North Coast Surfboards

Custom 7’0” Evo with a beautiful 2-tone emerald green tint.

The Evo is one of our oldest and most loved designs, going on 15 years now.
I originally went into the shaping bay with Hutcho wanting something for a pretty classic bank we had at Wategos that Autumn. It wasn’t the usual “longboard only social club”, it was breaking out the back and had more punch than I have ever experienced. Mostly lefts and the longer stuff I had at time, 8’7”ish Rolled Vees, were a little too wide in the tail and just weren’t giving me the type of response off the tail I was chasing. So I went in and told Paul what I was thinking, a balanced outline but coupled with a flatter nose entry (so it had a real easy time paddling onto more slopey, fast moving waves) and also a more accelerated tail rocker to aid with turning on a dime when those walls out the back sometimes gain a heap of curve and totally throw you off your game, you need that rocker in the tail to help fit into the curve of the wave. These few things also coupled with a standard Displacement Hull rolled entry (which 90% of our boards have, as I am beyond addicted to the feeling they give when engaged with the wave face) and our standard high rails in the nose to a lower rail with tucked edge in the tail to also help with gripping the wave face. A neutral and forgiving rail through the middle, not too pinched, to aid with giving the board versatility whether it’s onshore/offshore, pumping or just everyday waves, I wanted this board to essentially do it all. Also to give people who didn’t live in Byron with our blessed wave choice, the opportunity to maybe feel what I had been feeling on my Displacement Hulls for those past few years, maybe they could get a glimpse of some of that magic in their own everyday waves around home.
Quite a few years on and I guess people still do feel that magic, as this particular customer had ridden a friends 7’4” and instantly fell in love with how easy it was to surf and “something they couldn’t quite put their finger on”. There it was. They felt it. That thing that I always hope people feel when they ride our boards..

5’0” revised VISH in a blu-tac semi opaque for

This is our latest rendition of a slightly more performance based traditional keel fish. After I’d seen tearing it up for 5 years or so on his last one, I had the vision of what needed changing to accomodate a more aggressive approach from the rider. The first one we did was actually for someone we had working here at the factory at the time and he was in the bay with Hutcho while he was shaping it. What they had come up with was right along the lines of what I had in mind for Beau, so naturally once it was laminated and sanded it was time to physically scan it into our KKL machine to immortalise it forever. Every new design we are thinking of is handshaped until it’s perfect, only then will we analogue/physically scan it (no other machine or tech can actually do this, which in 2025 is a little pathetic I feel) so it can be replicated a whole lot easier for Paul. All the most meaningful progress and biggest design changes come from handshaping boards, that much is undebatable, and that’s why I’ve always got Hutcho handshaping new boards for me constantly, trying to figure out the new feelings I want.
With Kirst’s shortboard upbringing and background, this one was the only choice for her when she came to me wanting a new fish. She can push it as hard as she wants when the section calls for it, but can lean back on the wider tail block and plane through sections while others are busy flapping their arms trying to keep speed. Nothing ground breaking as far as a fish design goes, but a nice way to round out the offering of fishes we have, which is probably nearing 2 dozen after the last 30 years of Paul shaping them for me.

7’6” Nuevo in a beautiful chocolate brown tint for Belinda.
Whether ridden as a single fin with side bites or as a dedicated twin fin, the Nuevo is our most versatile design. Perfect for both travel and also sitting in high rotation within your everyday quiver.

CUSTOM 7’4” NUEVO.

This is the second Nuevo we have done for this customer now. Just a touch shorter on this one. And she was quite particular with the colour/s. Billy and I took about half an hour to mix this one up, varying amounts of other colours just trying to get the certain hue.
Hand mixed resin tints really are an art form, you aren’t just dumping colour into resin, they all turn out a little different and that’s what I love. It has always been my favourite part of the process in the factory here, and learning to airbrush boards and mix paints from such a young age had me already super comfortable with mixing our rich, one of a kind colour ways.
Insider tip, don’t skimp on the amount of tint you use! And don’t buy cheap s**t; that goes for everything, resin tints and surfboards in general!

An incredibly well put together custom 6’6” Gentleman’s Thruster for Ben. The colour combo, the custom made fins, the pinline, the polish, sweet baby Jeebus this board is one of the best that has come through in the last couple of years.

What started as a surprise Xmas gift from his partner, Ben came in to see us once he knew he was getting hooked up with a new board. A couple of conversations about what he’s missing in the quiver, a quick comment about wanting something slightly 80’s and mostly for better waves, I immediately went and grabbed my personal Gentleman’s Thruster from out the back and threw it under his arm. Immediate froth ensued, and he and I both knew this was the board for him.
Once he stated some colours, “Fluro!”, was the call, we made a few decisions on the spot about what colours would go where, then he expressed interest in glass on thrusters, and that tickles me right where I itch. Nothing better than glass on thrusters. NOTHING. We had make us some TC template glass ons for it, and naturally he nailed them, perfect template for a board with a tighter tail like this.
Overall a very enjoyable board to make, even if it did take us wayyy longer than it normally would have, the age old adage comes to mind, “good things come to those who wait”. And this board is basically a lifetimer, meaning he’s going to be able to pull it out and surf it anytime he wants for the rest of his life.
No corners cut with this one, the best fluro paint I’ve used in 20 years of spraying boards, 6oz all over, glass ons, a legrope bridge (no routing at all on this board) with an actual finish coat (don’t be fooled by cheap, s**tty alternatives!) and a polish that could have you using it for your evening shaving routine it’s that flat and mirror like. We make these, and all our boards, to be enjoyed for many, many years, and the experience level of everyone who has a hand in making our boards is at Jedi level.
Can’t wait to see this thing in the water!!

If you’re looking for a “lifetimer”, whether it’s something we have done before or something completely different, then get in touch and we’ll make all your dreams come true. 🤙🏻

-6’10”, white pigment rail and bottom, blue/aqua airbrush fade insert, white pinline-

We’ve been shaping a lot of 70’s inspired Single Fins for the last 12 months or so, and it’s really got me thinking of how these are such an under appreciated part of the quiver. Everyone is all for modernising mid 60’s single fin longboard designs, as they were something which had such an abrupt halt put on their evolution with the late 60’s transitional era, but whenever someone references these early to mid 70’s style Single Fins, they are quick to dismiss their merit with calls of “they never worked” or “we need never go there again!”. Why the continuous denial of these boards clearly working in a wide variety of waves? Sure, they were a little harder to surf but that shouldn’t be a problem when faced with the possibilities of what we now know about rockers, foils, rails and bottom contours.
I’ve always loved the feeling of these style of boards, the need to place them in the right part of the wave at the right time to attain speed and drive through your turns. There’s no flicking tails or pumping the board incessantly, just pure lines from bottom turn to kick out, well thats the aim anyway.
As Hutcho is someone who has been shaping these designs off and on since those early 70’s, the same vibe as all the designs we have made over the years, I felt now is the perfect time to start playing with some different aspects of these magic looking Single Fins, especially heading into Autumn and Winter and with a couple of overseas surf trips on the horizon also.
Playing with some rockers will be our first stop along this road, sure we know what already works with these kinds of boards, but maybe there’s some untapped continuous curve when combined with an updated fin template or foil that might ignite some new feeling and allow some different lines to be drawn.
Not ones to claim to be reinventing the wheel, I am always searching for these different feelings on a wave, and there’s been 2 designs in the past 10 years which have done this for me, hopefully these next few boards allow me to enter the holy trinity and achieve a 3rd revelation in wave riding 🤞🏻

Last board finished for the year was yet another iteration of the Vee Bottom S-deck board we’ve been toying with the past year or so. Slight refinements each time, we have now landed on a rolled entry coupled more of a crowned rolled Vee in the tail, rather than the panel Vee that was in the original. This Vee bottom also has quite deep concaves either side of it that run all the way to the rail, which we have had in a lot of our most popular boards over the years, and I feel like this bottom is the most stable and dependable bottom shape for every type of wave. Handles junk, but really starts handling when the waves get some juice too. The rolled entry really settles the nose down when entering waves and also when the forward part of the board is engaging with the wave face, not quite a “train track” feeling but it’s definitely more glued to the wave face and never a chance of any weird sticking or sliding activity that can sometimes come with any sort of concave through the nose (just my opinion, and something which happened with the very first one we shaped)
While the original held a thruster setup, I always felt the wider tail block really needed a quad setup to properly settle it and lock it in when the waves got some curve to them. Coupled with a few different templates of Hanalei fins, I have been really enjoying these combinations.
With this being on the shorter end of the scale of what we originally intended for these boards, I feel as we get shorter we are ending up in the same place as a Fat Arse Wombat with a quad setup, one of my favourite boards of all time. As I don’t want to try and reinvent the wheel at all, I feel like the next few will be more in the mid 6 foot to 7 foot category so I don’t confuse myself or the general public.
🤙🏻

It’s a really nice feeling when someone gets in contact and lets you know they’re keen to order a couple of boards for the upcoming Spring/Summer, the options are so wide open that it’s sometimes hard to limit your suggestions to just 2. Ting knew what he wanted though, which is also epic when a customer has a real good idea of the direction he/she wants to take their surfing.
I told him to come down and visit us at the factory, and to bring a couple of the current boards he had been riding and enjoying, it’s very helpful knowing what someone has already been gelling with design wise.
So talks ensued, we had a look over what he had been riding lately, made a note of rockers, rail thicknesses etc and then discussed a couple of older designs of ours that seemed to fit the description of what he was looking for and the types of waves he wanted to surf them in.
We settled on a shorter Displacement Hull with a much wider, stubby tail that we did a lot of in the early days. At the shorter length of 5’5” and with tiny glassed on side bites to help the wider tail to stay engaged on the wave face, this board is an absolute rocket. Speed runs and down carves in smaller, suckier waves were requested and this thing will do both with ease. I used to ride a 5’10” myself religiously and I don’t think I’ve ever been faster on a board before.
The second board we landed on for Ting was a twin fin version of an older quad egg we used to do around 10 years ago. Flatter rocker again and plenty of width in the nose and tail, both pretty standard on any Egg design. We managed to use a larger twin fin template to try and achieve the same sort of hold that the quad setup would normally give you. This was to be Ting’s everyday board, so we wanted it to be nice and versatile for him no matter the conditions. It definitely passed the “under the arm” test and was a definite favourite amongst the crew at the factory. Lots of interest.
So Ting came down to collect them with his partner and we made sure we got some nice photos all together out the front of the showroom, something for the memory banks, of picking up your new board/s from the people who’s hands actually made them!! 🤙🏻

For all our friends in the UK and Europe! This years batch of boards have arrived and are awaiting your loving hands to fo**le them!
If you’ve been curious and wanting to check out our newer Sambal model (which is still a W.I.P, but I’ve been riding this rendition most of this Winter and it’s been blowing my mind 🤯) or you want to suss out our recently revived Fat Arse Wombat (which couldn’t have come at a better time, as it’s the perfect gap filler for your quiver) then head down to Hayle in Cornwall or jump online to their website and choose your own destiny.
There’s a nice, tidy batch of revised shorter VISH’s, Sambals, Mid VISH’s and the Fat Arse Wombats. All with an amazing, complimentary colour palette.
We really had fun making these, and hopefully you can see that come through in the end product 🤙🏻

If you’ve got any super specific questions on any of the boards they have available or want to query some sizing, then reach out to me via DM and I’ll help point you in the right direction. I’ve designed everything above with Paul and obviously have ridden every iteration until we are happy enough with them to make them a model, so there’s a high chance any question you might have I probably would have asked myself during that process!

Picture this. It’s the early 70’s, Paul has just moved from Brookvale up to Brooklet, bought his house from Russell Hughes (where he still lives today!)
Well known photographer of the time, John Otton, had been wanting to get some shots of Paul in the hinterland of the area for a while and they decided on Coopers Shoot. Anyone who knows this area well would be struggling to recognise it in these shots as there’s essentially no trees or foliage in the background. People who also know the history of the area will know that this whole hinterland zone was once covered with massive cedar forests that were absolutely decimated and heavily logged in the mid 1800’s, this is where the “Shoot” parts of the suburbs names comes from (Coopers Shoot, Skinners Shoot, McLeods Shoot) and the loggers would use these steep parts of the landscape to slide or roll the massive cedar logs down to the flat country below. Pretty wild stuff!
Anyway, these shots are incredible as it shows a young Hutcho totally hitting his stride as a shaper well past the transitional era and heading into the years when his shapes would be become even more well recognised. Trips to Bali with Albe Falzon for Morning of the Earth (yes he was with all the guys when they surfed Ulu for the first time, and that’s him instigating the chillum smoking session in the cave!) he was shaping all Steve Cooney’s boards at the time, and loving the freedom and creativity that came with living in the Northern Rivers around that time period.
We quite often have people come through the factory and let us know they had boards made by Paul during this period and they were some of the best single fins they ever had. You can see the DNA of Paul’s shaping even in these early designs. There’s one from ‘75 currently in the showroom if you’re interested in checking it out.
The board pictured in the shots was actually the reference shot I gave Paul when we were designing the Devo together, a rounded nose pintail, with down rails in the nose and tail and made to emulate that flowing style of surfing from the period.
Very underrated design!

RAINBEAU TWIN.

As we head into “swell season” here on the East Coast of Oz, our quiver generally rotates to designs with a little more rocker and boards that can handle a little more juice. The Rainbeau Twin is exactly that. It’s the most rockered up board we make, coupled with a full length single concave running from nose to tail, it requires quite a lot of rail line rocker to help keep it nimble off the tail. With these design aspects it does enjoy being ridden with a bit more of a performance based approach. Some liken it to a F1 car when they first stand up, rocketing off the mark in an instant, with direction changes in the blink of an eye.
This was a custom one we did for later last year and as I was laid up with a busted shoulder we called on Core Lord of Ballina surfboard manufacturing Cleg to do the spray for me. Dad and Cleg used to work together at Warren Cornish’s factory around the road from here, and I’ve known him since I was about 4 years old. The dude still looks the same today I swear! Total legend. Anyway he nailed the brief on the spray, which admittedly was a bit loose, and he kinda did his thing which is always awesome to see.
Coupled with glass on twins (a must on these!) and a polish finish, Alistair got the “keeper” he was looking for.
A beautiful looking surfboard that rides even better. What more could you ask for?