Single Shoe Yellow

Nick holds up his first place trophy "The Yellow Shoe" for his victory in a wacky and fun event that only the minds of frothing kids could come up with.

This one comes from the archives, a classic study of when teen spirit meets the exuberance of youth. The story goes like this: Cole and his buddies were holed up for a couple of stormy weeks watching Thicker Than Water over and over, just dying to get some good surf. The part with cool pro guys trading off riding a funky little green single fin struck a cord and the lightbulb went off. "We could do that." "Let's make a contest out of it." "Yeah." And off they went to enlist their gullible shaper (me).

What we came up with was this little 5'10": diamond tail, single fin, yellow pigment, gloss and polish and most importantly no leash attachment. Purely a soul thing.

The object was to surf the board for 20 minutes and get judged by your bros. At the end of the the day everyone got to vote, looked at scores if they had to, and generally agreed who should take home the prestigious Yellow Shoe. Pretty simple, tons of fun, heavy gaffs, and a bit of swimming.

Nick cranks it off the bottom.

Cole opens up with a big flair off the top making this "old school" single fin look as lively and loose as his trusty thruster.

In the end it was Nick's backhand attack with blazing cutbacks and snapping rebounds that won the day.

This scramble happened years ago and these kids are now adults. They're fireman, lifeguards, scientists; and are starting families of their own. It is my hope that they are passing the stoke along and continue to find good reasons to spend the day at the beach.