Rusty

San Diego legend and South Coast Surf Shop Owner Eric "Bird" Huffman has one of the largest and most eclectic surfboard collections and he was kind enough to let us take a sneak peak at a few of his prize Rusty Surfboards that he could never let go of...

This week we'll have a look at Bird's Go-To Gun shaped by Rusty.

Dimensions: 7'6" x 18.65" x 2.5"

"He built that for me in May of 1990. That board was pretty much my standard gun. It works surprisingly loose! We we're working on fins at the time and we still pretty much use the same fin system today on my longer boards. The trailing fin is a little bit longer than the side fins. I cluster my fins a little bit tighter together and I decrease my entry rocker and Rusty has always worked with me really, really well on that one. The flames were done by Peter St.Pierre over at Moonlight Glassing. That board has been with me everywhere...from Fiji to Hawaii back in the day. Then I sold it! I sold it to Marty Vaughn from P.B. Point. He rode it until he destroyed it! He gave it back to me with one fin on it and figured I would never ride it again, but it was such a good board that I had to restore it. I took over to Roper's and had him patch it up and put the fins back on it. It might not look it, but this board still finds it way in the water from time to time."

Check back for more "Board Tales with Bird"

- Bird

Photos: Brody

Picture from ASP Europe

The WQS Brazil Starts today and you better keep your eyes on Rusty Team rider and local favorite, Willian Cardoso, as he tries to take another win home this season and boost his chances of qualifying for the WCT...

Click here to follow the contest and the rest of the WQS recent news...

Ryan Schnell Talks about his Rusty Piranha from My Local Lineup on Vimeo.

"Once instance comes to mind... Surfing Blacks along time ago, mid '70's, one winter and back then it wasn't that crowded in the winters, so there was only a handful of us out. It was pretty good size, solid six or eight foot and kind of gray cloudy skies and offshore. It was like a storm was coming in and it already had an ominous feel sitting out there in between sets. Looking outside coming in from the North West were a couple of giant dorsal fins, like six feet tall, coming at me - two Killer whales bearing down on me! They were moving like trains! They had a bead on me and came about fifty feet away and turned away. It was one of those things were I couldn't do anything but freeze and stare at them and as soon as they were on me they were gone. I think they were just coming in for a closer look and hung a right turn and went away. It was pretty unnerving."

-Rusty

Have a look at some of the previous Rusty Surfboards ads and epic boards that have appeared in the Surfers Journal...

Photography By: John Durant / Design By: Cera Zittlow

Hunter chucking tail at the playground known as Uppers...

Several months ago we ran a story called "The Finless Challenge;" the idea behind this piece was that each Rusty shaper was asked to create a unique board that could be surfed with or without fins. The boards were then to be handed off to Jamie O'Brien and Dave Rastovich for a tangent challenge, aptly titled "Hip Hop vs. Hippie," to see who could surf the finless boards the best.

Eventually, Josh Kerr got his hands on Hoy's creation

Several beautiful finless boards were created for this challenge, but the one that grabbed everyone's attention the most was the board shaped by Hoy Runnels, which he calls "The Vortex Converter." The name came to be because the board looks so futuristic and space-age that the sci-fi twist is a perfect fit. 

Hoy stated that when he started out on his board he had good intentions, but his good intentions eventually turned mischievous. This challenge was conceived at the same time that Greg Mungel (incredibly talented surfer and previous Stubbies winner) was working at Rusty glassing boards. Hoy claims that everyday when he was about to finish up work and hop into the shower that Mungel would sneak in ahead of him; Hoy would ask, "Mungel, you save me any hot water?" Every night it was the same: Mungel would reply with a snappy, "No!" and walk off laughing hysterically. Hoy finally got fed up, so when this finless challenge came to be Hoy found this as a perfect opportunity to distract Mungel at the end of the day with an impossible board to glass - with the intentions of finally beating Mungel to the hot water...

Hoy reminisces, "I wanted to torture Greg a little bit, so I made him a board that he could not possibly glass! So I threw in every little angle: deep channels, rail concaves, it actually had concaves running from the tail forward and from the mid point back!"

Much to Hoy's dismay, Mungel glassed the board flawlessly and without a whimper to Hoy, "I was expecting some sort of reaction, a shriek of horror or something, but he never showed me once what a pain I was putting him through." Apparently, he voiced his complaints to everyone else except for Hoy, because he didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Hoy continued, "Mungel lived to harass and frustrate people, that was his main aim, and he still didn't leave me any hot water!"

Eventually, Hoy finally got his hot water shower... when Mungel moved back to Tennessee!

Check out more photos of Josh on the Vortex Converter

Check out the rest of the finless crafts entered in the Finless Challenge here

Text and Photos: Brody

Shayne, Shannon, and Banyon McIntyre are off again to film the next episode of Fuel TV's On Surfari in the country of Liberia and they have decided to bring along Rusty Surfboards staff photographer, Sean Brody, to help document the unique experience. There is rumored to be some epic point breaks in West Africa and they are going to check it out first hand. In addition to seeking out uncrowded waves they will be doing their part to enrich the community by teaching the locals how to swim, how to preserve the ocean and beaches, and even how to create alia surfboards out of scrap plywood lying around - aiding in the birth of a Liberian surf community.

After Liberia they will be heading into Europe to be on location with Rusty's Matt Beacham (also host of Fuel TV's "New Pollution"). They will be showcasing up and coming Euro groms surfing in France followed by skating in Belgium...

Check in regularly for slide shows, video clips, board features, and updates from abroad!

Photo: Brody

A few weeks back we had the Rose Family in town working on episode two of their show, "The Traveling Rose Show". The show is centered around family, travel, and action sports and is being looked at by The Discovery Channel and The Travel Channel. The family spent a day at the factory where they learned how to make a surfboard from start to finish. Rusty Surfboards general manager, Eric, gave them an informational tour of the factory and shapers, Hoy and Rusty, gave them a hands on shaping experience! (If you want to learn all the steps it takes to create your surfboard click on the SURFBOARDS button up top - then click FACTORY TOUR - then click BOARD CONSTRUCTION). To top off the surfboard building experience, we took the Rose family surfing the next day and they could not have had more fun!

After learning how to shape surfboards and then learning how to ride them, the Rose Family ventured up to Irvine, California to the Rusty North America headquarters to check out Rusty Apparel... Once again, the Rose family was in for a treat as they were paraded around the brand new building, checking out the giant shipping warehouse, the production rooms, basketball court and mini indoor skate park! After settling into the new surroundings the Roses where able to design and create their own custom apparel pieces and once again they left the building grinning ear to ear.

Want to have a sneak peak at the episode before it airs on TV? Click here to check it out...

For more info on the contest check out Rusty Europe's site here.