Getting to Know Ryan Engle
The Man Behind CJ Nelson’s Traditional Longboards
They say that behind every great surfer there’s a great shaper—or at least they should say that. Name any of surfing’s legendary athletes, and you will invariably find that there’s a master board builder associated with them.
Logging legend CJ Nelson is no different. He’s worked with a number of great surfboard shapers over the years, but when the time came to design his own line of boards, it was Ryan Engle whom he decided to work with—and for good reason. Ryan started shaping in 2002, under Steve Boehne at Infinity Surfboards in Dana Point. He was already a successful surfer (both short and long boards), and his interest in the boards under his feet quickly led Ryan to develop his own design style.
Since then, Ryan has shaped thousands of boards, for everyone from CJ Nelson and Corey Colapinto to the weekend warrior at your local spot. The pinnacle of his shaping has manifested in CJ Nelson’s Sprout, which many consider to be the greatest noserider ever shaped. This is the board that CJ surfed to universal acclaim in the movie The Sprout (which the board was named after), and has become the foundation of CJ’s line of traditional longboards.
A master craftsman equally adept at shaping longboards and short, Ryan Engle has become one of the most respected shapers in the logging community—and with the endorsement of CJ Nelson, it’s easy to see why.