Channel Islands’ surfboard factory in Carpinteria is steeped in history. Al Merrick may have gained early notoriety for boards he was making for Shaun Tomson in the late 70s, but it was the meteoric rise of Tom Curren and his surfer/shaper relationship with Merrick that put CI on the map. Kelly Slater was a later signing that pushed the CI name into the stratosphere, and now Channel Islands makes sleds for a huge swath of the Championship Tour’s top men and women as it has for decades.
Like Curren, the Coffin brothers have a Santa Barbara connection to Channel Islands. And here, they pull back the veil (or the sliding garage door, rather) of what goes on in a factory, consistently pumping out magic slippers for the gods.
