Photo: Kody McGregor/WSL
I geek out talking about this stuff, as you can probably tell,” Josh Kerr said. No kidding. Kerr’s enthusiasm for building and ripping surfboards goes well beyond our Friday afternoon chat. It’s evidenced in his seven-year career on the WSL Championship Tour, his prowess in air shows as a youth, and in recent years, his unwavering rail game on twin fins in pristine and powerful waves.
At age 40, Kerr just launched his own board label, Draft Surf. The boards, a mix of twins, quads and two-plus-ones, are all Kerr’s designs and based on two decades of versatile, high-performance surfing. The company launched a month ago, but Kerr worked on the backend developing models for eight months. Draft boards are shaped, glassed and finished at Spot X Productions, a longstanding staple of a board building between Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. Draft makes stock and custom orders, with international shipping available. Kerr will even get on an email thread with customers to make sure their board is tailored just so.
“It was probably the funnest/most hard time in surfing I’ve had,” Kerr said. “Designing boards, going in the bay, getting the board under my feet, tweaking it and just making sure it’s ready for the world. It’s been really fun.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
SURFER: You spent a lot of time in shaping bays in your youth. How did that influence your path as a surfer?
Josh Kerr: My dad was a pretty well-known surfboard sander in the Gold Coast. He died when I was 11, he was only 43. But for 20 years he was in the industry sanding surfboards. He knew how to glass, back then you had to know everything, but he specialized in sanding. I grew up in local factories around Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. My first jobs were sweeping bays and fixing dings around 13 or 14 years old. At one point I left school in ninth grade for six months, and I just fixed dings and learned how to shape.
What’s your personal shaping experience been like?
I’ve shaped probably 60 boards in my life, which is not a ton by any means, but I’ve been around the best shapers/designers throughout my career. I’ve always had a fascination and in-depth experience with designing boards, whether it’s on the computer or jumping in the bay tweaking them. I’ve always ridden different boards. Even in my CT career, I rode alternative equipment on the side to find something new. Funny enough, all my Fiji and Tahiti boards on my last five years on tour were asymmetrical. I shaped an asymmetrical board with Rusty Preisendorfer back in the day and I won a heat on it at Teahupo’o. It had channels just on the heel side [Laughs.] My board designs were changing like every month with Rusty, I’d go ride some alternative equipment and want to integrate it into my standard surfboard. I’ve just geeked out on it forever.
What are you hoping people get out of your Draft boards?
As someone who loves surfing more than anything, I know so many people who are out there just loving their journey. But I hate seeing people out there who are riding a typical performance shortboard who either don’t have the skill level or live in the locations to ride such boards. You can enjoy surfing on a whole other level with a piece of equipment under your feet that takes you parts of the wave those other boards can’t. I know what it’s done for my surfing and my enjoyment level, so hopefully I can portray that to more people and give them the tools to enjoy their surfing.
What kinds of models does Draft have so far?
I ride mostly twins, but I’ve tried to make a lot of them hybrid where you could go twin, a quad or a two-plus-one. I want to make it approachable for guys who may be scared to approach the alternative board market. I want to educate them throughout the journey on boards, fins, and types of waves to ride with different models. Basically, just make it approachable for everyone and provide heaps of good equipment.
How hands-on are you in the production?
I’m hands-on when I go into the bay to design a model. But now we’ve got some great laminators. I have a lot of trust in Dane Henderson (shaper) and we’ve worked a lot together over the past eight months dialing everything in. I’m sure we’ll have more stuff to dial in. I’m not building boards personally, but I’m going to showcase the board’s uses and get involved with facilitating and marketing.
Do you have a go-to model at the moment?
It depends where I am. Here in California, it’s the Menace. It’s a fun, playful board that flies over everything. It’s got a beak nose, some hips in the back and a mini diamond tail. I’m not a huge wide tailblock guy in general, but for that it works really well with the diamond tail. I think when you put a swallow tail into a wide tail block your foot gets too far forward, but with the diamond, you can get it all the way back. It surfs amazing, I love that board.
What did it feel like to ride these boards during the J-Bay Classic in June?
That was a dream. I got to test a lot of the models in waves I envisioned in my head. You know how it is with J-Bay, you think about how a board will work on that dream canvas. And that place is insane, my goodness. I was so stoked on my boards, they really came to life. I wish I could spend a year there and have a shaping bay on the point. Basically what Derek Hynd got to do.
Photo: Pierre Tostee/WSL
How good was Occy’s surfing in that event?
Occy had a session in his last heat there! It was some of the best Occy surfing I’ve seen, so inspirational to be there watching it live. I felt like he didn’t quite click into gear earlier, but then he had these moments in the legends heat with Stephanie Gilmore and Adriano de Souza. Occy just went mad. They were throwing 10s at him and it was a whole standing ovation when he got to the beach. I get goosebumps now talking about it.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I’ve got some boards for friends like Matt Wilkinson and Ryan Hipwood, and that’s fun. I want to be the go-to person for my friends and people who are looking for that transition. I geek out talking about this, as you can tell. Boards are just so fun. It’s so exciting to be a part of. Who knows what my boards will look like in a few years? I will continue working on new models and setups. I’m really looking forward to the journey.
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