Come into the shop today to check out Kristina's wearable art- we've got a variety of tees for men, women, and girls. 

Dave and Tom Bracht of Brother Surf Crafts began making surfboards only a few years ago. But thanks to a combination of expert mentoring, talent, and dedication to the craft, this family team is now shaping and glassing full-time, and have developed nine distinct board shapes to fit a wide range of surf conditions and abilities. Many of their boards are now on the rack at DRIFT.

​This October, amidst a solid fall swell, Tom and Dave passed through Rhode Island to drop off a few boards—including a custom Pro-Fish for Rob (similar to this one). After a day’s worth of surfing overhead waves and strong offshore winds at Matunuck, we all made the trek up to Pawtucket for dinner. Over dumplings and noodles at what might be *the best* Chinese spot around, Dave and Tom gave us the story of how they started shaping and glassing boards, who’s influenced their work, and where they want to go next with their craft.

​Glassing was another challenge. Tom took his first board to a nearby glasser, but the wait and the cost were both prohibitive. Meanwhile, both his brother and Clark were encouraging him to keep shaping. With a humble pride in his voice, Tom recalls that Clark in particular was pushing him to develop his talent. “He was telling people…You gotta meet this guy Tom, he’s better than me after three boards.” Tom kept honing his skills. But as Dave explains, “When you make a board, you wanna ride it, to learn.” That is, it’s not just about the fun of surfing your own board, but seeing how the board actually rides, so you can improve the next one. Access to quick and cost-efficient glassing became imperative. The solution? Dave took up glassing, and the two have been working as a team ever since.  

Learning to glass like a pro was not easy. “I’d done it once before and the fumes were so bad,” Dave recalls. Rookie mistake—he wasn’t wearing a mask. “I had a headache for like a week.” The first boards Dave ever glassed, he admits, were rough. “We still have one and I wanna burn that thing so I don’t have to look at it. It’s so hideous.” Dave glassed literally hundreds of boards before he felt confident in his skills. Today, he’s developed not only his skillset but also an aesthetic that is classic and refined.

​In concert with Tom, Dave created a color palette for each stock board they shape. For their Pro-Fish, for instance, they like to stick to a deep, warm color palette (as seen in the header photo and here, here, and here). For mid-lengths, Dave prefers subdued pastels (see here). The theme running through all Dave’s glasswork is uniform: minimalist and sophisticated. “We try and do stuff that’s just simple, classy, won’t go out of style ten years from now.”

A key factor that sets Brother boards apart from a lot of what’s out there is that they are made by hand from start to finish. They make all their own board templates, starting off with chalk drawings in front of their house. “There’s these little kids that live down the street, and we have more sidewalk chalk drawings than they do,” jokes Dave. From there, Tom starts with a raw blank, cuts it out by hand, shapes it with a planer, and punches the fins. No machines here. From that point, Dave does the glassing and then either of them might do the sanding, plus some ‘secret’ final steps. Being brothers keeps them extra accountable for the resulting product: they’re hard on each other and don’t mince words. Dave has no problem telling Tom if a board was poorly shaped. And Tom remarks that for years he was “…pulling my hair out because I was really hard on Dave.” ​

If you're reading this you might have noticed Drift has a new look! After months of work, we just launched our new website, which we hope will give you a better idea of what Drift is all about and what you can expect to find when you come into the shop. We're aiming to post most of our new surfboards on the site and in the coming weeks we'll also be adding other items to our online shop, to make it easier for you get your hands on your favorite Drift gear. 

We're especially excited to feature the surf photography of Andrew Fisher. Originally from southern New Jersey, Andrew moved to Rhode Island for pharmacy school in 2004 and never looked back. A lifelong surfer, he began carrying a camera on his surf trips around the world and quickly became addicted to creating images. He's now been shooting surf photography for 14 years. 

Andrew's stunning aerial of the iconic Point Judith lighthouse during a swell felt like the perfect image to capture the feel of Drift.  If you've met Drift founder Rob Jones, you likely already know that PJ is his favorite wave in the world- which is saying a lot, given how many surf trips he's taken! Though many things can impact your life's path, the wave at the lighthouse is one of a few factors that led Rob to lay down roots here in southern Rhode Island many years ago. We hope you enjoy this and other photos from Andrew, and if you'd like to get prints, definitely reach out to him!