How to Rebuild a Once-Sunk Boat Into an Adventure Surf Craft

Surfer Trevor Gordon & filmmaker Ian Durkin set out for remote coastal British Columbia to surf waves from a boat brought back to life

Ian Durkin

Based on a houseboat in Sausalito and raised on the east coast, Ian is a director and photographer who previously headed up the Staff Picks at Vimeo and later the film program at Rivian.

Words by Ian Durkin. Photograhy by Jeremy Koreski unless otherwise noted.

Trevor Gordon’s got a pretty cool thing going on in Santa Barbara. He lives on a sailboat with his wife Maddie and can paddle from his home to the local surf spot. He’s also always scheming up new projects.

Over the years I’ve worked on a bunch of videos with him—from building a camper for his truck from scratch, trying out a slew of finless boards, exploring Baja with a dinghy to a fictitious surf gang that only surfs party wave style. They’ve all been pretty scrappy and really fun to make together. This last one though, we had been talking about for over a year now.

Trevor wanted to build a boat and take it on a trip for the maiden voyage. It sounded simple in theory, but also really ambitious. I’ve never built anything of that scale, but Trevor was confident. Then again, I also wasn’t doing any of the building, so I didn’t really have anything to worry about. Six months later, we had the opportunity to work with Danner, Taylor Stitch, St. Archer brewing, and Feral wetsuits, so Trevor started building.

I was in Brooklyn for the summer and our friend and photo/DP extraordinaire Erin Feinblatt filmed the progress of the build in Santa Barbara. I would get these text updates from Trevor and Erin throughout the summer… it sounded really dusty, hot and itchy but Trevor friggin’ did it. He built a boat. A beautiful and really fast one at that.

"It sounded really dusty, hot and itchy but Trevor friggin’ did it. He built a boat. A beautiful and really fast one at that."

By the time I came out to Santa Barbara in late Fall, all that was left was basically getting the motor, electrical and finishing stuff dialed, which entailed some late night gas syphoning. After a week of that, we were headed north.

Trevor, his friend Tosh, and I had a blast the whole time, and our friend Jeremy Koreski gave us much needed local knowledge of coastal BC and helped with filming and taking photos. Overall, it was one of the more memorable and involved projects I’ve been on from start to finish and I’m psyched to finally share the video.