We had a little incident with our Murray Ross surfboard and needed a quick repair. I called Kitty Hawk Kayaks and they directed me to Gail Force Glassing in Kill Devil Falls, just a few miles from our place. I called and left a message. In an hour, I received a call from the man himself, the famed shaper and surfboard artisan Murray Ross. Murry gave me a tour of his efficient facilities to see the making of a surfboard, after picking up ours. The foam cores with one thin strip of birch wood in the center are glued and then taken into the shaping room. Here they are hand-shaped and sanded. Special lighting highlights just the bottom or the top of the board to find that perfect shape. On the wall is a guide the shaper uses to eye his creation as he cuts and shaves away. Once the board is shaped, which takes a good hour for a seasoned shaper, it is sent to have colors or stripes added. Murray recently created a board for a returning Marine with the Marine Corps logo and all his comrades’ names on the board. From the painting room, the board is sent to the resin room where the fiberglass fabric is added and then a gel coat is applied. The boarder has about ten minutes to work with the resin as it hardens. Then the board is polished and waxed, adding one-eighth of an inch of wax to the board. Custom-made and made in America, Murray refuses to fix Chinese-made boards, as he never knows what they are made of and has had issues with repairs bubbling up. I wonder how many Global Traveler readers catch waves when they travel around the world? — Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO