I first met Barrett Miller when he was shaping a board for Emi Erickson inside Dick Brewer’s old shaping bay at the Center of Radical Education (CORE) at the old sugar mill in Waialua. He has also brought along some boards that looked absolutely prime for charging the North Shore and that’s exactly what’s on tap in our latest episode of Quivers.
In this quiver, Barrett paid homage to tried and true designs made by legends like Mark Richards and Reno Abellira and, as we see in one of broken boards, didn’t hold back in putting them to the test. The quiver was glassed at Joel Tudor’s shop in San Diego by Alex Villalobos — aka Superwolf — and the crew.
“I really wanted to make a special batch before departing from that shop,” he said. “Alex learned from Tom Eberly, who glassed some of the most insane boards of all time — all those Mark Richards and Reno boards. So I really wanted to have that homage and tribute to Tom and the past guys.”
The quiver itself is the product of years of careful research in the field. “Maybe I wasn’t here all winter, but just coming here for at least a few weeks each season, trying bigger boards, feeling out the waves, and really trying to put my time in in my own way,” Barrett explained. “This is basically several years of work put into wanting to be surfing Sunset and Second Reef. Trying to figure out what works best for me.”
One board in the quiver carries a deeper lineage. Built on an outline originally from South Shore Surfboards — a label with serious history, where Greg Marts glassed and Dick Brewer shaped — Barrett has gradually modernized it over the years while preserving its soul. “I got to work on it with Joel,” he said. “It still has the touches of a classic single pin, but it just feels like a great all-around board. I bring it with me everywhere — Morocco, Hawaii, Mexico — because I can ride it when it’s smaller, I can ride it when it’s big. It just works.”
“I never wanted to be a shortboarder or a longboarder or a big wave guy,” he said. “I just thought — why not ride everything? There’s so much stuff out there, and it’s a shame to be so closed-minded. Especially out here. There’s so many different waves and so much different energy at every spot. Why not try every board? You wanna try it all.”
Related: A Good Quiver Deserves a Good Home: A Look at LISS Racks