It's not a motherfucking fun board and it's not a
crutch.
On November 18, 2017, I took possession of a Pyzel
Ghost from TC glasshouse Ourimbah Drive Tweed Heads. Six
feet one inches, stock dims.
It was the long awaited denouement of a complex cash and scrip
deal hammered out via text message and electronic mail with
BeachGrit principal Derek Rielly, part payment for
coverage of the Grand Slam leg of the WSL championship Tour,
honoured in it’s entirety in August. A deal a lot of people seem to
think is tantamount to receiving a free board.
To wit: last week driving a bus down the main drag of Byron Bay
a little car tried to nose in front of me. I put the window
down.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going mate ?”
The driver put his window down. It was my derro mate Sticko
talking in his derro drawl, “Shep, heard you got a free Ghost you
sick cunt, how fucking sick is that? Sick!”
I stopped the bus in heavy traffic opposite the Great Northern
hotel and got out, hugged it out with Sticko who resembles Nick
Nolte on a three-day coke binge but with a leonine mane, no body
fat and a proper air game.
“Now Sticko,” I said, “the truth of that matter is that I worked
my arse off for that board, it owes me nothing nor I it.
Comprende?”
You don’t have derros in America. They are a particular species
of Australian surf animal. Entrepreneurial by nature, not averse to
corner cutting, bent schemes, Third World cash-only payments
etc. By and large critics and outcasts of consumer capitalism by
temperament and desire.
My people.
I only offer the preamble in the interests of full transparency.
While Jon Pyzel seems like good people, he doesn’t know me
from a bar of soap. And I wouldn’t even know where to buy a Ghost,
let alone spruik a link.
Like me, you covet a Ghost for the simple
fact of JJF at Margaret River last year and what he did there on
that board. From that followed the completely natural
question: “Could there be something in that for me?”
I shall tell you how it goes for a recreational surfer of
competent but wholly unremarkable skill set. You can draw an honest
conclusion about whether it should be part of your future.
First thoughts. The board is a clean-curved widepoint
forwards round pin. Nothing special there. Wide-point forward
boards have been back in vogue since Kelly’s Deep Six victory at
Pipeline. If you have a skerrick of historical appreciation for the
single fin line, or any muscle memory of one, then widepoint
forward feels better than sex on the bottom turn. You put the front
foot down and lean and you feel the ride. The rails are foiled, the
thickness is hidden. All this you can see from the photos.
If you can’t come to grips with that rocker curve, you can’t
surf this board. That sounds harsh to modern ears tuned to
inclusive language but it’s true.
What you can’t see is the rocker curve. Which is the special
sauce.
You feel it as soon as you put it under your arm. The rocker
curve cuts hard into the forward outline in a very distinctive way
just in front of the chest. A recognisably Hawaiian curve, with a
long sloping rocker curve out the aft end. If you can’t come to
grips with that rocker curve, you can’t surf this board. That
sounds harsh to modern ears tuned to inclusive language but it’s
true.
It says on the website the board is a daily driver. It ain’t a
daily driver (with exceptions). It’s a board for good waves. A Grit
commenter who left after the Adjunct Professor IP reveal fiasco,
Ghost of Super Jnr, said a “Man’s reach should exceed his
grasp” and that applies perfectly to the Ghost. You reach for it at
the limit of your skill set. It’s not a motherfucking fun board,
it’s not a crutch.That rocker curve and area reduction in the
outline curve needs a lot of board speed to get loaded up. I got it
for good point surf and in the weeks after I took possession good
point surf came my way.
You reach for it at the limit of your skill set. It’s not a
motherfucking fun board, it’s not a crutch.That rocker curve and
area reduction in the outline curve needs a lot of board speed to
get loaded up. I got it for good point surf and in the weeks after
I took possession good Point surf came my way.
It took some time to calm down and learn to ride the board
properly. You can’t surf it off the fins, outline or rails. You
have to relax into the rocker curve. Every turn. When you get that
right, it feels like a 12-inch bubba blade slicing through the
shoulder of a hundred pound yellowfin. A sense of ease and power
and mass shifting.
I’ve always worked with fish, catching or processing. I’m not
some pissant 2 per center. I’ve done my time. Salmon and halibut in
Alaska, some crabs. Trawlers in the Gulf, wetliners out of
Kalbarri, deep dropping on the shelf. It’s hard, bloody work but
you can get paid without a visa. Mostly cash. I cut and humped tuna
and marlin in Guam. A warehouse full of frozen carcasses,
truckloads coming in off the longliners and purse seiners. Complete
rape and pillage of the Ocean. Boss was a sadistic Serb whose
favourite game was to get you to help him in the midday sun while
he angle grinded metal and cover you in burning hot metal shards.
Sacked me when I cooked his truck full of tuna. I went back
the next day to collect my pay and he stood there with his angle
grinder and told me to turn around and run before he ground my legs
off and threw me in the deep freeze.
It feels like a 12-inch bubba blade slicing through the shoulder
of a hundred pound yellowfin. A sense of ease and power and mass
shifting.
I backed it up to a safe distance, flipped him the bird, turned
on my heels and jogged home. Didn’t need the fucken money anyhow.
My gal was a Femme Nous dancer bringing home shopping bags
full of greenbacks stripping for US Marines. I went back to sitting
on the rooftop drinking sixers of San Miguel and smoking Gudam
Gurangs. Corrodes the soul, comrades. But, it works.
Point of the digression: you cut that tuna the right way or the
wrong way. There is no in-between. And it’s the same with the
Ghost. It’s an easy enough board to ride, but it’s a hard board to
ride right. It demands precision. Flub the turn and it saps the
confidence. You need to go in soft and come out hard.
Early days were bedevilled by flubbed turns on the Ghost. At
times to the point of despair.
“What the fuck is going on here!” I have cried out, more than
once.
But I have learnt to relax and let the rocker do the work, then
add the extra foam in the split once the turn is done. By and large
I have learned to tame this board.
Early in the review, I asked the reader to consider reaching up
for the board. I place one caveat on that. If you are over 40 and
raising your seed, guy or gal, and/or have anything like adult
obligations then add one inch. Or even two. With the fine foil you
won’t notice it.
Volume measurements have led to the biggest misconceptions and
false coinage in surfboard design history. They speak to a deeper
misunderstanding of what the surfboard is and what it does. It has
a dualistic nature. At low speed, ie when paddling it’s a
displacement hull. It goes through the water and is subject to
hydrostatic forces of which buoyancy is the key measure. Ergo,
volume matters for paddling.
When riding a wave it’s a planing hull and subject to the
entirely different hydrodynamic forces, equations of which depend
on surface area, pressure and velocity. Ergo, bottom contours, rail
foil and rocker/outline matter for wave riding.
The crux of the Ghost, to crack the technical nut, is the ease
with which it breaks from the hydrostatic to the hydrodynamic. That
is, when catching a wave it goes from low speed to planing
incredibly easily and effectively. It knifes into a late drop
better than any board I’ve ridden.
If that means something to you, good waves are in your present
or near future and you have a shred of decency, self-respect and
pride in your skill set, then the Ghost is worth the effort to
figure out. You can do the best surfing
in your life on it. Big call, but true. If you’ve
given up or were never there then walk on by. This board has
nothing for you, and that’s no judgement on your worth as a human
being.
To quote Terry Fitzgerald: “Optimising experience is in effect a
commitment to multiple surfboards and varied approach. For those
who enjoy the thrill of riding a wave, pro-model equipment is one
link to the dream of surfing a perfect wave”.
Video to come.
