Every time the name Hayden Cox appears on our site, there is at least one person who claims via angry comment that Hayden Cox isn’t a real shaper. “Hasn’t even touched a planer,” they say. “Long live the surfboard hand-shaper!”
Hayden Cox, though, is definitely a shaper. He has been since he was 15-years-old. He’s been covered in foam dust for years, and he figured out a way to market a good product very well. In short, he figured out a way to make a decent living shaping surfboards, which isn’t easy to do. Perhaps best known for the Hypto Krypto (the best selling surfboard of all time/winner of numerous surfboard awards… so it can’t be all THAT bad), Cox takes a lot of criticism from some of the surfing community. He also takes a lot of board orders. One speaks much louder than the other.
Yesterday, Cox took to Facebook Live to do something awesome: he designed a surfboard from scratch, using commenters suggestions to shape what came out. And what came out is interesting: a twin-fin swallow tail, measuring in at 5’8, with thirty liters of volume. Not too much rocker, not too little. A board for the everyday, shaped with the help from the everyday surfers of the world. “I really want this process to be a representation of what everyone out there wants to incorporate into their surfboard designs,” he said, walking into the shaping bay. “That’s an exciting thing for me–to learn and understand what the viewers are looking for.”
It’s not done just yet, but it will be very soon. If you missed chiming in on the first shaping session, you’ve still got time to watch the final stages. Cox is putting the finishing touches on it tomorrow, then it moves into the lamination.
Watch the whole thing below, and tune into WSL on Facebook to watch the rest.
