Thursday, August 26, 2010

Night surfing


There were three of us on SUPs & one prone surfer... I had a red/green bow light (that's made for a zodiac) & a white stern LED light that I epoxied onto the tail of the board + a waterproof flashlight on my paddle & a glowstick around theneck... the other guys all had glowsticks too, so we wouldn't hit each other! We also tied a glowstick to a string & anchored it to a rock... sunk it near the take off spot. So disorienting riding in moonlight! Craig broke his leash on a big set & had to swim in with his paddle... then lost all four fins & a massive ding on his rail/bottom... he made it to the beach & returned to the fire to polish off a bottle of wine!?! Super fun night on the water!!!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

gliding loveseat testride

This is a swinging sustainable mixed-species hardwood hemp suspended multipositionable loveseat for 2 adults or 3 kids:

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

...folding/sideways-rolling chairs

All this finless free-thought & finless riding is felt frequently through these sideways-rolling/folding kids-scale chairs... they are fabricated of reclaimed mixed-species Brazilian hardwoods with stainless hardware & rollerblade wheels with preision sealed bearings... the matching scale table is both angle & height adjustable for use with chairs or in a lower position, with pillows... both the chairs & table fold into a compact storage position... they were designed for usage in a treehouse.  ©Jeffrey Kirk Casper 2010:

Saturday, August 7, 2010

finless madness...

I'm having a hard time connecting this to the blog regarding finless surfing... this is an absolutely mind bloggling video:  "absolutamente mestre" by Fernando Fanta... cut'n'paste this address to see this brilliant speed slicing acrobatic assult:
 http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=107865479263645

finless SUP surfing

Had an insane session... an oasis of stimulus... broke my fin off on one of the first waves... continued to finlessSUP for over an hour... got some knifey speedy trimmers... sliding like a buttersled... sideways riding... backwards spins... noseride flys... so glad I embraced the loss & endered a gain into a whole new domain... paddlesurfing finless... radecal terrain!!!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

5th of July paddle testing


The conditions were sweet, but the shoulder-hoppin' kooks were also in fine form... for those who are learning to paddlesurf, there are basic rules of etiquette which one needs to become familar with before heading out to the lineup... rather than having the earned experience of "wave knowledge", often the wave catches these novices, propelling them along with minimal understanding of the reprecussions of their true lack of control... not only is it lame to shoulder-hop onto a wave & potentially agravating to the deepest positioned surfer, but it can also be very dangerous... these sequences illustrate what NOT to do while SUP surfing.  Personally, I enjoy sharing waves with people, taking "party waves" & riding with friends who I trust have a grip on the dynamics... the strangers in these shots are lucky that I take a relatively passive approach to this individual sport (others may not be so mellow)... after all it was the day after independance day... time to be free!!! 




surfing a sailboard

windsurfing roots

...some vintage 80's windsurfing press:



Wednesday, August 4, 2010

feedback from an "old dog"

Jeff:

That one shot of you with another wave outside is epic.  You crack me up.  No sooner do you become a stand-up paddle board guy than you start redesigning the paddles.  You creative guys are the greatest, otherwise I'd still be surfing a redwood plank with no skag.  When I first started surfing, balsa boards were still common, although foam was becoming dominant.  I could still live with an old balsa board but I couldn't live without my wetsuit and surf leash.  When I did most of my surfing, from the late 50s to the mid-60s, no one had a surf leash and only a very few had a wetsuit and then it was only a top, designed for scuba diving.  I surfed all the winter spots in 52-54 degree water.  We would lose our boards regularly and that meant a long swim through ice water and then a rock dance to retrieve a damaged board.  I continued paddling out, though, because the surf stoke was at the max.  Of course, after an hour I couldn't feel the bottom of my feet on the board, pull my fingers together to paddle, or even talk.  None of us had ever heard the word hypothermia but we were in its grips.  We did, though, have fires going on the beach.  When I started surfing again in 1989, I found that I loved my wetsuit and my surf leash--my only concessions to modern times.  You know that I only get out about a half dozen times a year.  If we had 75-78 degree water, I'd probably be a regular.  Our cold water simply seems brutal now at my decrepit 63 years of age.  The only thing golden about these years is my mortgage has been retired.  I'll attach a few shots of County Line.  I got out two times this winter.  That was plenty.
1.jpg4.jpg7.jpgRoger McGrath



Tuesday, August 3, 2010

WALLALLAW: Rolling Saucer

WALLALLAW: rolling saucer

Based on the concept of a frisbee rolling along the beach on a windy day...assymetical 3 meter wheel, based on the same proportions as a frisbee... acts as a rolling sail that you ride... independent 2 meter long "gunbana" wheeled board tracks along flat interior rim of saucer... "volant" boom spins freely in the open 1 meter center section of the invention, allowing rider to change pitch/yaw/direction or brake (which lets rider "loop" with the big wheel)... 4 removable flat panels allow surface area to change from 3.5 square meters to 6.5 square meters to adapt to wind conditions... large diameter of the wheel effortlessly rolls over uneven terrain!

construction: thermoformed PVC foam core sandwiched with multiple layers of vacuum bagged triaxial weave fiberglass cloth & polyester resin, carbon fiber spokes, sealed precision bearings, urethane wheels, natural rubber skin along exterior of wheel. 

Invention/collaboration between Eric LeDean & Jeff Casper through Les Ateliers / E.N.S.C.I. (Ecole Nationale Superiure de Creation Industrielle), Paris, France. Testing of prototype by Jeff Casper on the coast of Brittany, France. Video shot & edited by Fred Tevlon. 

copyright 1989





VIDEO: resin infusion

This video documents/demonstrates the process of "vacuum resin infusion".  It is such an interesting, clean technique for lamination of composites.  Initially it was used in the aerospace industry, but more recently has been the method of choice to fabricate large-scale windmill turbine blades as well as giant ultralight boat hulls or other applications requiring a state-of-the-art ratio of reinforcement fiber to resin.  There is little waste or noxious odors with this process & the efficiency of the saturation is much higher than hand lamination combined with vacuum bagging.

I recently used this process to create an involute-curved windmill vane for a vertical-axis windmill of my own design.  It was a unique achievement & differs from what's been done to date for several reasons.  The vanes were built using all natural materials... there is no glass fiber, carbon fiber, kevlar or any other exotic, energy intensive material used... it is a flexible, durable monocoque construction combining a FSC certified plywood sub-frame base with reclaimed/remilled redwood "battens"... this wood core is sandwiched between two layers of hand-dyed 5 oz. hemp/silk cloth.  The tinted bioresin used to infuse these components is called SuperSap, a sustainable epoxy created from the waste stream of the paper industry (pine trees) & the biofuel industry (rapeseed).  The flywheel/turntable windmill will be mounted in the "crow's nest" of a treehouse I helped build which is located in a mammouth fig tree in Santa Monica, CA.

VIDEO: New Years Day surfing 2009

First video blog attempt:  
Steve Casper taking a tiny wave on New Years Day 2009 (Rat beach, Palos Verdes Estates, CA)

GSI "paddle pro prototype"

May 7, 2010:  Following one of the first test sessions @ the local break... here was the report from the previous day "Paddlesurfed head-high pointbreak sets today... most insane surfing experience to date... a big pod of dolphins outnumbered the handful of surfers who were already in surfheaven... rode an overhead wave with a healthy 8' dolphin racing ahead of me down the line, then jumping out of the wave, doing a 360ยบ spin, surfing along under the wave, then relaunching for another huge air, before disappearing into the bliss!"
The photos illustrate that the "paddle pro prototype" functions equally as well as a sandshovel:


Paddle A.JPG