Wednesday 9 May 2012

Back to Source

Yesterday we had such a beautiful morning down here in Cornwall, it would have been a shame not to have made the most of it. With no surf about, Romain Juchereau and I headed over to the woods where the National Trust's board began its life to get some background shots for a little short that we are about to complete...as soon as there are some waves!

About 18 months ago, the head gardener of this Trust property got in touch saying that they had just had to fell one of their biggest Macracarpa trees (can anyone tell which garden it is?) and wondered if I could make use of any of the timber they managed to mill from it. With all the fissures and inclusions in the trunk, there wasn't actually much usable timber that they could salvage from the tree, but enough for a surfboard!

So over the past couple of of months we have been building a board using only the macraparpa for its skin. It has turned out to be such a beautiful board and all of the Trust staff that we met yesterday were blown away to think that it used to be one of their trees. It was great to see their reactions and also to take the board back to where it grew...I can't explain how excited it made me feel having the board back int he garden with the warm sun out and not a breath of wind, just such a great way to close a project.

So the next and last thing for us to shoot is some surfing on the board and we'll get the video wrapped up and posted online.

Here are just a few shots I snapped on my phone while we were at the base of another huge macracarpa within the grounds.


Check out that tree! The board is one of our mini magic shapes and stands at 6'10 and is completely dwarfed by this macracarpa, which was planted at the same time as the tree from which the board came.


You can just about make out some of the beautiful detailing in the timber...more shots will be on their way!


Romain behind the camera gettign a few more shots...we both agreed that we would have happily stayed for there for hours in the morning sun enjoying the woods.