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HOME  FEATURES Interviews EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Blane Chambers of Paddle Surf Hawaii (Part 1 of 3)
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Blane Chambers of Paddle Surf Hawaii (Part 1 of 3) |
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By: Stand Up Paddle Surfing Magazine
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Wednesday, 26 December 2007 |
-What is PSH? - The Beginning - The Shape -
We had the pleasure of interviewing Blane Chambers of Paddle Surf Hawaii and are bringing it to you here on SUPSURFMAG.COM. It has been an awesome experience getting to know Blane and to have some of that contagious stoke rub off on us. Blane, thanks for fueling the stoke that we can't get enough of.
SUPSURFMAG: What is Paddle Surf Hawaii?
BLANE: PSH is the first company in the world dedicated to the sole mission of building awesome quality SUP boards. No regular surfboards, just SUP boards. Our main goal is to build boards that blow minds and stoke people out whether they are beginners or a pro level surfers.
SUPSURFMAG:Where, when, and how did it all begin?
BLANE:I grew up in the ocean body surfing, then boogie boarding, and of course surfing. I was also racing motocross a lot when I was younger. I took a break from surfing around 10 years or so, and was just surfing off and on, but mostly spent that time riding trails on a motorcyle pretty hard core.
Eventually, I came back to surfing and started shaping regular longboards at home in Wahiawa. I started paddling stand up on the North Shore a few years ago on a 12’ Mickey Munoz board. So [at the time], I was body surfing, regular lay down surfing, as well as stand up and knee paddle surfing with my one man canoe paddle. I really liked surfing with the canoe paddle, and eventually gave up arm paddle surfing all together by Sept 2005 totally hooked on SUP surfing.
I shaped my first SUP board before Clark foam shut down. It started with that big 12-8 blank. I remember feeling like I walked for miles around and around that thing, which barely fit in my shaping room. I shaped a 12’ x 28” x 5” thick monster. Otis Shaper glassed it for me and it was beautiful. However, it was so heavy and not nearly as responsive as my Munoz. I surfed it a few times then sold it. That's when I started making a bunch of prototypes, some good, and some horribly bad.
In Feb, 2006 I ordered 2 custom 10’-6” boards from Dave Parmenter. I thought that once I got a couple of his boards I wouldn't need to shape anymore of my own. It was such a pain to shape them. I just wanted to surf them. At the time, Dave’s glassing situation was known to be backed up so I figured in the meantime I’d keep shaping my own 'till I got his customs so that I could at least surf something.
I made a really fun 9’-3” board, and then, I became really fanatical about shaping them well, and I made a new one almost every other week. I glassed them myself, surfed them, then I was back in the shaping room mowing out another, keeping notes the whole way. This went on for a few months, then people started wanting to buy my prototypes. I was surprised. Some of them looked so bad! They did work though.
By the summer of 2006, I was doing so many boards that I decided to open Paddle Surf Hawaii as a hobby that could help pay for my addiction to building better SUP boards. By the time I got my 2 custom Parmenters, the Paddle Surf Hawaii label was already an established company in the market place, and Parmenter was shaping under our label. One day I was mowing out boards, and the next Dave is calling to shape with me. Things seemed to happen so fast. Dave has since moved on to help Brian Keaulana with C4 Waterman’s boards. It's all good between us. Dave and Brian are great people. I’m stoked they are doing well.
At the time I started PSH I never really thought about being where we are today. It's kinda surreal. PSH is the first company to focus solely on SUP boards right out of Wahiawa, Hawaii.
SUPSURFMAG:What does Paddle Surf Hawaii offer to stand up paddle surfers that no one else can?
BLANE:I guess anyone can offer what we do if they spent the amount of time we do focused on SUP board design. I think we (PSH) are different because we like to push the limits daily; and I’m not willing to settle on any design. Better is always better in my opinion and I know I can make things better. Being conservative is way to easy; so, we are into going for it. PSH offers designs based on state of the art SUP surfing.
We are out there everyday and focus 100% of our time on SUP boards. The results show in the stoke of our customers and team riders. The list of expert level surfers riding our boards is pretty long… The feedback we get from these guys and girls goes directly into boards we sell. We offer novice level boards as well as expert level boards. The bottom line is this; SUP surfing and board building is all we do. 100% focus on SUP surfing and paddling.
END PART 1 OF 3
www.paddlesurfhawaii.com
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