The Pirate Board
The pirate board began as a way to reduce the amount of foam we use when making boards. Why use more foam to make a new board if we can reimagine used boards?
When I first found this board, it was pretty beat up. The nose was missing, it was discolored, it didn’t have a deck…but it had potential! I liked having to learn how to fix the nose, and I loved the green leaf and the skull and crossbones…it had history. And so, the Pirate Board project began…
The first step was to repair the nose. Then I painted the board black. I used the paint as a way to cover the discoloration. I liked the original pirate sticker and wanted to run with that theme, so the idea was to make the black paint look like a torn pirate flag wrapped around the board. I was very happy with how it turned out.
Then for the bottom of the board I wanted it to really stand out. So, I painted it with black and red stripes to give it a cool pirate feel but to also give it a pattern that would look sick when the board flies through the air.
I then finished it off with a few coats of epoxy, gave it a new skull and crossbones, a green deck, and an orange strap.
The truth is that I made this board with my 12-year-old self in mind. I asked myself, if I had the opportunity to grow up surfing, what kind of board would I have wanted? And this is it! It makes me think of Peter Pan wrapping a pirate flag he stole from the Jolly Roger on a board.
I think it turned out really well. We didn’t do any body work other than the nose, so it doesn’t look brand new, but I didn’t want to go through that amount of work restoring my first board. The only thing I wish I had added were decals that looked like vines that I was going to use to make it look like the pirate flag was sewn on to the board, but the decals didn’t turn out right so I left them out. I think that would have really tied the whole board together especially having green vines to parallel the green leaf.
Overall, I’m very pleased with how my first project turned out…and there is no better feeling than floating in the Caribbean on your Pirate Board staring off onto the horizon with a rainbow in the distance!
