Our Story.
Soundings Surf Co. was officially founded by Kevin Tanner in 2012, but the full story goes back much further.
Kevin first started surfing in 1997 at age 13, and it didn’t take long for him to become curious about the surfboard making process. In 1999, he glassed his first board, a shape by Rhode Island local Tom Hogan, and one year later he both shaped and glassed his first personal board with nothing but a block plane, sand paper and a surform. For the next ten years, Kevin shaped boards for himself under the name “Tanner Surfboards” or anonymously with no logo at all. At the encouragement of those who saw Kevin riding his boards at the local beach break, he founded Soundings Surf Craft in 2012.
Soundings Surf Craft quickly became Soundings Surf Co. as orders began to pour in, all glassed with the original anchor and life ring logo. By December 2012, Kevin’s business had grown from a small-scale operation in his parent’s backyard mostly cranking out boards for friends, to a full-on shaping and glassing business with its own shop in Charlestown, Rhode Island. By 2015, Kevin was developing notoriety and was featured in Eastern Surf Magazine’s “East Coast Shapers You Should Know”, and by the following year that notoriety was enough for Kevin to leave his construction job to pursue board making full-time. In 2017, Kevin transitioned from solely taking custom orders to partnering with the newly reopened Matunuck Surf Shop as a stockist of locally handshaped surfboards.
Following a devastating lightning strike in June 2020 that burned the shaping shed to the ground, Kevin relocated in 2022 to the newly established Space Rock Glassing facility where he continues to crank out Soundings boards while wearing the hat of Head Laminator for the glass house.
Today, Soundings boards can be seen at breaks from New England to Hawaii. Kevin continues to expand his catalog of shapes, and spends just as much time in the water testing them as he does creating them in the shaping bay.
