Stick two noted shapers in a little room and see what happens…

Are you aware of the Principle of Double Effect? Oh it’s a doozy. Catholics use it when they want to dance around religious no-nos like abortion or euthanasia.

It’s the notion that there is a moral diff between an intended consequence and one that is going to happen but not the primary motive. So, if you give a terminally ill cancer patient a ton of morphine to lighten up the pain, knowing it’ll kill ‘em, that ain’t euthanasia. And if you rip out the tubes of a pregnant gal to save her life and it kills the kid, it ain’t abortion.

It’s the same with the low-rockered semi-fish. It’s going to make surfing a hell of a lot easier, it might even convince the lifetime intermediate that he’s suddenly advanced, but it’ll do so at the cost of ever being able to ride a high-performance board again.

The double doctrine effect. You survive and thrive, thereby making the decision morally acceptable, but your skills are killed.

I’ve been trying to get off five-six ironing boards for years. I got addicted in 2000 after scooping a five-nine Brian Bulkley-shaped Lost round-nose fish off the racks at the Pukas factory in Spain. I was on six-twos at the time. Once I figured out the standard three-fin setup didn’t work on the fish and threw in two MRs and a baby third, I couldn’t get off it. It was fast, it was loose and, as one of the first to get turned onto ‘em in south-west France where I lived, it gave me a substantial performance advantage among pals.

When I moved to Bondi two years later, a joint where the waves are made for wide-tail designs that can fly over dead sections, the little five-nine came with me. When it was eventually retired, I found a newer version. Then another. And another.

Fifteen years later, still on ‘em.

Until.

Until.

Back in September 2017, for a story that I hoped might birth a transitional board that’d work for me, I got the Hawaiian-based Jon Pyzel (lifetime shaper to John John Florence) and California’s Matt Biolos (lifetime shaper to Kolohe Andino) to collaborate on one design. An email thrown back and forth with a CAD file attached, each working on different aspects of the one surfboard.

I told ‘em I wanted “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.”

Five eleven. 170 pounds. Me.

“Fast but loose, light but strong, thin but floaty. Okay, Goldilocks, you got it,” wrote Pyzel.

One month later, a five-ten was spat out of Pyzel’s machine that was Mayhem’s rocker and deck-line profile wrapped by Pyzel’s outline, rail rocker and bottom contour.

“It looked good, not what I am used to my boards looking like, but sexy,” said Pyzel.  “The main things that stood out to me were the last few inches of nose rocker and the thickness flow through the last 18” in the tail. Both looked quite a bit different from one of my boards, but it wasn’t so far off from them. Pretty weird to create a board like this and have it come out so nice.”

Pyzel’s team rider Koa Rothman rode the five-ten and refused to return it, texting, ‘Man, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can give it back. It’s one of the best short boards I’ve ridden.’”

Recently, despite the weight of a one-hundred dollar royalty payable (fifty apiece to Jon and Biolos), the Australian distributor of Lost and Pyzel made thirty of the collab board to sell, Australia only.

The Mayzel or maybe The Pyhem, depends which shaper you ask.

It comes in three sizes, five-eleven (27.7 litres), six-o (29.2 litres) and six-one (30.7 litres), $995, limited edition etc.

I got the six-one.

“Dunno about the super narrow nose,” the counter jockey at the delivery surf shop said disapprovingly as I picked it up.

He pointed out the new Futures boxes. Lightboxes.

Made out of fibreglass and carbon, the same as the board. Unlike plastic, the Lightboxes form a chemical bond with the fibreglass and resin. All of the Mayzels come with it even though the system ain’t being rolled out until the end of the year.

Apart from the fancy fin boxes, the board didn’t look promising to a man fattened by easy boards. Was this going to deliver me from the evil of the Fish and be my gateway drug back into the high-ish fi realm?

I’ve become emotionally conditioned to surfboards that look easy. I caught two waves on a Channel Islands DFR five years ago and was thrown off by the extreme rocker. My upper limbs became paralysed with tension, the lower pair twitching like the severed legs of a galvanised frog as I tried to wrestle it down the line.

I’ve never felt so sad and vowed never to do anything so cruel to my self-worth ever again.

Walking the Mayzel/Pyhem to the car, a kid, in startled recognition, saw the two conflicting shaper logos and asked if it was a Chinese board.

Two from two.

But there was something about the Mayzel, the Pyhem, that felt just a little reassuring. I know I can trust Biolos’ and I ain’t never heard a bad word about Pyzel’s Ghost.

I didn’t surf it for two weeks.

Indolence. Fear.

I knew I should.

One mid-morning in winter.

Three foot. A little horse-shoe wedge. Rare for this part of the world. I expect… nothing, nothing that is except a wild arrhythmic flurry in my heart and terrible disappointment.

It doesn’t come.

I’m reminded of how superior a six-one with a pulled-in nose is to paddle compared to a five-six. I collect a couple of sets.

I bang on my front foot and outrun sections and then try and wheel it all back into the juice. Standard fish surfing. When you’re settled on a bag of pillows like a five-six fish you can murder all the sections you like, it’s still gonna get you home.

It ain’t that easy on the hi-fi.

I’m not hopelessly fucked up by my initial impressions, howevs, and when you’ve been bankrupt you’ll bank any gain.

A few more surfs.

(Here, the reader interjects: “Lemme guess. Board goes insane. Changes your life etc.” Author replies: “Yes!“)

My back foot starts to catch on the pad (Necro, buy here) and I learn to hold my fire. The approach starts to work. I’d forgotten the feeling of being able to bottom turn and come straight back up the face and hit the lip. And not murdering good waves waves by air-dropping, hopping up on the concave and trying to kickstart my little board. Instead, I could knife into the face.

Shorter, tighter, better turns.

A couple of weeks on the Mayzel/Pyhem and the five-six in the corner starts to look like the tired old syringe of a former junkie.

What the Mayzel/Pyhem delivers, and ain’t this just a miracle since I conceived the idea, is a board that stands as an easy-to-ride hi-fidelity entrée.

A gateway back into the real game.

Criticism? As divine as it is, I don’t feel no pop or that savage looseness of a pro’s board. What I find is confidence through control, like a train on a predetermined track.

At times, when it comes together, I feel like a leopard baited through the bars of a cage. Snarling. Growling, Hissing.

Rarrrrgh!

I’m back etc.

The Mayzel/Pyhem is available from these surf shops: