Shaping the Sport of Surfing

Ashley Lloyd Surfboards – Creating Joy

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

With summer just around the corner it’s swimsuit season and more – time to think about a new surfboard.

In a crowded marketplace of competing surfboard brands, SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel found one that stands out from the rest – Ashley Lloyd Surfboards.

Santa Cruz-based surfboard shaper Ashley Lloyd Thompson – one of the few women in the male-dominated field of board shaping – has made a name for herself with her colorful, custom-designed boards.

Starting with the basic blanks that make up the body of each board, Lloyd Thompson transforms them into individualized works of art, conceiving the design and then painstakingly shaping and sanding each board.

Putting her passion for surfing and for life into every board, Lloyd Thompson has expressed that she is creating joy for herself and others through the boards she makes.

Lloyd Thompson, who started surfing while growing up in Malibu, also has taught surfing and competed professionally.

Later, she was mentored by board shaper Danny Tarampi and was a Bing team rider and board shaper.

Ashley Lloyd boards have gotten an international following. Along with this, they particularly appeal to women surfers because she understands their physical needs and creates customized boards that enable them to get the most out of the sport. 

Lloyd Thompson also has achieved something else unique in the world of surfboard shaping – a feature story in Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine.

The magazine chose her for being a woman “with an amazing story and a product we love.”

And, showing another side of her artistic abilities, she and her husband Alex are part of a band appropriately called The Shapes.

Ashley Lloyd Thompson has discovered that through hard work success is inevitable. Whatever she does, she is following her own path, catching the next wave…and putting her talents into all the things she creates. 

 

SurfWriter Girls

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Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.