HI there Gigi!

You know that old adage “right place right time”? Well Mariah Ernst seems to be the sensei of that!

Mariah had a mat off me last year named Jamu Jamu when she was living in Indo. Jamu Jamu is the mat that I had to perform plastic surgery on to get back on the water:

https://customsurfmats.com/blog/2019/12/21/ding-monkey

Anyway, I rotate the time that I send out emails for orders and what do you know, Mariah has moved to Hawaii and managed to get in quickest again! This time around, Mariah wanted something to cover all conditions having already having a Nouveau Racer. Mariah decided to go for a RB-JMC.

We discussed the 70/70, neg rocker, super free-breather option but Mariah opted to play it safe and go for a 200/70 free-breather. Don’t get me wrong though… This is still a very fast mat!

Mariah has named her mat Gigi after the man himself (GG). Gigi is built with yellow 200d deck, 70d bottom skin, has clear grip and a sexy black and purple large rail wrap logo. As planned, she will really open up the bottom end for Mariah. I’m also pretty confident that the top end will be pretty high too!

It’s good to be building mats right now. My surfing has stopped due to our lock down in the UK so focusing on building rides for others is a pretty rewarding second.

Have fun Mariah!

Cheers

G

G-Mat 184 - Jathy

It’s always a pleasure to build a mat for someone I regularly surf with so I was quietly stoked to see this customer’s name pop up in my email to say “you have received a deposit from Mark Underwood”. “Mark Underwood?” I thought… “I know a Tom Underwood”… As nickname’s go, Tom is an interesting one. It’s because of this photo by Alex Williams of Tom (Mark) skating - He looked like Tom (Tom) Inouye it was said by local legend Steve Daniel.

Photo by Alex Williams

Tom is a really experienced surfer and something of an icon around these parts. He has travelled the World surfing in places such as Oz, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Indo, the Maldives and others as well as all over the British Isles. He worked for many years in the surf industry, building boards under the Natural Rhythm label as well as working with Nigel Semens at Ocean Magic Surfboards in Newquay. He started life surfing thrusters, then logs, then moved on to fish before SUP’s.

Photo by Alex Williams

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Photo by Tom German

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Photo by Liquid Destination

And finally… after all that… HALLELUJAH!!!!!

Tom riding his 5 Star General in South East Cornwall. Photo by Tim Ciasto.

I didn’t know Tom before he found mats but know alot of people who knew him and they all said the same thing… “I hear Tom Underwood has started riding mats. I’m guessing he’ll be amazing on them like he is on everything else”. I met up with Tom (who funnily enough lives within 10 miles of me) when he bought a 5 Star General from MatSurfers.com, after surfing a 70/70 Ute named Richard owned by our mutual friend Graham Bracegirdle, and we have become good friends.

And yes, I can confirm he has really quickly become a very good mat surfer!

Tom sharing a wave with me in South East Cornwall. Photo by Tim Ciasto.

So that’s Tom covered, let’s move on to his mat. Tom has ridden my RB-JMC and was keen to give this a go, having also ridden a 70/70 Rubber Bucky. Having already mastered 200/70 wheezers it was time to drop the restriction and up the pliability so a 70/70 RB-JMC was the go with super-free-breather venting.

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I currently have some 70 denier blue material in. It’s 70d tafetta the same as the white and black I have but has a pretty open weave giveing a really pliable feel when welded. Tom was keen to go with a really light mat to compliment the rest of his quiver so we went with the blue throughout. I suplimented that with a light weight grip job. Add all that to the venting and this mat is gagging to go fast!

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Tom has named this mat “Jathy” and Jathy is one of those mats you build and think “man… I’d like to keep this one.

Luckily I will be able to get a few waves on Jathy when the current craziness is over!

Cheers

G

A Bit of Self Care... Lisha

It’s not long since I last built myself a mat but needs must. A little while ago I had my mat pulled from my hand on a solid day. I tried to keep hold with my right hand but it got yanked out, possibly breking my finger.

As always, I built Lisha over a weekend so nobody was missing out because of me doing this!

This also led to a strain of the muscles in my right fore arm which gets easily flared up even in small surf.

In short, I need to be alble to let go of my mat! My only options then were don’t surf, have a long swim after every wave or a leash. Given those thre then a leash seemed the best bet. I figured this was also a chance to try the RB-JMC design with a 200 denier deck.

Leashes are always a conundrum with mats. At low inflation they can interfere with things if not well managed and, more to the point, after years of riding without one they just feel like they get in the way. However, there is a need at times which then brings us to the other issue. The materieals, even a 200/70 construction, are lightweight. That’s great for performance but a challenge for attaching leashes. An eyelet will last a while but used over time or in heavy surf (just ask Henry Marfleet about G-Land) they will get pulled through.

So you need to do 2 things: Reinforce and spread the load.

When doing bungee fittings like this I weld a layer of 650 gram double coated nylon into the flange between the top and bottom skins. This gives a very robust strip of fabric across the nose. The nose of a mat is always fully inflated to it doesn’t make a huge difference to the pliability, altough anything on a mat is transferred aound the whole mat so it is noticable as reported by people who have two mats, one with and one without. The eyelets are fitted snuggly to grip the fabric well. That sounds obvious but loose eyelets will wear the fabric.

The next job is to spread the load. This is acheived by using bungee cord rather than rope. The elasticity of the cord soaks up a fair bit of the strain. Also, weaving the bungee through the eyelets and then attaching the leash to the middle loop causes the mat to conertina, spreading the load across the mat, rather than on a single point.

So on to the mat, as I said Lisha is a RB-JMC, super free-breather with negative rocker. The previous build have all been 70/70 which have been impressive in all conditions, including solid waves. It will be interesting to see what happens her then. Heavier decks reduce the overall pliability of mats (more hold, less speed) so in thoery this should have more top end.

Let’s see. I won’t be trying this in chunky surf for the time being as I need to let my arm recover but I’ll give it a crack in due course.

On the name, why Lisha? Well obviously, she has a leash but it insired me to name this mat after a sporting great of yesteryear (wierd phrase) Elisha Scott.

So there you go. Lets see how it works out and get well soon me!

Cheers

G

The RB-JMC Revolution Continues!

Well, that’s the overboard title out of the way but here is the latest of this new model heading out of the workshop.

This mat named Ricky Powell has been built for Santa Cruz matter and head coach of the MacMurray surfmat team. Jason is highly experienced and, having tried out ASB’s RB-JMC was keen to give it a go himself.

As is standard with this design Ricky Powell has a negative rocker. This design feature creates tons of lift and therefore speed,

Ricky is also a super free-breather being very freely vented internally meaning the the mat can change shape really quickly. The really surprise with this design from everyone riding it is it’s range. A 70/70, free breather with negative rocker isn’t what you’d expect to be the go for solid or hollow waves but everyone riding them has reported the same…

They go great!

Team MacMurray

So Ricky is en route now and should be with Jason soon. Looking forward to hearing the report.

Cheers

G

G-Mat 180 - Beluga

This is Beluga. She is a G-Mat Ute built for French mat surfer, Frank Fellous.

Frank hails from France but is something of a multi-national surfing phenomenon, travelling the globe in search of waves. Frank currently has Phileas (don’t worry… we have news on the way regarding Phileas) and is going to whisk her away on a trip to Israel.

As you can see from Beluga, Frank likes to keep things understated. Clean white mat with clean white lines. The observant ones amongst you will notice that the backdrop for these shots is white rather than my usual black background. The reason being, the attempted shots with a black background were so contrasted that it was really had not to blow out the white and lose the detail!

Speaking of detail, Beluga is a 200/70 Ute. She is a wheezer (restricted breather) with free rocker, so stable and predictable and responsive to all conditions. The grip is white Sikaflex EBT. Front corners are gripped which really is the best option for keeping hold of your mat.

Beluga has set off to France so should land very soon. S’AMUSER FRANK!

Cheers

G

A New Hope... The G-Mat Rubber Bucky - JMC

Sooooo then. You will have seen my previous posts about the Rubber Bucky - JMC which I built for Jamie McClellen and then another for Andrew Stephen Buck. Well, I had to build myself one

My new mat named “hope” is very, very, light. 70/70 construction and a super free-breather with crescent ended I'-beams with 7 breather holes each. What that means is that the I-beams give the mat its shape but barely restrict the airflow at all. That, along with the very ligth material, squarer back corners, negative rocker and criminally light weight grip job means that this mat is really fast when ridden at very low inflation.

The other interesting thing about this design is that it responds well to decent waves so is a real all-rounder. Jamie has been riding his RB-JMC in heavy hollow waves and has been out-running hollow fast breaking waves. ASB describes his as “as good as a mat gets”.

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ASB at Rincon. Photo: Beth O’Rourke

Jason MacMurray has ridden ASB’s and says “That thing is next level”. He went on to say “The way it carries through the flats and from behind the peak is crazy. Andrew was making waves that he had no business getting around the section on”.

Jamie says “As a gauge, I would say I’ve owned somewhere around 50 modern high performance surfmats in the last 15 years. I have about a dozen at the moment and 4-5 are in my working quiver being ridden regularly. The performance characteristics of the RB-JMC are highly unique. This mat seems to excel at both ends of the spectrum, from tiny windswell to 6-8ft tropical groundswell racetracks. It has an uncanny ability to track high in the pocket and naturally hold the line I want to take, whilst simultaneously breaking the tail free for unlimited acceleration. Honestly it’s the best fuckin mat I’ve ever ridden by a long shot and it’s basically replaced my entire quiver” Well that seems pretty definitive.

My own experiences have been really positive too. Hope has been ridden in waves between waist high and overhead and has been great! Noteably faster than other mats ridden on the same days. In partticular, the squared tail corners maximise that tail-slip magic with the mat finding its natural resistance free plane easily. I agree with the thoughts from Jamie, ASB and Jason though. Definitely NOT a beginners mat.

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The RB-JMC has performed well in solid good shaped waves

This is definitely more than a Rubber Bucky with a tweak and I am stoked to add the RB-JMC to my quiver of models available to customers. This feels like a break-through mat that I am very, very happy with!

Cheers

G

The Green Hornet

It’s always fun sending mats to the hotbed of modern matsurfing that is the area around Sant Barbara. That stretch of coast with seemingly endless pointbreaks and a community of open-minded and talented surfers is the perfect combo for these things called mats. One of said Santra Barbarans is Jim Griswold. Jim is a friend of Kerry Burns who recently had a mat from me. Jim was looking for a mat to handle fast breaking hollow waves. After a bit of chit-chat, we opted for a 200/70 Nouveau Racer… A Green one!

Given the type of waves Jim is riding we setteld on building The Green Hornet as a wheezer. This restricts the airflow which meansd that, even at low inflation, the mat will keep its shape so be more predictable and handle any bumps more easily.

The colour and been added via a “bucket dye” process where the completed mat is acid dyed in a bucket. This gives an interesting mottled effect do the Green Hornet looks a little like she’s been built out of some kind of radioactive marble!

The Green Hornet will be hitting the Central Cali coast soon so if you’re around that way, keep your eyes peeled for a streak of green.

Have fun Jim!

Cheers

G