SHAPER DIRECTORY

Patagonia-FCD

About FCD

Behind the Great Pacific Iron Works store near Ventura Point is the small tin shed where Yvon Chouinard set up his blacksmith shop in 1966. The shed once housed Bob Cooper’s Australian Surf Shop and Morey-Pope’s shaping room. The location was ideal for everyone’s passion: surf and build the finest mountaineering gear in the winter, climb and sell the gear in the summer. Chouinard Equipment Company went on to redesign and improve virtually every tool used in mountaineering, from carabiners to crampons. In 1973, the company branched out to make outdoor clothing under the Patagonia®label.

Almost 25 years later and after 4 years of shaping traditional polyurethane blanks, Fletcher, Yvon’s son, started Point Blanks to build better surfboards in a shack next door to the original Iron Works. Like father like son: Fletcher and Point Blanks proceeded to lay-up and destroy hundreds of fiberglass/ foam panels until they found a better, stronger and lighter way to build boards. And, with a group of freethinking surfers and shapers, designed higher-performance boards using the new technology. From there, their surfboard business has grown, exploring new fiberglass composite technologies and expanding our circle of shapers and test riders. They also got a new name, Fletcher Chouinard Designs (FCD). But we always come back to our desire to build a better surfboard.

Fletcher Chouniard

I’ve always thought that one of the coolest things about surfing is that there are so many different ways to do it. No two waves are the same and, until recently, no two boards were the same. You can surf the same spot everyday and have a completely different experience every time. Switch boards and it feels like a totally different sport.

With handmade surfboards you never get the same thing twice. They’re impossible to duplicate. There’s a risk you could get a lemon, but there’s also a chance you could get one that’s pure magic. That magic is the feeling when you pick up a board and it just feels right. You plant your feet in the right spot without thinking about it and the board goes where you want it to on the wave – like an extension of your body.

With mass-produced boards there’s little chance for magic. Boards shaped or molded overseas are originally based on a shaper’s best effort, but much can be lost in translation. The boards are finished cheap and quick by people who may be decent craftsman, but don’t surf. There’s a guy in China or Thailand working on your board for less than minimum wage. He just sands the router lines off a computer-shaped blank until it looks clean to his inexperienced eye. There can be an okay pop-out or a bad pop-out, but the chances of a great pop-out are poor.

Handmade, high-quality surfboards are a completely different matter. At every stage of production is an individual that lives and breathes surfing. The shaper has made and tested board after board over the years, learning what works and what doesn’t. He’s read and studied every bit of information he could find about surfboard design. He’s talked to the masters about what they do, and why, every chance he’s gotten. He knows to make the little tweaks here and there that make such big differences. He knows to tuck the rails just right so your board doesn’t get sucked up the face in the tube or constantly catch an edge in the wrong place: The tweaks that give it life and personality. The shaper, the laminator and the sander know, and use, hydrodynamic principles to your benefit. They can, because they surf.

If you love surfing, your surfboard is the most important piece of equipment you own. Technically you could surf with no wetsuit, no leash – you don’t even need a bathing suit – but you need a board. You should have an intimate relationship with something that you depend on for your lifestyle. If your surfboard is your friend, wouldn’t you rather have a friend you can depend on? A friend with individual personality and the ability to stimulate your experience and your mind?