Donald Brink steps away from his SoCal shaping bay. Climbing behind the wheel of his Econoline van, he doesn’t start the engine. He crafts the order of his words with the same careful, algorithmic articulation he uses to design each surfboard. Brink takes his time.
“I just learned the definition of stress,” Brink says.
Behind the 42-year-old shaper, a quiver of prototypes lies stretched across quilted padding. The windows are spattered: grey soot from the wildfires, red dust from the sandstone cliffs at his favourite local spot. A South African flag sticker catches the flat Pacific light.
“Stress,” says Brink, “is to face a challenge with a lack of resources. It can describe not having enough work. It can also describe not having the systems to accommodate the opposite.
“I don’t know if you heard, but Matt Biolos and I just won the Stab thing with Mick Fanning?”
Less than a month after the shaping contest, a scalable model of the winning board can already be found online and in surf shops across the US and Australia.
“Art direction, phone calls, exposure…” Brink’s one-man operation is admittedly stressed to its limits. But a subtle smirk flickers through the fatigue before his next sentence. Because the win has affirmed over 20 years of faith.
“Mate – I am sooo busy!”
Born in Johannesburg in 1980, the second of two children, Donald Brink spent his first 14 years landlocked. Trade school courses in construction, mechanical drawing and electrical engineering taught him precision. On weekends, oil painting classes encouraged him to learn how to push an idea too
