Lucas and Sons

“Lucas' Ark”

Nobody would‘ve guessed. In this small, quiet neighborhood, mostly occupied by senior residences, in a basement, underneath a personal mini-ramps, hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest coast, where the morning sea breeze is instead replaced by fresh mountain dew -lays a surfboard shaping bay. LUCAS AND SONS TAILOR MADE SURF BOARDS, it is called.

Nobody wouldn‘t have either guessed that the shaper, Lucky Widiantara — also known as one of the co-founder of UNKL347, learned how to make the boards only through YouTube and video tutorials he ordered from the internet. “eBay also helps”, he remarked to complete the learning tools. The process was never easy, it took him over a year to find his own formula to shape the kinds of surfboards he likes. Within that period he gave away most of the surfboards to a local surf community in Batu Karas, West Java, his home break, although the boards needed to travel in a 7-hour-drive to reach the waves. The result is now satisfactory but he claims that he is still learning, and that refers to keeping up with the ever-growing trends and models of surfboards.
 

The workshop was intended to shape balsa wood surfboards using local Indonesian timbers. But as time goes by, the demands of foam-based surfboards overtake the initial purpose. The interesting fact is, LUCAS AND SONS determines to shape the boards ‘subjectively’ in terms of making them as suitable as possible to the owners’ needs and life-styles. That also occurs to the graphics on the board, which are mostly designed by Lucky himself. This has always become his biggest concern in shaping and designing since surfboards are still considered as highly valuable goods in Indonesia, and even sometimes regarded as a ‘second-wife’ to surfers, so it is essential for someone to be very comfortable with the feel and the look of their boards.
 

So far, LUCAS AND SONS surfboards has traveled as far as Japan and Europe, not to leave behind the orders from best friends and surf buddies who is now lining up to get a touch of personality on their wave-riding gear. The company is now taking it easy but persistent, as its owner states, “Every person has their own way of surfing. You need to wait for the right wave to come, the one you think is best for you, not what everyone else told you so.”