BRAZILIAN BOARDS FOR SURE
By Henry Lelot
Have you ever heard of a magical board? It’s what we usually say when we get that special board the shaper managed to do just perfect.
Then the shaper tries to make an exact replica…but he just couldn’t do it…ever! In Surfing for quite some time we heard this complaint over and over again.
Some decades ago shaping was pure art, where each board was a result of pure feeling…and few measures.
I learned to shape at the Natural Progression Surf Factory, a big board manufacturer in California in the ‘80s.
Back then, making boards was really pure art…few measures and basically shaping was based on the ‘eyemeter’.
However, in this new millennium shaping has been transformed in terms of engineering, where exact science like math rules.
I’ve already thought about stopping shaping many times because I couldn’t make an exact replica of a board. The client said: ‘cool but…it’s not like the other, it’s different.’
And that was a frustrating, seemed like I was not in control of my work, the thing I know best. I couldn’t forsee how the board would behave in the water.
It’s strange to hear someone say that the board wasn’t as he or she expected, or the way I predicted.
Maybe that was what led me to search for some way to obtain some more control. And that was what I looked for when I added more measurement points.
Until recently only 10 or so measures were used: size, tail, outline width, volume. I then started to add more points where you can measure…from 10 to 20 points, then to 30 and so on.
However that feeling of lack of control persisted. I had an insight and tested 20 or more points along the board, trying to control the length, volume and shape of the rails.
Brazilian shaper Henry Lelot began his professional career in 1985 while in California. In 1992 he created CDS- Computer Design System- a revolutionary precise method in shaping.
In 1993 he pioneered the Shaper Scholarship Course, tutoring those interesting in shaping using the computer. In the last decade he has shared this way of shaping to more than 600 shapers in Brazil and abroad.
Known as a pioneer, Lelot today is considered one of the most influential shapers in computerized shaping in Brazil and one the most cooperating person in the Brazilian Surf Media.
By the 1997 at a CT event in Brazil, Aussie Mark Occhiluppo made an historical final against Kelly using one of his boards.
Since then several top surfers from around the world like Andy irons, Bruce, Parko and Slater himself, became test pilots for Henry Lelot Surfboards when in Brazil.
Most of the best Brazilian surfers have also tested his boards and in the latest years Lelot has been betting on new young surfers like 19 y old brasilian surfer Patrick Tamberg (inset getting air picture to the right).
To Fernando de Noronha Isl, being considered already as one of the most talented in the new Brazilian surfing generation.
Henry Lelot
Msn/e-mail: hlelot@hotmail.com
hlelot@lelot.com.br
Phone 0055 21 24906412
Henry Lelot
Surfboard Designer
www.myspace.com.-hlelot
www.lelot.com.br
skype: Hlelot
( 55 21 24906412 / 98489880
Secretário Executivo
ORGANIZAÇÃO SURFE DO BRASIL
e-mail: osurfe.brasil@hotmail.com
Diretor Presidente
SOCIEDADE BRASILEIRA DE SHAPERS
msn: sbs_shapers@hotmail.com
|
 |
COMPUTERIZED SHAPES FROM BRASIL
HENRY LELOT
Henry Lelot (with Patrick Tamberg air inset)
Mark Occhiluppo on a Henry Lelot Surfboard
Andy Irons on a Henry Lelot Surfboard
|
|
