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In the early days of professional surfing, there was no demarcation line between surfers and shapers. Legends like Gerry Lopez, Reno Abelleria, Mark Richards, Pete Townend and Terry Fitzgerald, some of the best surfers in the world were also the most cutting-edge shapers, riding their own surfboard designs in an out of competition.
Over time, increasing specialization meant the Venn Diagram separated. The last surfer to ride a self-shaped custom surfboard to a CT win was Richie Collins at Bells in 1992. Increasingly, the ability to ride one’s own designs to an incredibly high level remains one of the sport’s rarest skills, and most respected. The following seven surfers do it better than all the rest.
Corey Colapinto
The talented surfer – and cousin of CT surfers Griffin and Crosby – started shaping around five years ago under his Kookapinto brand. Inspired by shapers like Tommy Witt, Ryan Burch, Josh Martin and Donald Takayama, Colapinto shapes boards that are shaped, if you pardon the pun, by the mellow waves of Southern California where he grew up. Having a lineup of signature thin twin fins, mid-lengths, nose riders and logs, the 25-year-old is carving a name as one of his generation’s most stylish and original surfer shapers.
Dylan Longbottom: Dylan Surfboards
Labelled the “Mad Kangaroo” by his Portuguese surfboard factory staff, the Australian freesurfer’s incredible energy, talent, slab-based masochism and shaping skills have him uniquely placed in the world of surfing. Just this month, aged 51, he caught the biggest wipeout and heaviest wave at a huge Shipsterns swell riding his own equipment. In other big-wave locations like Nazare and Teahupo’o, it’s not uncommon for half the line-up to be riding a Dylan shape, be it his state-of-the-art tow boards, step-ups or guns. Team riders Lucas Chianca, Justine Dupont, Matahi Drollet, Laura Enever and Laurie Towner trust the boards with their lives, knowing that over the last 30 years, their shaper has test-ridden the designs himself.
CJ Nelson
CJ Nelson had described himself as a “surfer, surfboard shaper and adventurer”, and while he is known primarily for his longboarding style and noseriding, he’s more recently expanding his surfing and shaping into a meld of all things fun and glide. A third-generation Santa Cruz surfer, old-school craftsman influences gained through his surfer dad have been tempered by surfing and working with innovators renegades like Alex Knost, Joel Tudor and Ryan Burch. CJ’s surfing was probably best represented in classic films Sprout and The Present, and he still retains a unique approach to waves that stops people in their tracks to watch.
Matt Dunbar
Summa Longbottom
This list lacks female representation, an issue reflected in the surfboard industry as a whole. Dylan Longbottom’s daughter Summa is keen to change that. She has been trailing her dad on all his surfing exploits since she was 8, and now just 21, has surfed Nazare, Teahupo’o, Shipsterns, Ours, and a host of secret slabs around the world. Alongside her big-wave education, she is doing an apprenticeship with her old man in the shaping bay. She has been riding her own shapes and is developing signature models within Dylan’s range. “It’s early days, but the more I learn about how my boards work the better surfer I will be,” Summa told Surfer. “And hopefully I can encourage more women to start making surfboards.”
Ryan Burch
Once described as “the connective tissue between the alt-left and high-performance surfing,” Burch’s asymmetrical shapes are truly innovative and instantly recognizable. Recently Steph Gilmore and Mikey Wright have put in performances on the boards that immediately “Burchified” their surfing, in the best possible way. His surfing, perhaps best showcased in the classic 2015 surf film Psychic Migrations, is both traditional and futuristic, and like his boards, truly unique. There’s a reason why he commands a singular platform in surfing and is one of the most in-demand shapers on the planet.
Tyler Warren
One of surfing’s better multi-instrumentalists, the surfer, shaper, and artist from San Juan Capistrano has built a career blending the lines of style and traditionalism. The talented surfer, who competed successfully as a junior, had a eureka moment when he first shaped his “Bar of Soap” – a twin-keeled fish inspired by Bob Simmons, Richard Kenvin and Larry Mobile. Warren calls it “the fastest surfboard in the world” which while a hard claim to prove, has plenty of credibility if you’ve ever seen him fang down a Mexican or Moroccan pointbreak at warp speed. The quality of his surfing has maintained a long-term sponsorship with Billabong, while his range of boards from 10-foot logs to 5-foot thrusters are, like his art, in a constant state of high demand.
Paul Duvignau
Paul Duvignau is a millennial with old-school sensibilities. The 27-year-old rides longboards in Europe’s shortboard capital, Hossegor, and surfs giant waves on self-shaped guns. Over the past few years, Paul’s name has become synonymous with the big wave spot of La Nord. Known as one of the best waves in Europe, it is a series of shifting peaks that break up to 30 feet high on the outer sandbanks right in front of Le Centrale, the beach closest to the center of Hossegor. Mentored by his father and other freethinkers and elders of Hossegor’s surf community, Paul’s DIY authenticity and unique style are reflected in his surfing and the guns, alaias and longboards he shapes in his studio. “I feel I have developed a real connection with the wave,” he told SURFER. “Surfing La Nord on a board made by my hands is the act I love to do the most.”