For anyone who has ever wanted to know more about his or her equipment and the back end of the surfing industry the website you need to look up will be Swaylocks.com . This site has everything from ding repair guides to broken board advice. Personally I like to read the forums to see what direction the surf industry will be going in the next couple of years. When Clark Foam went under the people at Swaylock's were the first to know. Firewire surfboards was the brain child of a Swaylocker. The first time I heard anything about shaping with epoxy it came from this site.

How to use Swaylock's is simple. On the home page you can see updated info from their forums, resources, articles, and surfshop. I usually check out the resources first. The resources section of Swaylock's is where users post their projects to get feedback from others. You can see what people are shaping in their factories or back yards. Sometimes it is just someone who is excited about a board they just got back from a shaper, and other times it is a glasser who wants the world to see his new epoxy technique. Either way it will make your mouth water.

The discussion forums are great. This is where a bunch of knowledge will come from. You can search the forums to find almost any shaping or repair question. If you can't find an answer you can always post your question and someone will most likely have the answer or know where is was already answered. Don't ask something that has obviously been answered before (like how to fix a ding or broken fin) because these guys and girls don't want to write about the same repairs over and over again.

Another thing that is great about this site is that people from all over the world use it. You can get on it at virtually any hour of the day and there will be users writing away about there projects. Many users come from Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. One of the most interesting threads is somewhat current and about a shaper from NZ. His name is Tom Bloke (real name is Roy) and he creates some really kooky boards. Roy is convinced that his boards are on the cutting edge (who am I to say they are not) and that they can out perform any other longboard shape at pipeline. The other users at Swaylock's are not sure, so they are pulling money together to get his boards shipped over to the North Shore to see what happens. This guys boards seem kind of interesting, but I am not sure they can make the drop at Pipeline. Here is the link: Letter Bill Barnfield. Here is the link to Roy's website: olosurfer.com

There is also a compilation of article that are updated on the home page regarding the surf industry. The editors of this site find some awesome stuff floating around the internet that is very entertaining to read. Hopefully we will see an article about surfers from PA on there eventually.

All around it is a great site, and a more productive way waste time on the internet. You won't feel like x amount of hours were flushed away, in contrast to spending time watching clips of someone jumping off something on YouTube.