Fletcher Chouinard

Fletcher Chouinard is a Cal­i­for­nia surf­board shaper who also believes in a sus­tain­able future. He builds high per­for­mance boards using the strongest and light­est mate­ri­als for such rid­ers as Chris and Dan Mal­loy. Fletcher took some time out to talk with us.

What was it like grow­ing up in Cal­i­for­nia?
Great! Most of my child­hood, I split my time between Cali­doeni and the Tetons, so I was able to avoid the “June gloom” in the spring and sum­mer. There’s nowhere bet­ter than the Cen­tral Coast in the fall and winter—the surf, the weather, the rel­a­tively close prox­im­ity of dif­fer­ent cli­mates and activ­i­ties (like ski­ing and snow­board­ing). I wish kite­board­ing had existed grow­ing up because it really fills out the surf lifestyle dur­ing our long flat spells.

When did you get your first surf­board?
My Pop got me on his Greg Lid­dle hull eggs pretty early on and got me 
my own. Maybe when I was 10. My first thruster short­board was when I 
was a fresh­man in high school, a Mau­rice Cole mini gun. We were in 
France for a sea­son and my eggs just weren’t work­ing in big win­ter surf.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
I can’t remem­ber the first time but the first open, glassy faced wave was pretty unreal. Sud­denly quiet, fast, smooth, mov­ing along like magic. It was like being pulled down­hill but sideways—unlike any­thing I had ever felt for sure.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
My Pop has always been my biggest hero/influence. He’s always been a 
bad ass whether surf­ing, kayak­ing (white­wa­ter and big waves), rock 
climb­ing, moun­taineer­ing, fish­ing, etc. He’s always been the calm, 
col­lected guy on expe­di­tions and in the out­doors that sur­vives things 
that many of his friends haven’t. He loves trudg­ing uphill for days at a 
time in some sort of zen trance. I have no desire to fol­low his lead in 
many things that he’s always enjoyed. I pre­fer to let grav­ity and wind 
do most of the work, and water land­ings don’t hurt nearly as much.

What was it like to be the son of some­one famous?
I sup­pose its a lit­tle weird. I don’t feel like my fam­ily is much dif­fer­ent than oth­ers. I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over my whole life and get into a lot of out­door inter­ests. Some­times I get a lit­tle self-conscious when peo­ple make a big deal out of my family’s (very minor) celebrity. I’m proud of my par­ents’ accom­plish­ments in busi­ness but, in a way, it’s not that big a deal; any good they do for the planet is really just the way all busi­nesses should con­duct 
themselves.

Of all the inter­est­ing places you have trav­eled to, what place in 
par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?
I feel like the more you travel, the more you see that every­where is the same. There’s a lot of places out there that I enjoy and, even among those, there’s lots of things I don’t like too. Nowhere is per­fect. It’s really just about moments in the search.

Where were you edu­cated?
I been to school in VTA, Kelly, Wyoming, Ojai, some home school­ing, and a few years at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for graphic design/photo (from which I dropped out). I hated school.

Explain how the idea for FCD came about.
I was shap­ing boards already for friends and fam­ily, and by word of mouth. My Pop wasn’t all that stoked on the over­all dura­bil­ity of the indus­try stan­dard and I like to pull into close­outs. So we just started explor­ing alter­na­tives that had the poten­tial to not crap out as quick.

Why do you feel it is nec­es­sary to explore alter­na­tives to poly foam blanks?
There are mate­ri­als that last longer, flex bet­ter, float bet­ter, are bet­ter to work with, don’t pol­lute as much, and are recy­clable. Why not?

What inspires the shapes and designs of the boards that you cre­ate?
Many of my designs are point break-inspired, tested and proven; they tend to be really fast down the line. I tend to like a lit­tle bit wider and flat­ter boards than some guys. I go by “with speed you can pull it off” rather than mak­ing it crazy loose and by being depen­dent on the surfer to make their own speed.

Who/what inspires you?
I don’t look in one direc­tion for inspi­ra­tion really. I learn some­thing every sin­gle time I shape a board, go to a shop, feel a rail, ride a wave, read an arti­cle. Get­ting feed­back from the Mal­loys or our other team guys or just watch­ing them surf is pretty huge for my shap­ing devel­op­ment. Kitesurf­ing has  made a big dif­fer­ence in both my R&D and my surf­ing. I have so much time on my feet rid­ing rather than pad­dling around for hours for four sec­onds of surf­ing at a time.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
(Laughs) Oh, man … to swim? Always check the water depth?

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
I wish I had appren­ticed with and/or ghost-shaped for some­one. Both 
Steve Walden and Dave Par­menter schooled me for a while but it’s been 
pretty much trial and error since ’95.

What are you most proud of?
Being mainly self-taught at shap­ing and com­pletely self-taught at kitesurfing.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Shoot, I dunno. It’s my pas­sion. Every­one has to have one or they’re lost and adrift. Not just a hobby or a job, a pas­sion. The thing that you look for­ward to doing, that you flake on every­thing else for and feel fine about. The thing that keeps you from get­ting whacked out and par­ty­ing too hard because you want to be able to do it. The first thing you think of when you see a map. What you strive to get bet­ter at all the time. I’m sure there’s lots of things that fall into that cat­e­gory for peo­ple. I hap­pen to have a bet­ter one than folks that don’t surf.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Friends, fam­ily, get­ting bar­reled… sushi?

Who are some of the indi­vid­u­als you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Man, there are so many good shapers out there—Eric Arakawa, Al, Rusty, Cole, all great crafts­men. Any­one that’s think­ing dif­fer­ently about mate­ri­als than the norm is rad too (like Greg Loher, Stretch and Sam Cammack).

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board?
I have so many surf­boards in the rota­tion. I love surf­boards but I often 
don’t get attached to indi­vid­ual boards these days. They have to make way for the freshies so the learn­ing process can continue.

I try to always have some­thing in the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories or sim­i­lar: 
5’7″ swal­low­tail quad 19.75″ x 2.43″ for “fishy” con­di­tions or mush; 
5’10″ swal­low­tail quad 19.5″ x 2.31″ for “down-the-line” drive in super fast point surf or every day fun;5’11″ P.E.K.E or DM3 for good per­for­mance reef or beach break; three or four fin 6’4″ KMRP as a “step up” for the above con­di­tions; three fin 6’8″ RP and 7’6″ RP forbig/hollow—everything up to a 9’6″ gun; three fin 9’6″ to 9’9″ thrusters, quads, and widowmakers. Then a mil­lion dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions of each one in dif­fer­ent widths, 
thick­nesses, fins, etc. They all have their day!

What’s your favorite meal?
Sushi or roast lamb with chimichurri.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Tool, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Pan­tera, Slayer, Way­lon, Hank, Johnny, Janis and Ray Wylie Hubbard.

What causes/projects/organizations do you sup­port?
Surfrider, Sea Shep­herd, Restore Hetch Hetchy and many others.

What’s next for Fletcher Chouinard?
I’m going to keep work­ing on quads because I think they’re bet­ter than 
thrusters in many sit­u­a­tions and for most peo­ple. Hope­fully, I’ll get some really big clean waves this win­ter to test my new guns and, if not, kitesurf some big, ugly con­di­tions. That and not catch the swine flu.

More infor­ma­tion about Fletcher Chouinard Designs can be found here. Pho­tog­ra­phy cour­tesy of Patag­o­nia by Jeff John­son.