In The Shaping Bay: Britt Merrick

A lifetime of study under the Channel Islands name: all in the family business
Imagine arriving into this world with the last name of Merrick. Imagine being a kid and looking through the door of your dad’s shaping bay, planer at work, and watching for hours the creation of boards for surfers like Shaun Tomson, Davey Smith, and young Tommy Curren. Then imagine deciding in your late teens to take up the family craft yourself. “He’d show me a little, tiny curve on the rail,” says Channel Islands shaper and designer Britt Merrick about father Al. “‘That’s going to catch water right there,’ he’d tell me. But I couldn’t even see it. It was demanding, but really good for me. I feel super privileged now to have been able to shape with my dad for years and years.” Our newest episode of In The Shaping Bay profiles Britt and his Channel Islands compound in Santa Barbara, where he shapes high-performance equipment for a new generation of CI teamriders like Dane Reynolds, Conner Coffin, Zeke Lau, and more. Just over the hill sits the ultimate testing grounds, the Queen of the Coast herself. From there, a short drive takes you to the Carpinteria CI factory, staffed by a team who meticulously upholds its standards to match the same priorities of Al - and now, of Britt - since the family founded the company in 1969: to allow surfers to do exactly what they always imagined on a wave.
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[@gabrielcardoso5731]

i wanna start shaping boards now

[@stokes58]

Does facial hair eliminate the need for a dust mask?

[@ajg8600]

I love how it zooms in on the obviously unused respirator covered in dust and cuts to britt sanding down a blank with no protection.

[@timkeane2907]

Where do you live and work by?

[@dreforsleep]

Humble and stoked

[@mikeneumann4660]

Excellent.

[@bardansrb]

What’s the song playing????

[@surfermag]

The music is by Conner Coffin!

[@andreabordoni2665]

Beautiful farm and what a life 🤩

[@topdeckdog]

Great boards. Drawing a Christian fish next to your name on the stringer is a bit much 👎

[@jacksnavely1073]

Why? It’s his boards/company. You don’t have to buy them

[@arjunapraca4618]

Was that namibia becaese it was back words

[@krusher74]

booby martinez from santa barbera , I think its sand spit.

[@surferjo4581]

Yeah