Did you hear about the Vans Duct Tape Festival? It happened on the North Shore of Oahu in December, and it was a fantastic idea. “A celebration of creativity and craftsmanship,” they called it. The Duct Tape, of course, once was attached to Joel Tudor and was the best event in longboarding, but then Tudor got mad about beer or something, and then something else happened and now no one is mad or perhaps everyone is mad. It’s all very confusing.
I think Tudor didn’t like that the J-Bay event was sponsored by Corona and Tudor hates alcohol and all the amazingly fun and terrible things that come from it. That in itself was weird because just a few years prior, the Duct Tape Invitational was presented by Pacifico. Anyway, the WSL got all snippy and yanked the Duct Tape from the US Open of Surfing, maybe because they were mad at Joel or maybe for some other totally unrelated reason. I don’t know, and I don’t care enough to find out. Ain’t the surf industry fun? Whatever the case was, it seems they’ve made amends, because Joel was at the Duct Tape Festival doing amazing things on surfboards and narrating the video you’re probably watching instead of reading this.
Aaanyway, here’s the newest iteration of the Duct Tape. Dane Reynolds, Nathan Fletcher, Alex Knost, and Wade Goodall got their hands dirty carving out two surfboards each. Then, a bunch of Vans team riders, including Josh Mulcoy, Kai “Borg” Garcia, Leila Hurst, Joel Tudor, Nathan Fletcher, Pat Gudauskas, Tanner Gudauskas, Dane Gudauskas, Dylan Graves, Ivan Florence, and Nathan Florence, surfed them at large-and-in-charge Haleiwa. Afterwards, the boards were left on the North Shore at the HIC Surf Shop for anyone and everyone to try out.
