Meet: The Sheriff.
At the helm of the creative fusion that is Moonshine Surfboards stands Jack Medland, The Sheriff.
To say Jack is simply a surfer would be an understatement. He's a collector of stories and nostalgia. His vintage longboard collection is a testament to his reverence for the history of the sport. Each board carries with it the tales of countless rides, the echoes of bygone eras, and the evolution of surfing itself.
Moonshine is a unique blend of cowboy inspiration and quintessential Australian surf culture. How do these influences resonate with you and your surfing?
What Moonshine shape is your go-to weapon at the moment?
To say Jack is simply a surfer would be an understatement. He's a collector of stories and nostalgia. His vintage longboard collection is a testament to his reverence for the history of the sport. Each board carries with it the tales of countless rides, the echoes of bygone eras, and the evolution of surfing itself.
Moonshine came about after wanting to make traditional longboards and different surfboards in WA. Most of WA’s surfing population were (and still are) surfing performance thrusters and not looking to ride anything apart from that so there was quite a gap in the market. Pete Dwyer (Dwyer surfboards) and I set off surfing and making boards in the bush for any folk who dared step off a conventional shortboard. We found our place and just kept on grinding really. Credit to Ross Rutherford who was shaping our stringerless logs early days. Pete has since peeled off and got a real job whilst I’ve dragged Evan Ledger into the glassing bay whilst helping him avoid the hassle of being a qualified architect. We shared workspace with Von surfboards in Vasse through a few pivotal years before finding our own workshop in Vasse just over a year ago.
I believe you have to be passionate when you are shaping. Especially handshaping. If you don’t really care about what you’re making, it will show in your final product. It’s not one of those jobs you can just rock up at. I also think passion drives the whole brands development, it represents commitment and dedication to what you’re doing and the work you are creating.
Moonshine is a unique blend of cowboy inspiration and quintessential Australian surf culture. How do these influences resonate with you and your surfing?
Being from WA we always had a bit of Wild West about us. A lot of surf breaks in WA involve travelling through stations and country so I think there’s a unique relationship between our country and our waves. I have also really enjoyed hitting rodeos around the state.Country music is king.
Authentic , functional and classic.
What Moonshine shape is your go-to weapon at the moment?
I am really enjoying shaping experimental stringerless designs but my go to stock shape is the Ranger log. It continues to impress me how much you can push it in a variety of waves. Its outline was derived from a 1967 Ken Adler San Juan shape which goes to show how dialled they had back then and how not much has actually changed.
Yeehaw.