Surf culture extends beyond the coast establishing roots in Utah
Thaddeus Nicholls is many things. He’s a Cache Valley native, father of two, sourdough bread baker, surfer and surfboard shaper right here in Utah.
“I’m just some weird dude building surfboards in a landlocked state,” Nicholls said. “I don’t know how seriously people take me when they hear I’m a surfboard shaper, but you know, I actually do know what I’m talking about sometimes.”
Surrounded by surfboard blanks and Florida license plates, one could almost imagine they were in a beach shack right on the coast rather than a workshop in the dead of Utah’s winter. Nicholls runs his surfboard shaping business, Slide Theory Surf Craft, out of that workshop.
Nicholls shaped his first board in 2011. He got into surfing after earning his master’s degree in coral-reef ecology and marine sciences. He was doing marine work and was under the mentorship of a colleague in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. There he learned to shape surfboards.
“He was making boards for me for several years and I totally fell in love with surfing in general,” Nicholls said. “And then the whole idea of building a surfboard and riding your own equipment, that kind of thing, sounded really cool. I would always stop and watch Randy working on my boards and I just liked being there. So I started, just for fun, doing ding repair and finally got the courage up to ask Randy if he would take me under his wing and mentor me a little bit and teach me how to shape boards. He did and the rest is history. I dove in headfirst and went with it, you know?”
While giving a demonstration on his shaping process, he explained if he had nothing else to do with his time, he could crank out a board in three to four days. However, Nicholls has a full time job as a program coordinator for the Utah State University Ecology Center.
The process of making a board begins with a blank, which is foam used to create the core of the surfboard. Some are split down the middle so it can be glued with a stringer — a strip of wood that runs from the nose to the tail down the center of the blank.
From there, the blank is “skinned,” or passed over with a planer tool. Skinning means doing a really thin pass with the planer to take the skin off. Respiratory protection is worn from this point on. Rocker templates are used to shape it. The template is screwed into the side so the board is curved when the outline is sawed out.
“I always start on the bottom of the board — working on the contours of the bottom first, then you flip it over and cut your rail bands in, so you’re cutting off bands at a time with your planer to make bevel edges. You just make more and more bevel edges until you get a curved surface and can blend everything,” Nicholls said.
The rail bands control the way the surfboard responds in the water. Once the rail bands have been cut, the board needs to be sanded to make it smooth and even, before installing the fins. Nicholls said he will run his hands over the board to test that it’s ready to go.
“Some people call it the Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles test,” he said. “You just close your eyes and feel the board with your hands when you’re done. Feeling the different parts of the board end to end, and you develop and get to a point where you can feel if one side is thicker or if it’s good to go.”
Following the installation, the board is glassed with fiberglass and epoxy, and is a finished product.
“I like messing around with weird tail shapes,” he said. “I mean, I’ll build someone anything they want, but if I get artistic license for somebody and they don’t give me any direction other than a color palette, that’s when I do my best work because I will geek out on it.”
Nicholls’ boards are shipped all over the country, including Florida, California and New York.
“I love doing it,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it. It’s a dirty, disgusting, filthy job, if you can’t tell by looking at the shop. But you know, you have to love to do it. Just like surfing.”
Nicholls and his family moved back to Cache Valley during his wife’s second pregnancy.
“I was writing grant proposals to keep myself employed for like four years,” he said. “It was just time to move. You know, we got pregnant and it was like, okay, I need a big boy job with benefits. I don’t have any regrets moving back here. I miss surfing of course as much as I used to. But I still get in the water when I can. I still get in and paddle around, but I’ve definitely lost my edge. It’s a horrible wake-up call every time because it’s not like riding a bike. If you’re not doing it, you’ll lose it.”
When it came to deciding the name of his business, Nicholls said there are similar names for board shaping businesses out there, but he decided on combining surfing itself with the concept of creating your own board.
“On Slide Theory Surf Craft, the whole idea is that when you’re designing a board there’s designs that are tried and true, but I don’t like shaping conventional stuff,” Nicholls said. “I like experimenting and trying different things. So slide — you’re sliding on the water, you’re planing out, and the theory behind it is tinkering with new designs and trying new things just to see if they’ll work. You check it all out on my Instagram. The handle is
@thebeesaredying.”
For more information on Nicholls or surfboard shaping, go to slidetheorysurfcraft.com.
During the winter months, Nicholls’ focus shifts to snowboard and ski repair. There is less work in the wintertime, he explained, as it’s hard to work with resin when it’s cold; it becomes super thick and hard to set up. So he spends time tuning up skis and snowboards and even gets up the mountain a bit himself.
“It’s a blessing being here and being able to snowboard,” Nicholls said. “After sliding sideways on a surfboard for 10 years, making the transition to snowboarding was nice. I have no regrets. Riding the backcountry in deep powder is the closest thing I’ve found to fill the void of surfing.”
Others in Cache Valley use snowboarding as a close second to surfing as well.
USU surfer and student, Michael Worley, said surfing takes a lot of work.
“I like being able to know I can catch a wave. It’s a cool feeling to pick up speed and be in the ocean,” Worley said.
Worley said snowboarding and surfing are different but fill each other’s void.
“With snowboarding, you can find an edge faster, but in surfing it’s harder to find,” he said. “With surfing, there’s a more volatile start. You could catch a wave or you won’t, and with snowboarding you’re always going to make it down the mountain, you know?”
Others fill the surfing void by wakesurfing during the warmer months.
Former USU student Olivia Moorhouse is an avid wakesurfer who can’t get enough of the water.
“I got into wake surfing through some friends. They took me out and just kind of threw me in the water,” Moorhouse said. “There’s something special about being out on the waves and being one with the water. The hardest part about it, honestly, is not giving up on it. Because when you first get out there, you’re not going to be good. You can maybe get up but it takes a minute to find that sweet spot. You will fall, so you just have to keep going with it but I love it.”