A surfer would know what the numbers “5’11 x 18 x 2” mean. That surfer would know that those numbers are the dimensions to a surfboard. A skinny surfboard that was defiantly a little bit long for giving how small I was but good dimensions for a grom who is just making the transition from a big foam board to short board. My first custom surfboard had these dimensions. I ordered it custom from Brett Bender when I was eight years old.
I remember the excitement that I felt when my dad drove my brother and I over the TNT factory. I had butterflies in my stomach and all I could think about was how cool I was going to look with my very own short board and that I wanted it to be red. When we got to the shaping room, my dad talked to Brett about the boards that we should be riding this early in our surfing lives. In the mean time, my brother and I just stared around the room, mesmerized by the foam dust that covered everything. We walked out of the factory with smiles on our faces.
The three weeks that it took for Brett to shape our boards and the additional week that it took for them to cure was the most excited that I have ever been for just about anything. When the time finally came for us to try them out, the surf was pretty dismal. That did not matter to me; the power of my brand new, red 5’11 with its new surfboard shine overpowered any negativity that I would have had for the waves that day. At the end of the session I felt like a professional surfer that I so admired in surfing magazines.
With a smaller board in my possession, I was finally able to start progressing. First I started doing little pumps and carves and within nine months I had landed my first-ever snap. It was late in the morning and the marine layer had just burned off leaving a sunny day without wind. My grandma and grandpa took my little brother and me to the beach on our bikes to surf. We paddled out with nobody but the junior lifeguards and Matt Wilson in the water to enjoy one of my most memorable sessions. For those of you who don’t know Matt, he is a legend in Imperial Beach Junior Lifeguard history and a great positive influence for any kid who frequents the beach. I traded waves with him for a couple of minutes before I caught “the wave”.
Matt saw it before me and started hooting for me to paddle. I had been sitting on my board idly waiting for another wave to come but at the sound of his voice I was off. After five quick strokes I stood up and quickly bottom turned into the pocket. I had been called into a very good wave by midmorning standards and after some small pumps I saw a perfect section coming towards me. Without thinking about it, I did what I had seen done countless times in surf movies. After a semi-drawn out bottom turn I raced for the top of the wave slashing the wave at the last second. I then kicked out of the wave, stoked that I had finally done a snap.
I consistently rode that board for three years before transitioning it for a slightly different shape that better suited my needs. After that, it went up into my dads board racks and I occasionally rode when the waves became big and hollow. I recently brought it with me on a trip to Hawaii after breaking a board just two days before the trip. During the whole trip that board delivered the exact same way it did when I was little. I will never forget my first custom surfboard, a red 5’11x18x2.
-Israel Dedina
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| Me and my red surfboard two years after purchase |
