Samaha Surfboards

Handcrafted | Custom Made | Central, FL

Adaptive Designs

Adaptive surfing really seems to be taking off everywhere now. Stoked to partner with the Adaptive Surf Project in SC on occasion to build custom boards for some really cool humans.

Boards:

From Logs, Mids, Minis and Paddle boards, I’ve had the opportunity to shape a little bit of everything and I’m super grateful for everyone that has trusted me to bring their dream board to life. Also could not have made it this far without some amazing glassers. Here’s a few of my favorite boards from over the years.Thanks for looking!

The Backstory:

Hi, my name is James Samaha, and this is my granddad, "DaddyMac" we called him, and he could fix anything.He had the most incredible workshop behind his house where I spent many hours growing up. He built a wood sailboat at one point, gave me my first welder and inspired me to always keep learning and tinkering.Because of him, I’ve always been creating and figuring out how complex things work from a young age. I built treehouses all over my neighborhood and skate ramps in my driveway with my 3 brothers. Built a couple of super crude boats and rafts from foam and wood I found in the marsh near my house and did some metal sculpting in my teen years.We grew up a street away from the Intercoastal Waterway in Little River, SC, and 5 minutes away from the beautiful small peeling waves found at the Cherry Grove Pier.When I got back home from college, I decided to spend a lot more time in the water surfing. I had surfed off and on growing up but skating and music had been my main focus. Got a banged up 7’2” mid-length off craigslist, patched her up and started chasing the swells up and down the coast of North and South Carolina. I’m so glad I found that 7’ 2”, it was the perfect board to help get me reacquainted with surfing. Probably spent a year or 2 on that mostly and then got a hold of a sweet 9 ft Ricky Carroll rounded pin, triple stringer, eps epoxy log. That board was just pure fun!At this point I was ready to try something smaller, but wasn’t having any fun riding traditional pointy nosed thruster short boards, so I started looking for a Mini Simmons type design which seemed more suited for the average guy on average waves. They all seemed out of my price range, so I did what I’d done many times before, I decided to make it myself.The year was 2012, and as many others before me have done, I found an old broken longboard, and shaped the nose into a fun little bar of soap, but the rocker was kinda weird and I made the fins too small. It was still fun though and I knew I was onto something. Next, I got some insulation foam from Lowe’s and slapped together a crude blank. The first ride on that second board (“The Shortbus”) was pure magic. Shaping and glassing all by myself in my backyard was quite the learning experience but I was hooked and it just kept snowballing from there.I don’t use insulation foam anymore, and looking back those first few shapes were super rough. Super stoked I took a chance and just went for it. Sometimes you hafta “let the badger loose” as Myrtle Beach surfing legend Kelly Rhode likes to say.Grateful for everyone that took a chance on me in those early days and let me shape them a board. And grateful for those still ordering customs and feeding my shaping addiction.I’m now located just inland from New Smyrna Beach, FL.I love sharing what I know and welcome anyone anytime to join me in The Laboardatory.If you made it this far, feel free to message me the code word “Pelican” on the Instagram and I’ll mail you a sticker!Stay stoked my friends!James SamahaP.S. The above was written by an actual human, not a soulless AI chat bot.

Antics:

This page is for documenting all the other shenanigans that I’ve been up to. Always building and creating or planning my next adventure or project. Welcome to my weird brain.Below is a compact easily deployed kitchen that I built in the back of our minivan. #vanlife

Fun screen grab below from Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon on a twin fin mini sims I handshaped and glassed in my garage.