May 22, 2020

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY THREAD...

Time to Read: 13 minutes, 30 seconds

Sail Shorts (for surfing)

When you need a pair of boardshorts, who do you ask? You ask the people who use 'em hardest. Lifeguards and surfers.

And when you do that, you come up with Birdwell Beach Britches.

Mama Birdwell sewed the first pair of 311 board shorts in her Southern California living room. Her sons needed shorts for surfing. And Carrie Birdwell Mann wanted to make them something safer than the canvas shorts popular at the time.

One day while running errands at Newport Beach, she caught wind of the material used for sails on sailboats. Mama Birdwell ran to the nearest sail shop and snagged some spinnaker cloth.

After discovering what she needed, Mama Birdwell commissioned her very own blend of fabric. She called it SurfNyl. It's trademarked and Birdwell still uses it today.

Birdies have improved a bit since the first pair. What else do you expect from 50 years of lifeguard field testing?

Something that hasn't changed? Birdies are still made right here in the USA (Santa Ana, CA to be exact).

With lockdown restrictions easing, your local swimming holes will be opening up soon. And if you plan on surfing any swell this season, better make sure you got the right trousers for the job.