"I am super excited about MR being honored at THE BOARDROOM. MR is a 4X World Champion on the ASP World Tour. He is a super person, a wonderful ambassador, a surfing and shaping legend." Image: Divine
Rob Farrow: So, first off, tell us what happened to Sacred Craft ®*, why did you change the name to THE BOARDROOM?
Well. Frankly I can’t talk too much about Sacred Craft ® because it is not my property. I do not own it. It is not really my place to discuss it. The Nielsen Corporation, the company that produced the ASR shows in San Diego, owns Sacred Craft ®. But, understanding that you and everybody in the industry looks to me for the answer to that question, I can tell you that I was told by the Nielsen Corporation that Sacred Craft ® won’t happen in 2012. Let me be clear that I did not change the name. I can’t change the name of something I do not own. The Boardroom International Surfboard Show is in fact an entirely new surfboard show and is in no way affiliated with Sacred Craft ®.
RF: How is THE BOARDROOM new, what makes it different?
As a lover of surfboards I can tell you that surfboards are at the core of the THE BOARDROOM show, as they should be. I was reading a back-issue Surfer’s Journal entry written by Tom Morey, a fabulous read, and what came across more than anything was that Morey understood and understands, without any sub-cultural dogma, that riding waves no matter what the vehicle, puts smiles on people faces: hand-planes, mats, McDonalds trays, five fins, four fins, no fins, wave-skates, carbon, poly, EPS, – whatever. I believe as a sub-culture surfers are finally understanding what Morey has known for decades. We are finally explorers on the wave face, rather than captives. As far as what we use to ride the waves with, I really believe that we as surfers are at a liberating place on our evolutionary surfing timeline. Technology and groovy-ness are becoming comfortable with each other.
RF: That’s rather abstract, what do you mean by that exactly?
I was watching video of Bruce Irons and Todd Morcom getting towed into some meaty Mexican beach break, Colima or Oaxaca, and they were was riding boards that were 4’10”. Doing step-offs, it was incredible. Check out the Volcom Annhilator series videos. Mind-blowing. Sometimes as surfers we are so close to it, we live it, and sometimes we are too close. We can’t see the trees because of the forest. We fail to recognize how radically and how quickly technology is changing things for us. And then to juxtapose, yesterday I was surfing some meager windswell with some 20-something hipster surfers from Newport Beach. They had the whole hipster vibe going, and these guys put a real emphasis on style. They were riding mid-length 6’10” single fins, that they had hand-shaped themselves. They put such emphasis on their bottom turns. There was so much style and body posturing and arching. They were performance artists. And so of course were Bruce and Morcom. Two different perspectives that in the past might not have been able to co-exist, from a marketing perspective, or even in the same physical space. But now it is okay. You can have iced tea for breakfast. And that is really what THE BOARDROOM is all about. It is about Tom Morey’s simple understanding – you and a wave. Go ride it. We don’t care how. Just ride it man.
