"Talking to Dave, it sounds like the tortional flex pattern was the part of the board that he connected with most," said Ryan Lovelace of The Pedestrian Ship's wonderfully odd design.

The Pedestrian Ship Is An Elegant Vessel

Ryan Lovelace explores the precision and thought behind the winning design.

elsewhere // Dec 13, 2024

Words by Christian Bowcutt

Reading Time: 2 minutes

“The only other person I’ve spoken to who understands boards on this level might be Ryan Burch,” said Ryan Lovelace of Dave Rastovich.

Lovelace’s journey began at 19, crafting a board out of Home Depot foam with little more than VHS tapes and raw determination as his guide. Since then, he has hand-shaped over 5,000 custom boards and earned accolades like winning the Icons of Foam Shape-Off at the Boardroom Show and the Electric Acid Surfboard Test (EAST) with Dave Rastovich.

Now, Ryan’s illustrious career is split in three — divided between a shaper’s mentoring project with Trimcraft, an accessibly priced machine-made board company called LOVEMACHINE, and his baby, shaping boards from hand the old-fashioned way at a high price point for Ryan Lovelace Surfcraft.

“I came into the EAST with the expectation that my board is going to suck. So that’s cool. That’s really cool.”

In the video above, you’ll see Ryan breaking down — in greater detail than we had time for in The Electric Acid Surfboard Test Starring Dave Rastovich — the “Pedestrian Ship” model that Dave chose as the winner.

“That board took around 20 hours. I pride myself on being efficient—I don’t like doubling back. Even if I’m doing something complex, I plan my steps carefully to maximize my energy,” Ryan explained. “But this board was different. I wanted to pour myself into it completely. I wanted to create something custom for Dave — someone I’ve looked up to for so long.”

The fruits of Ryan’s extra energy and care resulted in not only a new friendship with Dave, some nice exposure, and more board sales, but it also resulted in a brand new model in the Lovelace Surfcraft catalog that that us normal people can order and ride.

Dave finished off the Acid Test in some proper surf somewhere in Puerto Rico.

Also, we won’t spoil too much, but we commissioned Ryan to shape a “Pedestrian Ship” for Caity Simmers. Stay tuned.

And as for the technical parts of the board, we won’t delve into that too much either. You’ll have to watch the video to see for yourself.

Let’s conclude with an excerpt from Stab co-founder Sam McIntosh’s interview with Ryan Lovelace that captures what made this year’s Electric Acid Surfboard Test so special, “I think people stereotype the ‘nature-loving hippie’ archetype as being soft and overly positive, but Dave brought serious honesty and insight to the boards,” Ryan said. “He doesn’t hold back when he likes or dislikes something, and he explains it in a way that makes sense. His approach is a mix of critical thinking and optimism, which I really admired.