The High-Performance Slick is indeed my best foot forward when it comes to the thruster that can and should be ridden by those pushing their own limits without having to deal with limits under their feet. I do not fill my range with a huge variety of these high-performance thrusters because the world has moved on to other more exciting and appropriate designs for the general market.. The market for more new aspiring tools for those keen on winning a world title are drying up just like the market that chases them. The world tour is sadly out of reach purely from an economical perspective for 99% of its aspirants.
The important elements in this and most high-performance thrusters are all the same from brand to brand with only small tweaks of individuality separating them. The same as formula 1 cars as competition is so intense that all competitors are always looking over the fence so to speak. Deep concaves with doubles sitting inside, hips in tail plan shapes and now much lower nose entries with rocker relief now in the tail to kill two birds with one stone! Nose widths have had to become wider to facilitate the pressure to ride even shorter. The round tail has almost pushed out the squash tail as a preferred choice of tails led by the most influential surfer of these now modern times, and it isn’t Kelly!
PLAN SHAPE
The Slick will have 2 choices of plan shapes, one as a hip squash tail, the other a clean round tail without a hip. As mentioned in the intro we have come a bloody long way from the inception of the first thruster in the early eighties where they were needle nosed and you surfed with your back heel hanging over the pod. These days the traditional 12” down from the nose across measurement is now a lot wider than the earlier concepts and for good reason; more drive. The pivot that may be lost is regained by going shorter as they have all done.
BOTTOM SHAPE
All - not most, performance thrusters employ concaves in some shape or form. The most common is the single into double. What is not clear with this term is - does the double sit inside the single, or does it become a double concave etched into a flat bottom rail to rail so to speak? Some actually are but the term single double loosely describes a double concave cut into a deeper single concave more so further back to create even more squirt and hopefully the feel of a small spine vaguely mimicking the twitch of a vee bottom. The Slick is a true blue single double concave where the concave even exits out the pod.
ROCKER
As referred to in my intro the Slick has a lower entry than earlier high-performance designs simply because as boards have become shorter and nose widths wider the fear of nose catching has been minimized so nose flips have eased back somewhat. What this has actually facilitated is the opportunity to run more intense rocker through the back half of the design allowing it to be forced more comfortably at high speed through hollower sections than before. Vertical freedom has also been enhanced. Additionally, more concave through the back half increases the rail rocker even more making for a more catch free feeling that encourages a confident surfer to go to town even more.! The fact that this model is not over wide it can deal with extreme concaves but if too wide it will control you.
RAILS
Like most super performance surfboards that are designed for total man handling the small box rail is almost a standard. Can be buried but releases easily so it is up for a busy repertoire.
DIMENSIONS
5.8 X 18 ¾ X 2 5/16 = 25.38 LTS
5.10 X 19 X 2 3/8 = 27.22 LTS
6.0 X 19 ¼ X 2 7/16 = 29.13 LTS
6.2 X 19 ½ X 2 ½ = 31.12 LTS
6.4 X 19 ¾ X 2 9/16 = 33.20 LTS
6.6 X 20 X 2 5/8 = 34.41 LTS
All boards have to be made upon order.. This means that add ons can be customized to suit. Muzz 0421 385 692