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Darren Handley knows something about shaping world title surfboards. Nobody turns foam into silver with more efficiency.
When Surfing World invites a surfer into the shaping bay, the design discussions usually revolve around some exotic novelty board – a throwback, a throw-forward, a single, a twin – but when Matt Wilkinson walked in to shape his very first surfboard, the board Handley wanted him to shape was no novelty. Handley would hear nothing of it. No, he wanted Wilko to shape a board that would win him the world title.
Wilko walked into Handley’s Tweed Heads shaping bay as the world number one surfer, and Handley had complete faith that even though Wilko had never set foot inside a shaping bay and had never actually constructed anything more complicated than a vegemite sandwich, that he could shape a magic surfboard he could ride in the next tour event in California.
Handley had a dream. “You know, Wilko might be the first surfer in 40 years to win a world title on his own board.” When I passed on to Wilko this judgement of faith in his shaping ability, he quickly countered, “Or the first in 40 years to lose one.”
“I said to him straight-faced, ‘You should ride it in one of the three-man heats,’” recalls Handley. “He wasn’t sure if I was taking the piss or not. I then told Micro and he said, ‘Fuck that!’ He shut that idea down so quick it was out of control.”
“It was pretty weird,” recalls Wilko of his first shaping experience. “I’ve never even watched anyone shape so I didn’t know what tools they used. It was a cool experience. I got to see how it’s done, how they come out of the machine and how much time that saves. It does most of the work for you. And it was pretty cool to see that even though it came out of the machine 90 per cent perfect I could still fucking ruin it.”
“I knew that he was going to be pretty bad,” says Handley matter-of-factly of Wilko’s shaping ability. “I’ve had Mick shape a few and Mick knows what he wants, but Wilko didn’t have a clue.” With the world title board on ice Wilko started looking around the seconds bin for a blank. “I’ve got a seconds room where I’ve got blanks with holes and things that haven’t been cut right, and there was a little 5’9” and a little 5’7” twin. He picked the twinnie. He wasn’t real good on the tools. He was dropping blocks everywhere and he couldn’t work out how to use the gauze, but he got the hang of it and I told him he was on his own from there. He put some hips on there, changed up the tail, then Mick Fanning came in and said, ‘You’ve got to have channels!’ and he showed Wilko how to put channels in there.”
At this point a Simpsons episode comes to mind, the one where Homer gets to design his dream car. “The Homer” had a spoiler, a bubble dome, and an extra large drink holder. The Wilko soon began to look equally like a collection of odd, independent ideas, all cobbled together. “As I was shaping I was thinking of little things to do. I wanted to throw some channels in. I wanted the board to have some hips, although I think the hips in retrospect were my problem. They’re a little bit bigger than you generally see.” But it was the tail that is the singularly most striking element of the board. “It looks like an arse,” offers Wilko. “It’s got a bum tail.”
“I don’t think there was any theory with the bum tail,” ponders Handley. “He drew about 20 different tails and kept rubbing them off. I said just run with whatever you want mate, it’s all good. He tried explaining the theory of the bum tail down the beach to me and it still made no sense at all.”
“What I was trying to do,” explains Wilko, “I was trying to solve all the problems in the modern twinny. I wanted one that turned more smoothly and I wanted one you could put deck grip on. You can’t put a grip on the ones where the swallowtail is too big. So for the smooth turn I thought roundtail, but rather than one big roundtail I thought, why not have two? Make it a cross between a swallowtail and a roundtail? That was the theory. Only problem was that two round tails together looked like an arse. It wasn’t meant to look like an arse, but then I cut it out and looked at it and went, yep, it’s an arse. That’s what I looked like riding it.”
Wilko tested the board a few days later down at Duranbah. It was only a few days before he left for California, so he was first busy going through some heat drills in the water and his prototype bumtail twin sat there on the grass. At one point Micro says to Handley they need to keep an eye on the board to make sure it doesn’t get stolen. Handley replies, “Don’t worry, nobody’s stealing that piece of shit.” While the outline looks okay, it’s got big hips, a small bum, and the channels – one each side – look cut at odd angles. Written across the stringer is the model name – “Titty titty bum bum.” Wilko finally comes in to surf it, but realises that despite shaping a twin fin he doesn’t actually have twin fins on hand, so instead has to ride his board with two outside thruster fins.
“It went fast. And the channels were fucking awesome. I took off and did a little swerve and thought this is going to be fun, put it on rail, then fell over. I tried an air that didn’t work, then I tried a cuttie and that was actually okay. That was about it. Nothing else worked. In my defence though I needed proper fins and some better surf. I jumped on it thinking it was a performance board, and if there’s one thing it didn’t do, it was perform.”
When pressed on what Wilko has learned from the experience, Handley replies, “I think he learned he’s never going to be a shaper, and I learned my job’s real fucking safe. But I think he found a little more respect for what we do, which is good. He even had a bit of a sweat up. I don’t think he sweats that much when he trains.” Handley’s dream of a new generation of surfer/shapers remains, for now, a dream. “Mick’s been doing it for a few years. I’ll be on the phone and he’ll jump in and start cutting tail templates on his boards, cause he’s got a bit of an act. I’d like to see one of these guys on the modern era surf their own boards like Simon or MR back in the day. It’d be good to see someone do it, although I don’t think Wilko will be that guy.”