In today’s ever growing abundance of new material and unorthodox board design, finding what works best for you may be a tougher task then sticking a full rotation Ally Oop. Board trends have changed so drastically in the past few years that even the once "go too" short board has been getting second thoughts for the shorter, fatter boards of today. I have always been a bit skeptical too venture to far off my short board for everyday surf, however, I think that some of my surfing may have suffered as a result of this. Not having a good small wave board in my quiver definitely cost me some heats on the WQS, and on more then one occasion, kept me unmotivated to surf when the waves were small. Now, when surfboard trends seem to be worlds different then my standard 6’2 short board, I have been feeling more than ever on the outside of what is considered the “norm” in surfboard design without one short, fat, plug in my quiver.
I talked with Jason (Feist) at length about coming up with some designs that would allow me to get the maneuverability and skate you get out of a shorter, fuller fish outline without compromising the drive of a basic short board. The idea being I could get my 190 Lb ass moving in the small stuff. Jason took some time playing with design, tweaking and mixing different templates. In fact, he actually married three of our designs together. By taking the front end of the Dragonfly and narrowing it up just a hair, transitioning into the midsection of our "Redline" and then exiting through the tail template of our "OG", the "Pill" was born.
When I first saw it I wasn’t really sure what to think. First of all, it was 5’6, which is 8” shorter than what I normally ride. I remember kinda looking at Jason going, "Ya, I don’t know about this. " His response was the same as always, a dry "Just try it ". So, I jammed down to our local beach break and gave it a shot. The waves were close interval wind swell but had a little size, in the head-high range. I remember jumping on the thing and starting to paddle, thinking to myself, "this is weird, where is the nose on this thing, it’s like there is no board under me. " It definitely was memorable because it was such a change to what I normally ride, but the thing I remember most clearly about that first session on "The Pill " was my first bottom turn. As I dropped into my first wave, I was a little worried about how the board would react to a full bottom turn. Generally on the other short, fat boards I had ridden I had to be pretty light footed on my bottom turns or I would just overpower the board and lose most of my speed. With this in mind I then thought to myself, "well I wanted a short fat board that had the drive of my short board ", so as I got to the bottom I completely laid into my bottom turn, holding nothing back. The response I got was amazing! The board held its rail as well as any I had surfed. I was actually so surprised, I shot up the face and out the back of the wave. After that I was hooked. The board was able to do complete rail turns without compromise and at the same time, I felt as if it was glued to my feet when I was doing anything above the lip. I definitely came in from that session felling pretty confident that this was going to be a stable design in my quiver from now on.
Since then, a bunch of the guys on our team have ridden "The Pill " and have given us some great feed back, but generally have all stated that it is one of the most fun designs that they have ridden. This has definitely put fuel in the fire for Jason to expand this and other designs, and there are already some new ones in the works!
The decision on which board to try next may not be the easiest one, simply because the variety in board design to today is mind-boggling. But branching out from what you’re comfortable with can be a positive experience, and I would recommend taking that chance and trying something a little out of the box.