Oh I know this rumor has been floating around
for a few months, even finding seed at The Inertia and
Stab now but my sources tell me it’s almost officially
official. That Quiksilver has closed out purchase of Billabong
which includes MMA brand RVCA. And not really Quiksilver but
Oaktree capital. Shall we dig into this sordid affair? Let’s!
You recall that Australian surf giant Billabong was the first of
the surf brands to really really really fall on hard times. Their
untethered buying spree (Nixon, RadGnar, YoYo Beats,
Icezzzcreamzzz, etc.) did not turn out as planned when cocaine
fueled the days and cocaine fueled the nights. Thus, Billabong was
left in a very precarious position. Their debt and mistakes were
scooped up, in form of a loan, by investment group Oaktree Capital,
leaving Billabong to limp along with brands RVCA, SupaFly, JZM and
CNTMTHRFCKR.
Then you recall that Quiksilver went full on bankrupt with the
same Oaktree Capital ushering the brand out of protected lack of
money.
So. Oaktree Capital basically “owns” Quiksilver and Quiksilver
is buying Billabong x etc. How’s that?
Do you remember when the fantastic Malibu brand Brothers’
Marshall did their QuikBongRip t-shirts and when they got taken
down under threat of lawsuit?
Wait. Have I written this story already last year? Do you
remember reading it? I vaguely remember writing it.
P.S. Real quick. I’ve wondered about this for years. Who in hell
buys a Maserati? That photo is from Stab and so maybe
Stab people dream in Maserati? I don’t get it. At all.
Maserati. Very unfortunate.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Slater: “This is my fav hunk of foam!”
By Derek Rielly
A very pretty, contest-winning five-ten from the
champ’s eponymous label…
Last September, Kelly Slater grabbed perhaps the final
win of his three-decade career, combo-ing John John
Florence in the final of the Tahiti Pro.
Kelly included a 9.77 and a 9.90 in his heat total of 19.67. It
was Kelly’s fifty-fifth contest win.
And the surfboard he won the event on, which is called The
Gamma, is Kelly’s “utility short board” design. It means he can
ride ‘em in a variety of conditions. Kelly keeps a a quiver of
Gammas in one-inch increments from 5’9” to 6’1”.
However, this version, a 5’10” x 18 3/8” x 2 5/16th, just shone
from the batch. A touch shorter a little more beef for getting it
over the ledge.
I ask Kelly, who is at the Slater Designs factory in Carlsbad,
just north of San Diego, what specific pleasures it has given
him?
A wave, a turn?
“I won Teahupoo and got a twenty-point heat on it. What else do
you need?” he says.
Were you intimately involved in its design?
“I wasn’t in the shaping bay but I did verbally design the board
and worked through a few renditions of it to get to this.”
Were you immediately thrilled, or were you displeased, by its
appearance?
“Yeah, well, if you don’t like what a board looks like you don’t
pick it up and ride it. So…yes! I’ve had the board for
over a year now but I retired it after that contest because I was
waiting to use it in similar waves again.”
Can you tell if a board is going to be good before you ride
it?
“I feel like I can, but that said, I had a board recently that
was an early version of the Gamma, one of the first iterations of
it. And at the time I was putting a little more foam in my boards,
more volume, and this one felt too fine so I didn’t touch it for
two years. And then I rode it recently and it felt amazing.
Sometimes your mind can tell you one thing and then you get on
something and it can be the best board you’ve ridden. You have to
feel it out without judgement.”
When you stood up on that first wave of Teahupoo on it, did it
feel special?
“That’s the secret to a good board is that feels like it jumps
on you,” says Kelly. “It feels like it moves where you want to so
you don’t really have to think about it. I haven’t ridden that
board since Teahupoo last year, I might’ve ridden it in France
briefly, but yeah, I got on it and it was one of those surfboards
that went wherever I thought and I was able to make a lot of waves
that for whatever reason I didn’t think I was going to make,
busting through the foam or whatever.”
Tell me some of the specifics of the design.
“It’s a steady rocker. A continuous rocker. It has a single
concave so that flattens the rocker in the centre. It’s a
standardised board for what people are doing but the trick is in
the rocker and working out, over time, the concave so you
don’t get too much lift in the tail. It’s about finding balance in
the curve and the lift.”
You treat this board real good? In cotton wool?
“It’s a weird thing,” says Kelly. “You win a contest on a board
and you want to keep that thing on ice but at the same time if
you’re not riding it consistently then you don’t know all the
little intricacies that made it so good. So you gotta beat up a
board to be in tune with it. That’s the Good Surfboard
Dilemma for us.”
I got a little cash. How much to buy?
“How much you got,” says Kelly. “You gotta start negotiating
sonewhere. How much you got?”
Not much! I gave it all to Matt Warshaw!
(Editor’s note: This story first appeared in Surfing
Life’s surfboard issue, number 338. Buy
it or subscribe here.)
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Literary: BG founder writes smash hit!
By Chas Smith
Derek Rielly is the talk of the literary town!
Derek Rielly has always been, and will always
be, the love of my professional life. Our paths first crossed well
over a decade ago. He was an Australian surf stalwart having edited
Surfing Life and Waves magazines, being the
founding editor of Surf Europe and then co-founding
Stab. I was but a small nothing, having traveled to some
Middle Eastern/East African countries and writing about the
adventures for Vice. Derek read, we got in touch, and
I started writing for Stab.
I loved everything about it. The stories, the font, the
pictures, the style. I would write and send Derek my embarrassingly
juvenile work then wait patiently by the mailbox until the physical
issues were printed, bound and flown across the Pacific to my Los
Angeles home. All I wanted to do was be in Stab but
realized, right when Derek left, that the only person I wanted to
write for was Derek. He was the magazine’s beating heart. He was
the reason it made my heart pound.
Three-ish years ago now he told me about BeachGrit and,
even though I thought I was exiting this surf world, would never
tell him no. And that’s where we are now.
Derek is as brilliant as he is quietly humble. He never rings
his own bell which is why you may not know that he has just
published a book in Australia that is a total smash. Wednesdays
with Bob features Derek going to chat with Australia’s most
loved ex-PM over the course of a year. It is about love, loss,
struggle, cigars and sculling beers. And it is an outright hit.
The Australian writes:
Wednesdays with Bob is a unique book that finds no precedent
in Australian politician writing. It is, as Rielly tells us, based
on Mitch Albom’s bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, which chronicled
visits to his former college professor to talk about life as he was
nearing death.
Rielly traverses Hawke’s life with eye-for-detail prose and
extracts comments on turning points, regrets and achievements.
There are times when Hawke is brusque, trails off-topic or lets his
interlocutor know the questions need to improve. It makes for a
lively portrait of an unforgettable prime minister.
Booktopia says:
The result is an extraordinary portrait of a beloved
Australian – a strange, funny, uniquely personal study of Bob Hawke
ruminating on his (and our) past, present and future.
And I’ll say it is a work of genius which also happens to be a
runaway best-seller in Australia. Would you have guessed that your
little old BeachGrit was home to a literary lion?
Haven’t you been the most inspired by the surf
world’s complete and robust embrace of aged rock star
Iggy Pop? The ex-Stooges frontman has not done anything culturally
meaningful for 30 years but look how he collaborates on a
boardshort with Billabong and look how Billabong flies him to the
North Shore for a photoshoot and look how he plays a set at the
Billabong House and look how every professional surfer, surf
photographer, surf brand employee acts as if George Harrison, Roy
Orbison and Tom Petty came down from heaven, gathering Jeff Lynne
and Bobby Dylan along the way, and jammed a full Traveling Wilburys
set right next to Off the Wall.
The best thing they ever saw! Miraculous even!
Oh of course it is not odd for the surf world to lose its shit,
entirely, when any non-endemic personality pays even one whit of
attention (see the fawning over Eddie Vedder, Ben Stiller, etc.)
which is endearing.
Right?
And in this endearing, anti-depressive vein I think it is time
for BeachGrit to choose an aged rock star in order to
represent us and bring maniacal levels of joy. The only question is
who should we pick? You decide from the following list of
finalists.
-Axel Rose (see above)
-Grace Slick
-Steve Tyler
-John Rotten
-David Lee Roth
-Iz
-Other
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Collab: Pyzel x Mayhem!
By Derek Rielly
Two of the best shapers alive collaborate on one
surfboard…
If you were going to compile a list of the world’s
shapers, right now, you wouldn’t have to extend your
thoughts for long, especially since the concept of individual
shapers has been squashed in favour of surfboard models.
Handley has eyes for Fanning, Wilko and Gilmore; Mayhem’s gaze
falls on Tyler, Carissa, Kolohe and Mason. JS whispers huskily at
Joel, Julian, Freestone, Owen and Mikey Wright. Pyzel is all John
John, and that’s all that matters.
I thought it’d be interesting as anything to pull cards from the
two most thoughtful of the pack, Matt Biolos and Jon Pyzel. Get ‘em
to collaborate over email for one surfboard. Toss the CAD file back
and forth until the board is ready to send through the machine, cut
out and deliver to the various team riders to examine and test.
It’s a long process. The Trestles contest came and went, which
stole most of their time, particularly Biolos ‘cause its his home
break and he has horses of both genders surfing for cash but the
back and forthing on email makes you feel like you’re there,
watching ‘em disgorge their thoughts in the blue-glow of offices
adjacent to the shaping bay’s they spend their lives in.
This story is the process, as revealed by email. What do the
pair make of each other? What are their design signatures? How do
we even design a surfboard over email? What sorta board do we make?
Is it high-performance? An every-man design? Who’s going to cut it
out? Where do we glass it? San Clemente (Biolos) or Waialua
(Pyzel)?
Here are the email exchanges, me, Matt and Jon all cc’d.
DR: Matt, when did you first hear of Jon? And do you
ever weep tears of jealousy over his team rider?
Mayhem: I first heard of Jon while traveling to the North Shore
in the early 90’s. Some friends of mine had a backyard factory at a
house on Jockos. Jon was working there a bit with them. I
remember, years later, but still maybe 12 to 15 years ago, he had a
full-page shot in one of the mags, maybe SURFER, standing in a
shaping room. That’s when he sort of got known outside of the
North Shore or his home Santa Barbara scene. His teamrider?
Yeah, he’s a one man wrecking crew. Too easy. Mr Automatic
marketing machine. I run around building boards for 50 “pro”
surfers, to try and get as much exposure as his one guy gets. That
said, you can’t be jealous, only be stoked that JJ stuck with him.
They both have grown a ton in the last six-to-eight years. JJ was a
prodigy in the heavy surf but his typical small-wave performance
game was a step behind while growing up. He wasn’t like Carissa or
Kolohe or Bobby Martinez, winning all the kids comps. He stood out,
but never dominated or looked like the best guy. People talked
about him needing better boards for California and even to do the
QS. I remember Pyzel fuming about one well-known Aussie brand
brazenly saying to him
” We are going to take your team rider”. But the two Johns both
quickly stepped up their game. JJ focused his ridiculous gift into
an all-round game and JP continually refined the boards. They did
what they had to do. And look where they are now.
DR: Jon, tell me, what do you make of Matt as a shaper?
Has he had an influence on you? What’s his influence on board
design, overall?
Pyzel: I had never meet Matt until I was invited to be a part of
a “shape-off” contest honouring MR at the Del Mar
Fairgrounds. Lost was doing the MR boards in the US and Matt
was on the judging panel. At that point, my only real thoughts
about him were that he was making some good boards and that Lost
had tried to scoop up my best team rider, John John, when he was
about 12 years old. To be fair, that move probably came more from
the O’Neill camp (who owned Lost clothing at the time, thus they
would get two logos on the boards for the price of one) than it did
from Matt, but I still had some pent-up hostility from that. I
wasn’t sure what Matt was like at all, but that whole thing had
been a lot of stress on me and I was eggy about it. Then, on the
other hand, my close friend who owns Arctic Foam was selling Matt
blanks and had told me that he was a good guy so I had mixed
feelings about meeting him. When we finally met at that show and
started talking it got pretty funny when our conversation was
interrupted by a guy who works for a big Australian surfboard label
which had also tried to get JJ on their boards. They were
really arrogant, aggressive and lame about it. I don’t think
the guy even knew who I was when he walked up, but I called him out
right there and told him that they were fucked. It felt great
to get that off my chest and Matt was laughing at the whole thing
too.
Looking back now, I think we bonded over that and it turns
out that Matt is a nice guy, even if he’s looks a little
grumpy from the outside. When it comes to surfboards,
Matt has been so solid for so long that you can’t help being
impressed. I especially admire his small/weaker wave
high-performance boards because I believe those are some of
the hardest designs to have work really well. I also know he
can handshape well, which may not mean much to anyone outside the
industry, but to us it shows that you have paid your dues, not just
bought a shaping machine and CAD program and started a
business. I actually trip out at how long he has had his hands
in this business because I think he’s a year younger than me, and
that feels pretty young still.
Sure, I would like to fondle any of Pyzel’sboards. I only ever
ever do that with permission. I’m not the guy walking around the
comp area grabbing other guys’ boards. – Biolos
DR: Matt, When you look at Jon’s boards, what do you
see? What is his signature?
Mayhem: I don’t think I have ever needed to see what was going
on with his boards until John John lit up the Margs event. That was
special in how the board held in to the wave face. I could tell the
outline was pretty familiar to some things the have been done
before but there must have been something in the rocker. I have
since seen a few of them in stores and looked at them, but you can
never really trust the shop board to tell the whole story. Whether
out of negligence, or out of honour, I have never picked up one of
JJF’s personal boards.
DR: Matt, would you like to pick up one of JJ’s Ghosts
from Margs?
Mayhem: Sure, I would like to fondle any of his boards. I only
ever ever do that with permission. I’m not the guy walking around
the comp area grabbing other guys’ boards. Anyways, evidently the
tail-rocker is pretty straight. I would have guessed otherwise, but
then it makes sense as well. Knife’s in. But, regardless, that
was one of the benchmark performances and you gotta give the board
credit as well as the surfer. Like KS on the single concave-kicked
tail rocker or the way Andy, Parko and Fanning were surfing in the
early 2000s on Gold Coast-developed surf designs. Or what Toledo is
doing in small waves now and Dane on the stubby shortboards. Even
when people first saw our Round Nose Fish allowing so much more
performance than other “Fish” twenty-plus years back, as a shaper,
you gotta look under the hood and make sure your not falling off
the bubble.
I didn’t try to steal John John. At the time I was making a lot
of money from apparel and fricken energy drinks etc. I wasn’t too
worried about shaping for a few fat and easy years there. That’s
when JJ got a few boards. – Biolos
Jon’s correct about the O’Neill thing. They paid for me to make
him a couple quivers. I didn’t try to steal him. At the time I was
making a lot of money from apparel and fricken energy drinks etc. I
wasn’t too worried about shaping for a few fat and easy years
there. That’s when JJ got a few boards. Of course they (O’Neill )
wanted to double down on the logos. It was good for them, but I
think it was also the team manager (Garth Tarlow) knowing I had
success and experience with young athletes ( Wardo/Cory ) and the
urgent demands of getting them from grom to greats etc. Kolohe was
kicking everyone’s ass in all the grom comps. Jon Pyzel was still
pretty much unknown and unproven at the time. Garth was hedging his
bet on his investment in more ways than one. Like I said, the
coolest thing is Jon and John stuck together and both made it to
the top together. I never ever went out of my way to pursue JJ.
Pyzel: Yeah, I never got the “steal your kid” vibe from
Matt. Just like he says, Garth Tarlow was only trying to get
John John to have boards that he thought would help give him an
advantage over there and I was still unproven. He would give
him a pile of Timmy Pattersons and Matt’s and get him to try them
all. He did end up riding one at Nationals one year (he took it to
J-Bay too, filming with Sunny Miller for something and won a grom
comp on it there too). Those times were gnarly as a small shaper on
the North Shore with no reputation and no money behind me. I was
just trying to keep up with shaping tiny boards for a kid who was
so fucking good already. I had to figure out what to do on every
single board I made him as he grew and his surfing improved. It
felt like uncharted territory, not just for me, but for any shaper
at that point. I would fly to California for NSSA Nationals and
just hang with my kids and the Florence family do my best to help
JJ do well. We would hide out at Uppers until right before his
heats, away from all the scene, building forts out of driftwood and
having a great time. JJ won two years in a row in the grom
division and then kind of gave up the whole NSSA deal at a pretty
young age. He was in the Triple Crown when he was 13, so maybe
Nationals lost some value at that point.
The Ghost is a version of something I’ve been making for a long
time now. It came about by chopping four-to-five inches off
the nose of a Next Step, my main step-up model. People were always
telling me that those boards felt like a really good shortboard
once you came out of the barrel at Pipe or wherever so I had a
feeling that we could get rid of something up front to make it even
better. I’d physically done that for myself in Bali years ago when
one of my pre-shapes got the nose snapped off and I didn’t want to
throw away the blank. I turned a 6’4” into a 5’11” and rode it
everyday all the waves of the Bukit. Eight-to-10-foot Outside
Corner, firing six-foot Padang Padang and super playful Bingin. It
worked great in anything.
Over the years I’d made that kind of thing for a few
tube-hounds, guys that just wanted to go fast and weave through
sections, but it was when I gave one to JJ to take to the Marshall
Islands with KS that we started to get a feel for the
possibilities. But even then it was semi-forgotten until I made him
a 6’2” last winter and the first wave I ever saw of it was him
doing that huge air at stormy Backdoor when no one was even out
there. Same board he rode at Bells (another big rote) and then
Margaret River was the tipping point for that thing. It’s
actually got a lot of tail-rocker by my standards, just a really
long and smooth curve that lets it handle maximum speed and maximum
force. It has some forward volume, a really simple, clean outline,
very pulled-in tail and a few other details that contribute to the
final result. It was unbelievable to watch John John’s surfing in
that comp. It was like seeing everything we had worked for fall
into place for a few hours. Pure joy.
DR: What design principles do you have in common and
where do you differ as shapers?
Pyzel: I don’t know that we share any design principals. I
do know that I prefer clean, refined lines and Matt is good at
making a beautiful surfboard. As for differences, we both grew up
in California but I didn’t start shaping until I moved to Hawaii so
I think we really are influenced by different types of surf.
Funny though, I still consider Rincon my homebreak, so we are both
Right Point guys.
Mayhem: Honestly, I don’t really know what differences or
similarities we have in board design. Like I said, I have not
studied his boards. We sat together on a CAD program in Bali this
summer for 15 minutes. That’s about it. We get along well,
socially. We’re very close in age and we obviously have a lot in
common, lifestyle and biz. Similar senses of humour, too, so it’s
easy to talk and hang out.
I’ve worked a lot closer with guys like Lee Stacey and Chilli,
Timmy Patterson, Johnny Cabianca (Medina’s shaper) even
Darren Handley. But not much with Pyzel. I think, socially, with IG
and just hanging together at WCT events, I’m closer to Jon.
John John used to seem a little hectic in turns and rely on Hail
Mary cat-like airs for small-wave scores. Compared to an MF or
Parko, even Kolohe’s MF-esq wraps seemed more refined and
technically sound than John’s. In the last couple years, JJ has
literally bent the rules and perception of what a good turn is and
looks like. – Biolos
As far as a board for JJF. A few years ago it would have been
easier to dissect his small-wave surfing, and maybe have some
design input. He used to seem a little hectic in turns and rely on
Hail Mary cat-like airs for small-wave scores. Compared to an MF or
Parko, even Kolohe’s MF-esq wraps seemed more refined and
technically sound than John’s. In the last couple years, JJ has
literally bent the rules and perception of what a good turn is and
looks like. He’s saying “That’s all fine and dandy, but let’s see
you do this”. He’s taken the judges and the surf media along with
him. Now you have guys having to go out of their comfort zone, not
just with airs and tubes, but even change their approach to turns,
all as a reaction to him.
DR: Matt, let me persist. If John asked you for a
Trestles board, how would it differ, say, from Brother’s, apart
from the dimensions? And, Jon, how would a Pipe board for Brother
differ from John’s?
Mayhem: He has a narrower stance, so assuming we kept the same
width/length/thickness, I would try a couple other rockers, more
curve under the front foot. A narrower nose and a narrower tail
block. A bit lower rail volume and less overall volume than Kolohe.
Overall a bit more whippy and more neutrally buoyant. More Pocket
Rocket less Driver.
Pyzel: For Pipeline, I would make Brother the same board that I
make for all of my Pipe guys, the Next Step. I would just add
a touch of width since it looks like he is riding wider boards than
JJ. I’d keep it pretty thick, especially under the chest, refined
through the rails, lots of curve in the bottom and not too long.
Mason gets amazing waves at Pipe on Matt’s boards (the whole Ho
family does, actually), but his approach is really different than
JJ’s.
DR: Now, let’s talk about building a board together. I
know it isn’t something that immediately appeals, you guys have
your brands, your precious CAD files to protect and so forth, but
let’s do it. How about this: an ultra high-fi board built for a man
who is five-eleven, weights 170 (uh, me). Matt, you get the front
half, Jon gets the tail. Or do you wanna do it a little more
subtle? Or more back and forth? Matt sends a file to Jon, he dives
in, sends back etc?
(There’s a two-week gap in communication. Both shapers building
boards for Trestles. Eventually…)
Mayhem: Hey guys, I think I cane up with a good way to do this:
JP, let me know what you think….
In the cad programs, the boards are essentially built from about
6 flat (2D) curves working together to compete one giant 3D complex
object.
1. Outline (A)
2. Centreline bottom Rocker (B)
3. Bottom rail rocker ( in relation to the centreline
rocker) (A)
4. Deck rocker (creates the thickness flow from. Nose to tail )
(B)
5. Bottom contours (cross sections from edge to edge)
(A)
6. Deck contours/rails (cross sections across deck including the
rails). (B)
I would nominate each of us to do three each, choosing A
or B curves. I have separated them in a way to force us to work
together. In harmony. Meaning one guy does the centreline rocker
and the other does the rail-line rocker, to compliment it.
Basically, one guy does the rocker, thickness profile and
rails.
The other guy does the outline, bottom curves and bottom-rail
rocker.
I only work in AKU. Jon works in S3D and a bit in AKU. I don’t
think he’s as confident in AKU as S3D, so since it sorta needs to
be in AKU. I will cede choice of A or B curves to him. Whatever
curves he feels more comfortable doing in AKU.
We do it step by step.
Example. I draw and outline and send it.
JP draws a bottom rocker and deckline/thickness profile
(essentially what would be the stringer). I then create the rail
rocker and the concaves (or vee). Then JP does the rails and deck
curves. I can screen-shot the curves as we do them, in 2D, then
screen shot assorted views of the 3D Board file, when it’s finished
being carded up. What do you guys think ?
DR: Matt, I think I just fell in love with you a little
more. Where the hell are you? It’s two am in LA. Europe? And Jon,
Pick your poison, baby.
Mayhem: I fell asleep at eight pm with my son. Then woke up at
one with clarity.
Pyzel: Sounds like a good way to do it! Derek, you want a
full-blown, high-performance board? I think it would be
simpler to do something more user-friendly, but still
performance0-oriented unless you want to specify the sort of waves
you want it designed for. (Trestles performance vs. Rocky Point
performance are two very different designs.) I am open to either
but would like a have a better vision of our objective if we go
pure performance. And, Matt, great idea on the division of
labour. I will dust off my AKU today and see what parts I am
most comfortable with and we can go from there. I think any
part should be fine. It’s just that I am more used to the s3d
visuals.
Fast but loose, light but strong, thin but floaty. Okay,
Goldilocks, you got it. – Pyzel
DR: I like a HP board the average stud can ride. And,
imagine, this stud, who doesn’t have the luxury of a sponsorship,
might ride it at Trestles and Rocky Point. Now that’s a challenge
worthy of Matt Biolos and Jon Pyzel, yes?
Pyzel: Fast but loose, light but strong, thin but floaty. Okay,
Goldilocks, you got it.
Mayhem: Pretty much modern shortboard 101. Pretty status quo. I
have a pattern that I sort of follow with HP shorties, where, like,
at two-inches from the nose and tail, I like my nose exactly
one-inch narrower than the tail. Whether or not, JP does it on
purpose or not, this board hits that exactly.
Pyzel: I just eyeballed the thing. I’m never really sure about
an outline until I cut one and take a look at it in real life. Then
I will go back and fine-tune anything that I don’t think looks
right. I wasn’t shooting to make anything crazy as per your request
(DR). That outline should be forgiving and free up front
because of the semi narrow/traditional nose-width and curve. It’s
pretty straight from the wide point back to break which will work
to produce speed, while the gentle hip gives you a
slight pivot point without losing too much control and hold.
Tail block is not too wide further aiding control at higher
speeds.
Mayhem: Okay. Here’s Jon’s outline with my rocker and deck-line
“Profile”. At this point, is has no rails and no concaves or double
concaves. It’s perfectly flat from edge to edge. The rocker is
essentially my “DRIVER” Rocker.
Pyzel: For a second, I thought that had 2.92” of tail
rocker.
Mayhem: Wouldn’t that be fun!
Pyzel: Here is the rail-rocker and bottom contours
done. The rest is in your court
Mayhem: Okay, here are the rails. It’s pretty much done. The
fucked part was Jon doing the edge rocker and me doing the rails as
they are pretty much connected. I had to fuck with it a bit and it
looks good in the 3D viewer, so I think it looks pretty clean. I
would normally have to cut one, then fine-tune some curves a bit. I
really like Jon’s rail rocker. He used way more single concave out
the back of the tail than I normally would with this rocker, so it
looks interesting to me. The outline may be a bit crude though. I
mean, it is functional, for sure, and right in line. But Jon is
prob not doing outlines in the program often and I think there’s a
couple superficial bumps we will want to smooth out, first by hand,
then in the file. I suppose its time to cut!
Pyzel: I hear ya! Not my finest work, but I will cut one
tomorrow and take a look tomorrow. I’m getting a trashed blank
to burn through for a quick look and then if you (Matt) want to get
on the phone with ‘em we could make changes together to fine tune
it before we go further…
DR: This is so fabulous it gives me stomach
pains!
Pyzel: That thing sure has the Mayhem nose!
DR: Describe a Mayhem nose?
Pyzel: He has this certain look, just a touch of extra curve in
the last few inches up there. I have a nose fetish when it
comes to surfboards. I just notice all the different approaches
shapers take there.
Mayhem: I’ll cut it tomorrow. That volume, 27.80 litres, is
right up Kolohe, Yago and Griffin’s alley. I’ll get ‘em to
ride!
Editor’s note: (This story first appeared in the print
edition of Surfing Life magazine. And the reveal? Is it a
breakthrough in board performance? Will melding the minds of two of
the best in the game take us to higher plane? Oh it’s all in the
current issue of Surfing Life. Buy here. Or
wait a few weeks for it to run on BeachGrit.)