own path. Four years ago, the bug bit Chi Wei. He started surfing on shortboards in Taiwan and soon saved the dollars to come to Australia. Since then, he has broadened his repertoire, ripping on anything that’s placed under his feet, his unquenchable positive energy a contagion through any lineup. But, as is so often the case in the transient world of the surf industry, we will soon be bidding adieu to our newfound kinsman from Taiwan. With his visa expiring at the end of March, we will be reluctantly waving farewell to Chi Wei – but it won’t be goodbye forever. Having fallen in love with our country, there is no question that he’ll be returning on more than one occasion in the future, but that future may well see us connecting on more than a platonic level. Chi Wei plans to return home with his new-found knowledge of the industry, and set himself up his own surf shop and repair facility. Will a few Classic Mals sneak their way onto the racks in Chi Wei’s retail outlet? Only time will tell. Next Month: The Silent Preacher: Mitch Surman is a new face on the world pro longboarding stage and he brings with him some unconventional equipment. But we’ve been backing the Sunshine Coaster for several years now, pre-empting his next-big-thing status. We go in depth next month…