Big wave rescue

       Link 
EMS Rescue Team Works Big Wave World Tour
A good read on who is there when our big wave riders have mishaps.
By Loralee Olejnik, Monica Thatcher

http://www.jems.com/article/training/ems-rescue-team-works-big-wave-world-tou

The bones above

•   The photo top left is an example of what Hotrod Surfboards is involved in.  This is a photo of the bulkheads, nose and tail block of a c. 1930 Kook Box from the Tom Blake school of hollow, paddle and surf boards.  These were the state of the art newest devices for propelling one self through the water beginning in the mid-nineteen twenties.  The weight of this one is fifty two pounds and the length is 13' 3".
     This one came in to our collection as an, almost, gift from, a friend, Hans Newman about 15 years ago in very poor condition. The deck had full length linear separations, all of the seams were loose, most of the finish was gone and termites had gotten to the gunnel on one side. one special point about the box was that most of it was put together using bronze ring shank boat nails.  Most of the kook boxes were held together with brass screws.
     This became a pet project.
     To begin with the box had been coated many years ago with resin, no fiberglass, just resin and where it remained it had to be sanded. The rest of the box had weathered badly and would also need sanding to match.  When I would carry the box to my sanding area nails from the deck would fall along my path.  After sanding I commenced to disassemble the box taking it down to its individual parts.  This was fairly easy in that the nails were all loose in their positions and came out with little effort.  This provided a later problem.
     Once the box was apart I began repairing all of the broken areas.  Each side of the deck and bottom were of single pieces of  5/16 inch Mahogany.  I had to make special glue blocks to rejoin the splits and not become stuck to the deck it self.  There were also places where I had to fill in gaps with newer materials and on the rotted gunnel a lite weight boat putty was used. 
     To reassemble the box I discovered that an acrylic resin used in water proof decks was also very strong, flexible and a good water proof glue, this proved exceptional in gluing and sealing the box.  When it came to the nails I knew that the original ones would never hold so I located a boat repair supplier in Delaware who had over sized bronze ring shank nails made for this purpose and used in older boats.  The gunnels were made of spruce and the wood in the nail holes had taken on the quality of bristles.  This I dealt with by dripping a drop or two down each hole, letting them dry and then driving the nails in.  It worked perfectly.
    One more sanding and it was ready for the finish.  
•   So far I have coated it with nine layers of boat varnish and at this point I think it might be finished. 
•   The older gentleman is Woody Brown.
•      JBR