21 . 01 . 17
Naming something is a difficult business. And, you only get one shot. Sometimes, a name comes instantly as if it was always meant to be, whilst at other times the right name takes a little longer to reveal itself. Every model of surfboard that we design and make here at Otter Surfboards is given a name, and this is standard practice not just here but in almost any industry that produces something, be it surfboards, watches or cars.
It took us a while to find the right name for our latest model, a 7’10” “Sunset-style” single fin mini-gun inspired by those developed in Hawaii in the 1970s to successfully ride the powerful waves of Oahu’s North Shore. It needed a name that implied both speed and power. We spent a good bit of time over numerous tea breaks throwing ideas around, but none felt quite right. And then, as is often the case, tea provided the answer. Stacked up, at the back of the workshop, are a number of old tea chests that we use for storage. Tea chests stamped with their port of origin, from India, Kenya, and China. They made us think of the ships that originally raced to deliver tea from the East Indies to London in the middle third of the nineteenth century: the Tea Clippers.
