I'm not going to lie, I don't get high performance shortboards in the water very often on the east coast. While I do have a slew of them stashed in various places around the world, the waves here at home rarely call for it. There was a time in my 20's and 30's where I made shortboards work in conditions I'd never ride them in now, but that was another era, both for myself, and for surfing. These days you'll mostly find me riding some variation of a fish, filling-in the gaps in my quiver between the grovelers and the mid sizes. When I'm not riding one of these hybrids, I'm usually on a longboard of some sort, trying to milk the subpar waves trickling into my beach. But there ARE those days when conditions on the east coast line-up for high performance shortboarding. And I'm tired of not having a reliable shortboard to grab from my home base quiver. Enter Shawn Vecchione, of VEC Surfboards out of Cape Cod, MA. To this point, Shawn's only made me fish, hybrids, and longboards. But now I've got my first ever custom VEC shortboard, delivered to my new digs down in the 321 area code. So we just need the right swell to get this beauty some water time! Stay gold... 6'3 x 20 x 2.63 VEC All In One Model
It wasn't great surfing conditions, but I took her out for a quickie the other day. The All-in-One felt good under my chest, and paddled nicely. I haven't surfed much the past month so I'm a bit out-of-shape from a surfing perspective, but I did I manage one pretty long ride that I caught on the outside and rode all the way to the beach. The board felt light and lively with an amazing turning radius and pivot. I wish the waves hadn't been so drifty and closed-out. The shorepound was a bit much to duck under with the rehabbed shoulder's first session back. It only took ten minutes before I was swept down the beach, far out of camera range. Fingers crossed that we get a good CLEAN swell this winter where I can roll her into some nice ones. Stoked Shawn! Thank You!