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| Legendary Surfing Community Website |
Saturday 19th May 2012 Time:
03:45am San Diego /
11:45am London /
08:45pm Sydney
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"A
Fun Approach To Surfing" OceanFever.net
- Your Surfing Community
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MICHEL
JUNOD INTERVIEW
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| Michel
Junod began surfing in early 1962 in Santa Monica, California. In 1965 he
joined the Challenger Surf Team in San Diego and by 1966 was shaping Challenger
Surfboards. After 33 years of surf design experience in the US, Hawaii and
South America, Michael continues to be passionate about his craft. Although
a competitive contest surfer, he is a friendly and approachable and values
his family life above all else. You will see him surfing Steamer Lane, Pleasure
Point or Cowell Beach, Santa Cruz with the same energy and enthusiasm as
in his early days in Santa Monica. |
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When
did you first start surfing?
"I started surfing in May of 1962 in Santa Monica California. I began
body surfing at about ten years old and saved up my money, $100 and four
dollars tax, so I could order a custom made Jacobs. It was 7'10" and
20" wide so I could get my arm around it. It was probably one of the
first mini-longboards ever made. I caught my first wave on the south side
of the Santa Monica pier in 1962." |
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What
helped you decide to become a shaper?
"Well, when I started surfing, I sort of dropped school sports so I
could focus on surfing. My second board was an 8'10" Dave Sweet, then
I got an 8'10" Dewey Weber. In 1965 I joined the Challenger Surf Team
in San Diego and rode a 9'6" Challenger. I met Carl "Tinker"
West, Challenger's shaper, and we became good friends. In 1966, I began
an apprenticeship under Carl which led to my spending three summers in a
row, shaping on the East Coast. I was lucky to start shaping at a time when
surfboard design was changing radically. In 1967 boards started getting
shorter, from 9'6" down to 7'. Templates changed, became more gunny
and rocker and rail designs changed. From 1967 to the early seventies the
revolutionary Australian "V" bottoms were quickly discarded for
the more modern surfboard designs that we see today. I've experienced all
the surfboard design phases from heavy 9'6" to 10' longboards, to shorter
templates with narrow noses and tails. From twin fins to tri-fins and into
the contemporary longboard designs. It has been real helpful to have over
thirty years of shaping experience to look back on and living through all
those changes has helped me to understand, hydrodynamically, what makes
a surfboard work or not." |
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Do
you depend on surfer feedback or personal experience when you shape?
"I depend on a combination of my own personal experience and the feedback
I get from surfers who ride my boards. Whether I'm living in California,
Hawaii or wherever I shape, I always have people try my boards and get their
feedback on what works and what doesn't and I
combine this with my personal experience. I think you can run into trouble
if you don't. At the same time any wise shaper also looks around at what
surfers are riding and talks with other shapers to keep up with what's going
on. I moved to Santa Cruz, from Hawaii in 1970 just as the twin fin thing
was happening. After a year of shaping gunny, single fin boards in the Islands,
it was interesting to see what they were riding here and helpful in my shaping
progression. Four years later I moved back to the North Shore of Hawaii,
the very best proving ground for any surfboard designer and shaper. I began
shaping everything from 6'4" shortboards, up to 9'6" guns. Around
1976 I ordered the only longboard blank that Clark Foam produced, a 10'
sixties style blank. I built a board and got back into longboarding."
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What
is your all-time favorite surfing spot?
"I'd have to say that Sunset Beach is my favorite. Sunset holds waves
from four to fifteen feet and it's my favorite break. But with the way the
crowds are today my favorite spot is the next trip I take to surf uncrowded
waves with just my friends."
What are your favorite international surfing spots?
"Hawaii isn't considered international although people from every part
of the world visit there to surf. Hawaii has the best waves I've ever ridden
and I lived there for fourteen years. Other memorable spots include Costa
Rica and Chile where I lived for two and a half years. My two favorite spots
in central Chile are two left breaks called Pichilemu and Punta De Lobos.
Chile is pretty incredible with its twenty-six hundred mile coastline. I've
surfed Japan and Europe also and got some really good waves in Biarritz,
France, would like to visit Britain sometime."
Any advice for the traveling surfer?
"What I recommend to traveling surfers is make sure that you're going
to the right places during the right season so that the weather and surfing
conditions are the best. We're lucky in Santa Cruz because we pretty much
have surf all year round, but if you go into some areas during the wrong
season, you won't find any surf. Nine or Nothin' was created to provide
longboarders with the proper equipment needed to get around in most places.
And as in any endeavor, experience is important."
What do you enjoy most about longboarding?
"Well, I can usually longboard on any day and have more fun. If the
surf is in the two to five feet range I will most often longboard because
I can usually get more waves and have more fun for the time spent. What
is happening in most parts of the world is that people ride both longboards
and shortboards, depending on the conditions. My experience with shortboard
sessions is that they are usually more serious and aggressive and I'll usually
wear my competitive game face. Longboarders just seem to smile more, share
waves and hoot more. And there's something about those sessions that bring
back childhood memories of surfing with my buddies." |
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