Shane Smith, Soul Surfer
By Sara Field and Gavin Mac Carthy


It's dawn in late October, there's a New England chill in the air, and Shane Smith is sitting in the cold Atlantic ocean.

He's perched atop a foam board, off the coast of New Hampshire, looking for a set of waves to come in. At the right moment, he paddles, gains enough speed to move with a wave, and rises on the board, transferring the force of an accumulation of wind and water and sending him flying, floating, surfing.

Thousands of New Englanders head out to the water every fall to take advantage of the seasonal waves. "Waves pick up in the fall," Shane Smith says, "with tropical storms and hurricanes coming up the Gulf stream, and sometimes in winter we get a good Nor'easter." Shane, a tanned, laid-back man, has been an active member of the New England surfing community since he was 14. Local surfers call him New England's premier surfboard maker. When he shapes a board, he says he feels what that board will be like as it glides with the wave, and his experience as a surfer helps him to be in tune with how the board will feel.

Surfboards, like any other piece of sporting equipment, have progressed with technology. In Hawaii, boards were at one time cut from trees and could weigh as much as 200 pounds. Today, a surfboard can weigh as little as 5 pounds, and is made of a combination of polyurethane foam and fiberglass coating. In some cases a slim strip of wood called a stringer runs down the center of the board. Hand made boards take between 10 and 15 hours to make, and can sell for anywhere from $500 to $1000 for a custom design.

"Advanced surfers want the maximum amount of both speed and maneuverability packed into the smallest board possible," Shane says. He explains that the real art of making a surfboard comes with shaping. The curve of the board from tip to tail, or "rocker" determines how much water the board will push.

Shane says "my job is to put the perfect rocker into the board for any individual by dividing the top and bottom of the board into 8 sections and changing the rocker in each section." The result, he hopes, is a fast, maneuverable ride.

"Usually I spend about 45 minutes shaping a board," Shane says as he works on a board in his workshop, "But this board is for a good friend of mine, and a good surfer, so I'll probably spend more like 2 hours on it."

When he's making a board for a beginner, or someone he doesn't know, he uses a default rocker, one that's proven to be pretty universal, so it doesn't take as much time. He adds fins in different patterns. Three fins in the back make the board more acrobatic, let it turn quickly, but keep its speed up. One larger fin on the back will slow the board down while it turns.

Shane began working on boards just after high school, when he got a job repairing surfboards. Through fixing boards at the shop, Shane got comfortable with the process of glassing. After a few years of repairs, he decided to try his hand at shaping a board.

One of his friends tried the first board he made in 1994, and liked it so much, he asked Shane to make him one. Before he knew it, Shane was making boards for all of his friends, and the requests were keeping him busy full-time. He rented some space in his friend's back yard, and got to work. Now, at 30, people around the world want to buy Shane's boards.

For the last seven years, he has expanded the business by joining forces with a friend of his, Michael Rosa of Rye, New Hampshire, and together they formed a company called 2si. They rented some warehouse space, and started selling boards all over the world.

But after a couple of years, Shane found that he had lost sight of why he started the company in the first place. He found that he and his business partners were churning out much more product, as many as 30 boards a week, but making the same amount of money that he makes by himself, making 10 to 15 boards a week. "It took too much of my attention away from making the best surfboards I can," he said. "There is more soul in making custom, hand crafted boards."

The soul of surfing is something Shane has kept sight of all along. He splits his year up into seasons, spending his summers working all day and night at the shop. "The summers are the busiest time of year, which is great because there usually aren't waves in the summer," Shane said, "and orders start to taper off in the fall, when the waves come up. So I come down here and work, and if there are waves, I take a break and go surfing." Once business slows down in the winter, Shane usually takes a trip to visit some friends in Chile. He goes to the same place every year, because he says the waves are great. By the summer, he's back in New Hampshire, ready to work again, with more surfing experience to help him with his shaping.

Surfing is gaining popularity in New England and around the world, so Shane should be busy for as long as he's interested in making boards. When asked about his plans for the future, Shane laughs and says, "I hope by May to have a business plan, but I'm happy just making custom boards."

Shane's Website: 2SI