You got what it takes to manhandle a Slater Designs
Cymatic?
Marketing sure is a strange voodoo, none of us
immune to it’s subtle charms. We all have our strange desires.
Japanese swimbaits give me fever chills, Borsalino flat caps tickle
my taint in the most enlivening fashion.
Despite a brief dalliance with the curved potato chip-style
killers of the 90′, if Slater throws up a marketing itch I
ain’t one for scratching. Purps, Kommunity, VSTR, white
wetsuits,wave tubs etc etc. If Robert K Slater is the pitch man I
go cold as ice.
So, I got a Slater Designs Cymatic.
My first thought when I took the Cymatic under arm was: this
isn’t a surfboard, it’s a piece of air painted white with fin boxes
in it. Impossibly light, and insubstantial. My wife commented
as I took it out of the Camry that it looked like a dwarf mini-mal.
Inauspicious beginnings.
We need to start somewhere, so let’s start here. I took a
sixpack of Stone and Wood Pacific Ale around to Stu Kennedy’s gaff
on a Friday afternoon as a thank-you for delivering the board from
the Gold Coast, via Thailand. He said he couldn’t drink it because
he was sponsored by Coopers but his wife and mate in high-vis
volunteered to accept the gift. My first thought when I took the
Cymatic under arm was: this isn’t a surfboard, it’s a piece of air
painted white with fin boxes in it. Impossibly light, and
insubstantial.
My wife commented as I took it out of the Camry that it looked
like a dwarf mini-mal. Inauspicious beginnings.
The stock 5’6” came in at just under 30 litres, a couple under
the recommended dims from the Firewire site for my specs. You need
to go small. I’ve seen the evolution of the Modern Planing Hull, of
which the Cymatic is the latest iteration, from a front row seat. I
was there the day Dan Thomson showed up at the Point with a little
5’3” wakeboard and I’ve been there countless times when he’s laid
down the shred on his Tomo Modern Planing Hulls. There’s always
been something there and I figured at some point I would jump on
the bus and swig the Kool Aid.
Never happened until now.
Why? Marketing.
Just as the fabulous success of the Hypto Krypto came on the
back of the young and the bearded entranced by the romance of a
throwback design steezed-out by Craig Ando, the Tomo and Slater
collab has come to stand in for the middle-aged man looking to
recreate some magic in his surfing life.
Don Quixote, were he alive today, would be on an over-sized, or
under-sized Cymatic. I don’t say as a foreigner passing judgement
but as a fellow traveller. One who believes life is not worth
living without a generous dollop of creative self-delusion. The
first surf was comical.
In other words, a potent symbol of middle-aged delusion.Terrible
irony for such a high-performance product. Don Quixote, were he
alive today, would be on an over-sized, or under-sized Cymatic. I
don’t say as a foreigner passing judgement but as a fellow
traveller. One who believes life is not worth living without a
generous dollop of creative self-delusion.
The first surf was comical.
Checked Tallows on my way back from the airport and it looked
fun in the corner,. punchy lefts breaking into the rip. A dozen or
so people out, maybe 20 along the whole beach.Went back to the
industrial estate to grab the Cymatic and came back. I got onto the
beach and I could see no-one in the water. No one.
The lefts
were still breaking in the corner, punchy little things sometimes
winding in on themselves. Light north-west wind, perfect for the
spot. Empty. It was surreal.
I craned my head and looked up the lighthouse, no tourists
lollygagging. Nothing. Something must have happened: shark
attack, suicide bomber, zombie apocalypse.
So I went out and
grabbed a few lefts, then a few more. I could barely get to my
feet on the board.
Only one way to test this, I thought. So I
stripped off and went back out and surfed naked.
No one
came. I could not occupy the same point in time and space as
the board. Wherever I was it wasn’t and wherever I wasn’t it was.
Without control, speed is hard to attain. Pushing, driving in any
normal sense lead to disaster.
Lack of control is the primary cause of most of the heinous
crimes committed by the intermediate surfer. At its fundamental
level, good surfing is harnessing the gravitational force using the
climb and drop and the kinetic dimensions of centripetal force off
the bottom turn and top turn.
Lack of control is the primary cause of most of the heinous
crimes committed by the intermediate surfer. At its fundamental
level, good surfing is harnessing the gravitational force using the
climb and drop and the kinetic dimensions of centripetal force off
the bottom turn and top turn.
It’s incredible how rarely these basic truths have been laid
down in ink or bytes.
The session ended as the day started to
wind down. Following three shaky speed snaps I went over the
handlebars on a close-out dredge-out and, wading into the beach
with the sun in my eyes, I could not see the board…no legrope.
By the time I got into the beach, the board was in the rip and
going around Cape Byron. A naked swim out to sea under a darkening
sky to retrieve did not feel nice.
Very sad, I composed a long text message to D. Rielly,
BeachGrit Principal: Sorry, losing my edge. Can not
ride Cymatic. Death awaits. And so on and so forth. Only a
residuum of pride native to my home Island kept me from hitting
send. Bribie Boys don’t quit. A total rewiring of the
neuro-muscular apparatus was in order. A naked swim out to sea to
retrieve etc.
The next few sessions were conducted at a wedging rivermouth
breakwall, please don’t name. Really good surf. Overhead, an
abundance of speed indigenous to the wave shape on offer. At first,
the board again felt too insubstantial and out of control for me to
put it where I wanted it to go. Which was straight up for the high
hooking backhand hit. It was a case of following the advice of
German poet Rainer Maria Rilke who counselled, “We must learn to
trust in what is difficult.” Learning curve is not a property we
associate with surfboard marketing but it is a valid measure.
The learning curve for the Cymatic is steep, very fucking steep.
But somehow it started to make sense. You don’t push to get where
you need to be, you think it and the board will go there. By the
end of the third session I was surfing again.
The learning curve for the Cymatic is steep, very fucking steep.
But somehow it started to make sense. The hull is so sensitive,
even finned as a quad that the body riding it must develop a
corresponding level of relaxation and sensitivity. Any tension or
inappropriate body positioning is brutally punished. You don’t push
to get where you need to be, you think it and the board will go
there. By the end of the third session I was surfing again.
To achieve the desired neuro-muscular state a period of mental
and physical hygiene was required, and duly undertaken. Abstinence
from substances, physical fitness, clean eating, meditation etc
etc. The better I got, the more the Cymatic came under my control.
A distinctly un-radical observation. Many sessions at the local
Point followed.
The good thing about riding a Cymatic at Lennox Point is you
will be under the gaze of the designer Dan Thomson and his father
Mark Thomson. That is also the worst thing about riding a Cymatic
at Lennox Point. You can’t hide. There was independent verification
by these eyewitnesses that the board was not too much of a vehicle
for self-delusion. Also confirmation of the “control problem.”
Some conclusions: The quad concave hull and channel bottom is
incredibly hydrodynamically efficient. It reaches top planing speed
with very little effort by climbing and dropping. The increased
rocker does not slow down-the-line speed. While the tiny board is a
bitch to paddle around the lineup it catches waves with surprising
ease. Control of the turning angles and arc lengths at speed
remains the primary challenge. I reached top speed on most waves
but fell a lot. I did not go near the edge of the performance
envelope on this board. I enjoyed very much.
The good thing about riding a Cymatic at Lennox Point is you
will be under the gaze of the designer Dan Thomson and his father
Mark Thomson. That is also the worst thing about riding a Cymatic
at Lennox Point. You can’t hide. There was independent verification
by these eyewitnesses that the board was not too much of a vehicle
for self-delusion. Also confirmation of the “control problem.”
Mark was adamant that changing fin designs to his Power Drive
fins would grant me more steering control and avoid the under or
over steer I was experiencing during turns at speed. More testing
on his fins awaits.
I like to be “on the bus” with a surfboard design. To that end,
a passion for following a design can take on cult-like proportions.
A little discussed but fundamental property of surf culture sorely
missing from Chas Smith’s listicle of qualities required to belong
to surf developed here.
I have belonged to several surfboard cults, notably the McCoy
cult and the Bonzer cult. They are beautiful, enriching experiences
with wonderful sage-like quasi guru figures to rally behind. Matt
Warshaw, in his introduction to Cocaine+Surfing, said
surfing is pointless. Which is true enough, at face value, but a
reductio ad absurdum argument carried to it’s conclusion.
Life is pointless, on that we can be certain. A fascination and
immersion into the cult of the surfboard generates as much meaning
as any human activity. More than most, maybe.
The Tomo designed Modern Planing Hull has migrated from Lennox
Head and achieved a cult-like status in North America, particularly
on the west coast. It has many passionate adherents. During
several years of goalless vagabonding on the North American
continent I experienced tremendous, tremendous luck with the gals.
Korean-American vegan waitresses in Santa Cruz, Psych-nurses from
the Twin Cities, sharp-tongued Jersey girls from “the Shore”,
lawyers from Boston with accents you could cut with a steak knife,
transitioned show girls in hole in the wall bars in San Fransisco,
dancers from Kansas who took too many chances, drug fiends from
Dakota, cherubs in Sea-Side, Oregon who spent big on cans of fake
tan, big breasted playboy models in La Jolla with tempers like
cobras, wherever I went, qualities that would earn a clip over the
ear on Bribie: bookishness, a penchant for bombastic language, a
poetic world-view, saw nothing but open hearts, open minds, open
legs in return. It was truly a feast at which all hearts opened and
all wines flowed.
I do not brag. The experience is not unique. I have not even
what Lewis Samuels calls “a regional talent”. I could sing the
lyric from Townes Van Zandt’s No Place to Fall – “I’m not
much of a lover it’s true” – very honestly.
I only mention for two reasons. First, a cursory and more
detailed inspection of the history of surfing as written in the
magazines and official documents paints us as a curiously asexual,
prurient, bloodless tribe. It’s as if the bronzed rigs, the delight
in coupling do not and have never existed.
Second, as Dan Tomo and my experience has shown, sometimes you
need to escape the small town and take the show to the Big Smoke.
The Modern Planing Hull, the Cymatic would have forever remained a
fringe design had Dan not had the sack to “take California”.
The wheels fell off the wagon during testing. Slowly, at first,
then all at once. Drinking started during the Keramas event. A
little at first, then too many. Gudams were smoked. I piked taking
the Cymatic out at six-to-eight-foot-Lennox Point. Then hurt my
back sexing my wife. She likes a willing lover and has let it be
known I could easily be replaced by a Maori rugby player if I’m not
up to the task. The next day the surf was still six-feet and I took
the Cymatic out to test the upper-size range. The paddle was
horrendous and on a set wave, barely in control, I did 20 or so
backhand re-entries. I could barely walk up the rocks.
Two days later in head-high, butter-texture Point surf, I did
the best backhand surfing in my life, I think. Granted,
self-delusion is the primary characteristic of the middle-aged male
surfer. We are truly a risible type of buffoon. Tara is right to point that
out.
Am I kidding myself I asked him after he’d twisted one up.
“Mate it’s the spiciest and best I’ve seen you surf for years,”
he said.
Believe or not, at your discretion.
Luckily for me, I have my oldest friend, we grew up together on
Bribie, as a surf companion. There are no Sancho Panzas on Bribie. We tell it
straight. I called my mate over for a chainsaw and fish after the
surf.
Am I kidding myself I asked him after he’d twisted one up.
“Mate it’s the spiciest and best I’ve seen you surf for years,”
he said.
Believe or not, at your discretion.
It’s probably the sad fate of this design to not end up under
the feet of those who could push it to its limits, Tomo himself
notwithstanding. Kelly Slater did it a terrible disservice
not riding it in the tub for the
Founders’ Cup.
Who, what and where would the Cymatic suit? I think tropical and
sub-tropical surf zones are its natural habitat, plus California.
An A-frame in Nicaragua. Small Mexican Pipe, Point surf with curve.
Any and all Indonesian reefbreaks. Hawaii. South Pacific, North
Pacific. French beachbreaks. Durban.
It’s probably the sad fate of this design to not end up under
the feet of those who could push it to its limits, Tomo himself
notwithstanding. Kelly Slater did it a terrible disservice
not riding it in the tub for the
Founders’ Cup.
Get after it and get in shape if you are north of thirty and
want to ride. Get the fast-twitch fibres happening and open the
mind.
The learning curve is steep but worth the effort, the sensations
unique. It is a mind machine, willing to go wherever you can
imagine.
Buy, examine
here.
(And watch our masked pro surfer throwing a board he describes
as “having more speed out of turns than I’ve ever felt” around at
Snapper and D-Bah.)
