Tom Doidge-Harrison

Bio
Growing up far from the sea in the rural West Country of England, a surfing path was definitely not a given for me. Beach holidays and enthusiastic maternal memories of surfing plywood planks in the Atlantic ignited the passion. I can clearly remember snapping my first board, polystyrene body board I think, leaving me–a skinny eleven year old wearing mum's wetsuit–shivering on a Cornish Beach. Fast forward twenty odd years and I find myself living in a dream world, sitting fortuitously on the coattails of Northern Europe's drive into 'out there' surfing.

Some lucky breaks have directed the path. A school exchange program to the French coast, friends who surfed and bizarrely the decision to study Mining Engineering. The latter indirectly led me to Ireland and the best break of all. Ireland is where I have really found my surfing legs and found myself pushed into ever more interesting situations. Lately, I've been lucky to be surrounded by people who seem to push themselves, surf wise, into what is really the unknown to the crowd we run with. Once again it’s purely fortuitous that the central figure here is my photographer mate, Mickey Smith, whose documentation of the last few seasons (see mickeysmith.co.uk ) has made ripples around the world, his talent shadowing his true 'Pied Piper' nature. Right place, right time, in so many different ways.

I keep the whole show on the road dividing my time between being a board repair geek and a planning engineer at a local mine. One being good for flexible hours and one being good for bank! I've been fixing boards since I first dinged one and I've been amazed by this pivotal piece of equipment since I first held one. The years of repairing surfboards have slowly led into shaping them, that and the basic need for functional equipment in the wave territory we've recently entered. The tow boards go good but I'm yet to really nail the holy grail, a good 6'3!

Favorite Products
FCD 7'6 board. Basically, it is my favourite product so far and I could talk some good talk about why.

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