Ex Pro-Surfer Matt Barrow - has over 18 years board building experience on four continents, currently shaping boards in the UK and Spain, what Matt doesn’t know about surfboard building probably isn’t worth knowing.

 

            

Grommit:

 Newquay, Cornwall

  1984 - 1992  

                               Matt was born in Cornwall in 1976.  His interest in surfing was ignited by his father Mark, who took him surfing at the tender age of eight and a half  at Watergate Bayon a Keo single fin. The following Summer he got his first surfboard a 6’10 Creamed Honey single fin.  When he was ten he got his first custom board – a 5’6 three fin Boardwalk board shaped by Chris Jones. He started competing from the age of eleven when Quiksilver started sponsoring him. 

Pro Surfer:

Europe and South America

1993 –1999          His hobby soon became a passion so he was sent away to school to stop him bunking off to go surfing.  In the end it made no difference as he left school in the middle of his ‘A’ levels to surf the European Contests and take up a full time job making surfboards. Mentored by the legend European champion Grishka Roberts, his best results were; 4^th in the European Championships two times and British Champion two times.  He also went to the world championships in Brazil.

                                 

                                

  Repair Man, Fin Foiler and Gloss Wet and Dryer :

  Ocean Magic, Newquay

  1992 – 1996         

                                From the age of fourteen Matt worked in the surfboard factory during his Summer holidays  and at sixteen and a half he worked there fulltime since then he has been making boards for himself. His first customs were made in 1996.  Board number 2 for Martin Dempsey is still in existence.His job was to lay up fin panels, template them cut them out and foil them into shape with a sander. He also fixed boards and polished and glossed boards and wet sanded them as there was no pro-tech in those days. He also learnt to sand boards aswell. While working here Matt met Greg Brown, Wayne Lynch, Mark Phipps, Maurice Cole, Jeff Johnston and Ned McMann.

                     

 

Fin Man, Hot Coater and Shaping Apprentice

 Gash Surfboards Torquay Australia

  1997-

 

Greg Brown invited Matt over to Oz  to teach him the basics of shaping at the Gash factory where they made the first Quiksilver boards. Matt spent all his free time surfing with Shawn Brooks and Fletcher Green. After  six months at the Gash Factory  and he bought a car to do a surf trip up to Darren Handley’s factory where hehad heard they needed a Sander. On his way up the coast he stopped off at the Local Motion factory here he got a sanding job.

Sander

Local Motion, Ballina Australia

1998-1999           Sanding , hanging out with  Cleghorn and learning from shapers  Gunter Rhon, Brian Ingham and Tony Cerff. Foiling fins in the Winter time at Fluid Fins because he needed to buy a new car the gears having been damaged whilst it was on loan.

 

Sander and Shaper

Euroglass Hossegor 

Summer 1999

                                Upon  his return to the UK Matt  got straight back into surfing the European circuit  and whilst surfing at Hossegor he  met up with his friend Steven Bell (Belly) to fill in sanding and shaping for Rob Vaughan while he was away on holiday.  Here he was making boards for the q-stik label.

                                And one day while working at Euroglass Ignacio from Pukas arrived to drop of some materials. It had been a while since he                                                       had stayed with him in Australia.  He was looking for someone to work at Pukas and asked if  Matt would like to work with hem and as  Belly explained that my work there would be coming to an end as Rob was returning from holiday the job offer was very serendipitous.

 

Laminator

Pukas, San Sebastian

1999-2000

 Matt took the job laminating at Pukas so moved to San Sebastian. Under the tutelage of the consummate professional Mike Ryan Matt perfected the art of production glassing whilst  still shaping boards for himself and the hot local surfers at Gros beach.  Matt was lucky enough to be at Pukas during one of their golden ages, at that time there was a real flavour of international shapers from resident shaper Bruce Mckee (Aus)toPeter Daniels (SA), Jeff Johnston (Hawaii), Brian Ingham(Aus), Steve Wilson (Hawaii), Gunter Rhon(Aus), Matt Biolos( California), Reno Abileria( Hawaii), Milton Whilar(Peru), Jed Noll ( California) and Pat Rawson (Hawaii).

Shaper

Pukas, San Sebastian

2000-2004 

Like all of the famous shapers Matt worked with at Pukas hand shaping off the blank was their speciality but in 2001 the arrival of the first European Brazilian DSD preshaping machine marked a new era of custom surfboard shaping.  Matt quickly learnt how to use the  machine and the CAD programme learning a great deal from Jeff Johnston  (who was head shaper at T&C where they had the first DSD machine),who was generous enough to give him his time and knowledge. The benefits of this blank preshaping machine were great not only did it cut out a lot of the hand milling but it gave the shaper much more control over the consistency of a models’ look, accurately cutting the boards to within a 100th of an inch. 

 

Matt shaped his MB Matt Barrow surfboards  for some of the best surfers in Europe - the Acero brothers, Danni Garcia, Russel Winter, Hodei Collazio and  Aritz Arumburu gaining invaluable feedback for perfecting his designs.   He also shaped the DHD  Darren Handley label for Europe whilst at Pukas.  

 

Shaper

2004 - 2008

Factory 52, Cornwall

In 2004 Matt decided to set up  a surfboard factory in Cornwall with his international contacts he not only had the MB label to make there but also Rusty surfboards for Europe and Lost, Jed and Greg Noll, Rawson, Bear and Billabong and Quiksilver for the UK.  Thanks to a great deal of support the best surfboard factory in Europe was built according to the exacting British safety standards with the first UK DSD machine.  Here Matt also made boards for Ferrari to complement the Challenge Stradl car and for Carharrt.

 

 Unfortunately due to the approaching economic crisis and the ever continuing onslaught of cheap Chinese imports Matt was forced with much regret to shut the factory down in 2008.  Ironically his MB Matt Barrow surfboards are more popular than ever and he shapes in the UK at Seabase in Newquay and at Soul Surfboards in Seville, Spain.  So now without the restraints of running a business Matt spends all his time doing what he is best at- designing, shaping and testing surfboards.  For more info on  Matt’s work go to the Surfboards  page.