Background to charman boards

As a boy way back in the very early sixties I was fascinated by the surfing culture which had not yet really arrived in the UK. Surfboards were rare and I obviously didn’t have the money to buy one, so I decided to make my own.

I sent off to California for a paper template and built a hollow wooden board on which I surfed the (miserable) South Coast waves – to the astonishment of passers-by who had no idea what I was doing!

 When I retired after a career in IT, I wanted to go back to that childhood dream. I set up a workshop in the back garden of where I was living in Newquay (right behind Tolcarne beach) and began making other hollow wooden surf boards for fun.

Newquay was the perfect venue as there were many experienced locals that were always ready to help and offer advice.   

In 2021 the COP26 Summit in Glasgow and the G7 meeting in Cornwall triggered protests about plastic pollution in the oceans and particularly about the problem of throw-away bodyboards. 

I decided that I could apply the same logic from the wooden surfboards to make hollow wooden bodyboards that would be more eco-friendly and last for many years.