Foon's Homegrown Pocket Rocket
 
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 06:51:50 -0700
From: Foon <wfoverNOwfSPAM@nist.gov.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.surfing
Subject: Homegrown Pocket Rocket


See pics of the Pocket Rocket at: http://home.san.rr.com/tweed/paipo.htm


"...Awhile back I mentioned I'd built a paipo board from the remains of an old Hansen 50/50. Singularly
one of the stupidest things I've ever done, next to paddling out in a full blown hurricane once and
marrying a woman everyone I knew said would kill me in my sleep. I survived the storm....... and the
hurricane and now after 25 years, the paipo sits in my Foonmuseum of surf artifacts.  With all the talk of
other than standup surf vehicles and what is a surfer, I decided to drag it out when I had occasion to
meet Rod Rodgers and examine his Ashton Paipo to compare. My version was hand shaped and influenced
by the theories of the time. His is a modern wave bullet, shaped with years of experience to create a design
that milks maximum speed out of most waves. Mine is an old Homegrown Pocket Rocket.  I stopped riding
the Rocket just 4 seasons after I built it because it hurt me badly a few times (22 stitches) and I became
disenchanted with the idea of ending my surfing days skewered by my own design. Here are the specs and
a few pics of the sweet old thing I took down by the shore. For a very brief moment I felt an invisible tug as
the board seemed to want to go back in the water after a quarter century of living in a dungeon. But it was
windy that day, maybe it was just my imagination.  When I rode this homemade board I weighed only 173
and it flew, many times out of control-fast. In it's day there was no one I couldn't catch on a wave and it
succeeded in making many unmakeable East Coast bombers. Who knows, some summer day when there's
enough juice from an offshore storm, maybe I'll take it out for a spin, I have really good health insurance now.

The Pocket Rocket's Vital Statistics:
Modified teardrop shape w/soft v-bottom, squaretail
Length 52"
Width 22"
Nose 20"
Tail 17.5"
Thickness  2.5"
Weight est. 10-12 lbs
Stringer 1/2" Redwood/Balsa t-band
Rocker Very little
Fin(-s) 6.5" chopped and reshaped longboard fin, and channel box adjustable
Rails Hard down rails in nose and tail taper to fullround in middle third of board.
Glass job One layer 12 oz, with deck patch. Two semigloss coats.
Made by: Homemade by Foon.
Note:  Table data supplemented by Rod Rodgers.

Shape: Good floatation thickness in middle to front. Concave deck with soft V-bottom in tail.

Deck Sticker: Says "Boards by Swifty, Bayonne New Jersey," The story behind it is when the guy I rented the
belt sander from heard what I was going to do he said, "What do you think you are some kind of Swifty", reshaping
a board out of an old blank?  Bayonne, New Jersey is the most polluted town I know and after messing with foam
dust, resin, acetone, fiberglass etc. it seemed fitting this small wonder be representative of Bayonne.

Deck and Bottom shots

http://home.san.rr.com/tweed/paipo1.jpg  &  http://home.san.rr.com/tweed/paipo2.jpg

Tail and side shots show concave deck which I call, "make-believe ballroom." (A very old reference,
geezers only and fans of Wartime radio programs.)

http://home.san.rr.com/tweed/paipo3.jpg  &  http://home.san.rr.com/tweed/paipo4.jpg

Hope you enjoyed my little flight of nostalgia. If any of you have a favorite old board I'm sure many would
enjoy seeing them and hearing the stories behind them.  We can always learn from the past.

"Deep experience is never peaceful."
     -Henry James

"No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be
creative, you're keeping the man-child alive."
     -Jahn Cassavetes

"All things must change to something new, to something strange."
    -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 

-Foonpocket (Like a Pocket Rocket, but a much bigger pocket)



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