Victoria Vergara, China. Photo: Poullenot/Swatch

6. It’s preferable to use the Australian term ‘Chinese wax job’ in reference to unwittingly waxing the underside of a surfboard in transit rather than the ‘Irish wax job’, when on a surf trip to Ireland. If on a surf trip to China, use either.

7. You should always take beer upon collection of custom to the factory, to be shared among workers. If the spray isn’t exactly what you were after, it’s OK for that beer to be Grafenwalder from Lidl. Wine or whiskey specifically for the shaper can alienate glasser/sander/etc, which is never a good for future orders.

8. Despite the irrefutable truth of the statement, looking at the signature on the stringer of a friend’s new off-the-rack stock board and then announcing, ‘This isn’t an actual Merrick/JS/DHD/Rusty’ means you will forever be considered bad company.

9. Please don’t post your quiver’s dimensions on Facebook, particularly when it’s the ‘About to leave for Indo’ quiver post. No one cares. There must be someone famous that just died, can’t you RIP post them, instead?

10. It’s OK when someone asks ‘How big is that one?’ to not know, flip it over and read off the stringer, but don’t feel too smug about not knowing, like, ‘Oh I got so many’.

Furthermore, it’s OK to not know between six somethings (or five somethings), but
you should always know that it’s one or the other. Thus ”It’s a six….er… oh no wait, 5’11” is not acceptable.