Surf Prescriptions

Jeff Lausch is an Orange County guy from the womb to the tomb. He grew up in Fountain Valley and made that natural gravitation from the shady turf to the sunny surf during high school. In the 70s and 80s Lausch was a part of the Orange County punk scene. He was "a full garage guy" often seen with a lot of wild hair poking out of a shaping mask, and he got tagged "Doc Mad." He didn't really want that nickname but nicknames can sometimes stick and he was forever after Doc Lausch. When Doc went legit with his own company, he decided to call it Surf Prescriptions. As a shaper, some of Doc's boards have made history at Teahupoo and Cortes Bank and all over California. The guy can shape and Surftech is proud to have the Good Doctor making a pair of high-performance boards for the mature surfer under the Surftech label.

When Doc was still Jeff in the late 60s he traded his girlfriend's father a longboard for one of Bill Fury's old Skill 100 planers and a career was launched. Doc made his first board for himself in 1969 in his father's garage in Fountain Valley: "It was super flat but went really fast," Doc said. "It was a diamond-tail, single-fin. A 7' 1" but I was a little guy and that board flew." Doc liked flying and making things that flew and he took over Freedom Surfboards from the founders: His brother and a friend. "That was a full garage thing," Doc said. "And it lasted from 1969 to 1984. I also did some ghost shaping for Shawn Stussy, but all of this was under the table, or should I say, in the garage."

There comes a time in every shaper's life when it is time to come out of the garage. That time came in 1984 for Doc so he went legit under the title Surf Prescriptions. And he has been legitimately making a lot of good surfboards ever since. In 1997 Conan Hayes borrowed a 7' 2" from Marc Moreno during the first Gotcha contest at Teahupoo. Conan made it to the final on that board, which handled the world's most treacherous wave in such a way that Hayes wasn't killed to death. "That was a big deal for us," said Amber Lausch. "They saw the trust of the board and all of a sudden all these guys started coming and that is when Surf Prescriptions started exploding." A few years later, Brad Gerlach boated out to the Cortes Bank and rode a Doc during the pioneering assault on the world's most Outer Reef. Gerlach, too, survived. And if you saw that Taylor Steele video Drive Through, Donovan Frankenreiter's weird, finless USO was also prescribed by Doc.

He's experienced and innovative and he's got a couple of his personal designs in the Surftech quiv: "For Surftech I designed a 6' 8" and a 6' 10" high volume performance model. These are boards for guys who are bigger or older; surfers who I thought weren't enough attention in the world of 6' 2"s. These are high-performance shortboards for the bigger guy, and I like how the ride under the Surftech construction. They're super light and really fast and loose. They kind of take me back to that diamond-tail 6' 9" I made all those years ago. I'm bigger now but I still like to fly. And I still have Bill Fury's Skil 100."
  • 5'8" - New Toy 5'8" - New Toy
    N : 11
    M : 19
    T : 14 1/2
    Th : 2 1/4
    Fins
    Centre : N/A
    Side : Future V2 R1
    Board Review

    More info

  • 6'8" - HVP 6'8" - HVP
    N : 11
    M : 19
    T : 14 1/2
    Th : 2 1/4
    Fins
    Centre : N/A
    Side : Future F5
    Board Review

    More info