The Stab in the Dark Shaper Series: JS

Welcome back to Stab in the Dark. By now you’ve seen what Julian Wilson did with our collection of cleanskin boards form the world’s best shapers. You also know that Darren Handley (DHD) won. But, now it’s time to meet the gentry behind the other crafts that made for such compelling viewing in our mini-documentary. Board #23 was shaped by Jason Stevenson, one of the most prolific shapers in the game. JS shapes boards for Joel Parkinson and Owen Wright, among others, and his list of high profile clients includes pretty much every surfer you’ve ever heard of. “A performance board that goes from two foot to eight foot, that’s my specialty,” says JS, “I think that now I make a wide variety of versatile models that suit the whole range of surfers.” Julian on the JS: “I destroyed this board in one wave. It’s really hard to talk about how this board went because, for the split second it was in one piece, it felt great. We were surfing fun, chunky waves with heavy sections. I tried to do a straight air but landed a bit on top of the wave and it just crunched. It’s pretty standard for any high performance board, it could’ve happened to any one of these. This is the one I was thinking was a JS. All the signs were there for a good board.” Want more? Panda here. Sharp Eye here. Channel Islands here.Dahlberg here.Simon Anderson here.Robo here.Stamps here.