The Bay: Inside Nuevo Camino Surfboards

The Bay is a series of conversations with the people who make surfboards. Shapers, glassers and builders with their own way of looking at design, performance and the strange amount of knowledge that can end up inside a piece of foam.

For the first episode, we sat down with Mark Madchook of Nuevo Camino Surfboards.

Mark is a second-generation shaper and an accomplished glasser, with decades spent learning the process from both sides. Much of that foundation came from growing up around his father and the generation of board builders that came before him, but his references stretch well beyond surfing.

One of the more unexpected ones is motorsports. Mark talks about the influence of racing, engineering and the constant search for marginal gains, and how that mindset found its way into the way he approaches surfboards. Small changes matter. Materials matter. Weight, flex, finish and the relationship between all of them matter.

Costa Rica had been sitting somewhere in his imagination long before he eventually made it here. The Endless Summer was his first introduction to the country, planting an idea that stayed with him for years before he finally landed in Santa Teresa.