Swaylock's: Treasure Trove of Surfboard Design
photos courtesy of Swaylock's
by JD Jenkins
posted 2003-09-15
Mike Paler occupies a unique seat in the new millennium of surfing. He's the web craftsman and creator behind Swaylock's Surfboard Design Forum, the go-to site for anyone interested in anything to do with surfboards. Design, shaping, glassing, history, culture? it's all there, growing byte by byte everyday, thanks to a wide range of talented and sincere contributors.
Photo courtesy of Swaylock's
BLESSED SERENDIPITY
Paler is still coming to grips with the size and popularity of what essentially started off as a science project. He bluntly refers to the whole thing as a "lucky mistake." In the height of the dot com frenzy of 1998 and already weary of web design, he began teaching himself programming. He wanted a project that was themed around his great passion, surfing. And so it came to pass that Paler installed a humble script for a discussion board entitled "surfboard design forum". He seeded it with a few campy questions, such as "What is a twinfin?" Then he called his fianc? and asked her to post a few questions of her own. He then set out answering those same questions under a different identity, and let the internet slowly work its magic.
Perhaps it was the non-commercial nature of the site, or the talent of its growing number of participants, or maybe just dumb luck, but over time Swaylock's began attracting big name shapers and sporting lively conversation extending over an eclectic range of topics. Paler had stumbled onto something special. Most who visited the site experienced the same realization. Swaylock's was different, and quickly making a name for itself.
Photo courtesy of Swaylock's
There are many reasons for the site's durability, but Paler had a great advantage in being the first one to offer a forum dedicated to everything about surf craft, unfettered with advertising and flashing surf forecasts. Like a high performance surfboard, his website had clean lines and simplicity, but frankness in purpose. It had focus, yet it had fun.
"I think I just got in before anyone else did", Paler muses. "I was originally going to set up a forum about graphic design. Then I realized there were at least a hundred graphic design forums out there and frankly I wasn't that interested in graphic design anymore. I looked around for a surfboard discussion forum, and I didn't find one." The rest is history. Paler notes that since he's cropped up, several other surfboard design forums have come and gone, none seeming to match the depth, maturity, and openness of Swaylock's.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
The name "Swaylock's" has confounded many. It's not a surfing term. But now, of course, it has become one. Admittedly the moniker conjures up images of a swaying ocean or waves, or surfers dropping and fading into the pit, only to be "locked into" a barrel. Nothing could be further off the mark.
Photo courtesy of Swaylock's
The "Sway" part of Swaylock's came from a childhood friend of Paler's, who was always making up new words and nicknames for everyone around him. Paler was dubbed "Pay", and one day, for no good reason, it evolved into "Sway". Late one Saturday afternoon the two were sitting around watching a basketball game and Mookie Blaylock was hitting the boards. Mike commented on what a cool name the ballplayer had. In a flash, his friend bolted upright, looked at him and cried out, "Swaylock!" Michael Paler was henceforth known as "Swaylock".
"It's a funny name", smiles Paler, "and the reason I applied it to the discussion forum was because I wanted to give it a name that had nothing to do with anything, something totally original."
