Neal Purchase Jnr has just finished up a mind-boggling couple of weeks plying his craft in and around the Temple Of Enthusiasm in Canggu, Bali. Those witness to the time he spent as Shaper In Residency say the only thing louder than his planer was the hoot he would let out at each unridden tube he saw. The man himself was unaware of the levels of frequency that vibrated through the air around him… too much white foam dust and black sand had been lodged in his eardrums, he reckoned. Everywhere Purcho went, there was highly contrasted trail of the two substances to be found.
Having had many a stay at the Temple as resident shaper, Purcho was no stranger to the routine and got more done in both the surf and shaping bay than anyone could have expected. He even managed to shape Harrison Roach a new quiver, which ain’t no small task when you consider the speed with which Harrison moves between boards.
We thought we’d use this little post to go into what he shaped for Harrison... cause like, it’s an imaginative and beautiful quiver of boards, and Purcho has also done a batch of 5 of each in varying sizes for our own shop floor, so if you’re keen, they’ll be readily available on the Temple’s retail floor soon.
First on the list of boards is one of Purcho’s famed Quartets... if you’re going to order a quiver off him, you need a Quartet. The original fin setup promotes an incredible amount of drive and speed and at Harrison’s length of 5’10, it’ll be his full-flow version of a high-performance shortboard. The board will be a go-to for just about every condition up to 6 foot, and Harrison thinks it’ll knife off the bottom if he ever happens upon a slab.
Moving through the five board list from shortest to longest, the second is a 6’0 single fin, which we guess will be like an extension of Harrison’s limbs. We fell in love with Harrison’s single fin surfing as far back as the “I Had Too Much To Dream” days and can’t wait to see him laying the tucked rail through some drawn out lines. Purcho’s subtle bottom shapes and rockers makes for some of the most simple and beautiful single fins to have graced the Temple shaping bay, which is why we can’t wait to see them grace Indonesia’s surf.
On the third board we see Harrison’s continuing interest in the somewhat left of field Duo design. He has experimented with the setup over the past five or so years that Purcho has been shaping them and can’t quite explain why he’s so drastically drawn to the design. He is however able to relate his love of its ability in the tube, “...it draws a line like a single fin but where the single slide out over the foam ball, the Duo holds like no other board I’ve ever ridden.” Sounds like this one at 6’3, with plenty of volume and the tail pulled in will be a step-up for Harrison. A board for when the waves really start to pump.
The gap in length after the 6’3 is 6 inches, where we find the fourth board in the quiver: a 6’9 gung-ho style single fin. Based off the narrow, Lopez style Pipeline guns of the 70’s, this board has been toned down just enough to make it manoeuvrable in conditions that aren’t quite so hectic as Pipeline. With a down rail from nose to tail, this is the board Harrison dreams of swooping off the bottom of a big right like HT’s. This is the make or break board that wants a huge, clean and perfect wave to lay tracks on. This is the board that excites us most! Purcho, we salute you!
Last but literally not least is the big board in the quiver: a 7’6 Duo that makes the rest look like they were made for children. The idea for the 7’6 came about after a session on the peninsula last year where Harrison rode a 6’4 in waves that were too big for us to ever correctly call the size of... was it 12’ Hawaiian? Were they 20’ faces? We’ll never really know, but photos that show waves more than four times the size of Harrison haunt his small board quivers, so we thought it time to create something with those large, seldom crowded line-ups in mind. This ski is a paddler that will get him into serious swell and one that will get him back out into the lineup with ease, so long as he doesn’t have to duckdive. Wanting the single fin feel on the big open faces and extra drive generating off the bottom that the single fins lack, the Duo was the obvious choice for fin setup with this one. And as with this whole quiver, we’re chomping at the bit to see the 7’6 in action.
The rains have stopped and the trade winds are puffing, have you guys got your Indo quiver ready?
