Guess What... Black on Black!

The RB-JMC is the mat a lot of people are after and this is the latest, built for Santa Barbarian, Colin McCrindle.

Colin was one of my early customers and has always been a good source of feedback being both a skilled mat surfer and a fella with access to some very fine and very quiet waves as he goes on the hunt on his boat.

This mat, named Vaccine, is a RB-JMC, as mentioned. Colin has opted for a 200/70 configuration, preferring the feel of a more stable deck. As always with this model, it is a highly vented super-free-breather to maximise air movement at low inflation. What this means is that the highly malleable fabric of the hull can morph to the wave and the deck to the rider almost instantly. More twitchy for the newer mat surfer but more intuitive and responsive for for more experienced riders.

Vaccine also has a negative elastic rocker to enhance down the line speed. There has been some confusion around this issue at times so just to clarify, the key word here is elastic. Elastic rockers refer to the favoured stretch of the fabric in the deck and bottom skins. At full inflation the mat will stretch into a rocker but at lower inflation will be flat. The important issue is that a neg rocker mat has a slightly elastic deck and restricted bottom skin so will favour forming a negative rocker when air is forced into the inside rail giving more lift.

Back to Vaccine, you can see that Colin has gone for a black on black colour scheme. These are becoming a thing!

I'm looking forward to seeing how Colin and Vaccine go.

Have fun mate!

Cheers

G

Low Key for Dado

There seems to be something about black on black. It just looks so clean, don't you think? This is "Billie". A custom Rubber Bucky built for an Italian with a penchant for going fast on mats. Just the ticket then.

Billie is a 200/70 mat built for Eduardo "Dado" Girardini. She has free rocker and as you can see, Dado has gone for a bungee fitting as well to allow for a leash.

The Rubber Bucky is my larger model (which is then specifically scaled and tailored to the rider). This means that the mat has a larger planing area so offers more glide in smaller surf. Dado is aiming to open up spots around him offering waves around waist to chest high so this is the perfect mat. The wheezer option makes sense then because Dado will cover less of the deck so a slower air transfer offers a more stable mat allowing for lower inflation, despite the reduced deck coverage.

So a bit about Dado. He says:

"I grew up in northern Italy and moved to California right after high school. I became a regular at Rincon and met some of the greatest surfers in the world, including Andrew Buck. My friends and I rode anything from food trays to 12’ gliders but nothing blew my mind harder than seeing Buck going a thousand miles an hour on those little cove dredgers.

Now I live in Portugal and those waves just don’t exist around here. I started surfing bigger waves to get away from crowds but somehow riding the mat is still the most thrilling thing there is."

Hopefully Billie will open up the options for Dado to surf in his new locale.

Have fun Dado!

Cheers

G

One for Kenny

This is a mat I've had on the list for a while and am glad to finally get to. This mat is built for a notable member of Santa Barbaran surfmat heritage. Kenny Hughes is one of the originals. A hugely experienced mat surfer who was there for the early days of Californian mat surfing, particularly the evolution from heavy materials to modern lightweight TPU coated nylon and low inflation surfing.

A former Rincon regular, Kenny spends his days now off the beaten track surfing lesser frequented points along the Central Californian Coast.

After discussing Kenny's needs it is perhaps not surprising that we settled on a RB-JMC who Kenny has named "Penelope". She is a 200/70 mat with an elastic neg rocker set up. I have maximised the internal venting to allow the air to move inside the mat with as little restriction as is sensible to make for a very responsive ride at low inflation.

Penelope is on the way as I write (along with a Matsquatch tee by Bryn Dampney) so I'm excited to see how Kenny and Penelope get on together.

Fun mat... Enjoy Kenny!

Cheers

G

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Here we have a G-Mat Ute built for Olaus McLeod. For those who don’t know him, Olaus is a board builder from Cornwall UK specialising in building paulownia paipos and alaias. More on that in a mo.

First, let’s talk about this mat. Olaus comes from an aviation background and has named his mat X-1 after the first aircraft to break the sound barrier. Olaus is planning to have a crack at doing the same I think!!!

X-1 is a G-Mat Ute. As you can see, Olaus has gone for a sexy low-key black on black colour scheme. Mats always look good like that don’t you think? X-1 is a 200/70 wheezer. She has free rocker too and is a perfect mat to take out in any conditions, confident that she is going to perform.

Olaus is not a hugely experienced mat rider, but has ridden them enough to get into the groove quickly and is used to surfing on his belly so X-1 should be just the ticket.

As mentioned earlier, Olaus builds wooden boards under the Kiri label and they are lovely! His boards are very mice indeed hand shaped from Paulownia and sealed with linseed oil. Olaus and I did the old swap-a-roo. Check out the board he shaped in return for X-1. This stunner is coming my way and is going to be a gift for my son who’s prone style will be perfectly suited to this beauty.

Im going to be getting more than the odd go on this beuty myself too!!!

If you fancy getting some wood in your quiver then take a look at Olaus’s work on his Instagram page:

@kiri.surf

Have fun with X-1 Olaus. Hopefully I’ll get to join you in breaking the sound barrier in the not-to-distant future. If we ever get any waves again over her in the UK!

Cheers

G

PS. It was only after I had packed up the mat that I realised I really do need to hoover up the cat hairs!

Something Fishy Going Down

So then, here is a mat that has been on the radar for some time and I am as stoked as a freshly poked campfire to have been able to build a mat for a very, very talented waterman. For those unfamiliar with him, Trevor Gordon is s super talent surfer from Santa Barbara, CA. I got to know Trevor through our mutual friend Andrew Buck, when “Buck” put me in touch with Trevor’s extraordinary wife, Maddie, to build her a mat named Bumbarreller.

So back to Trevor. He is, as you would expect, a very good mat rider. His surfing style suits the mat perfectly: super smooth, no wasted energy, being guided by the wave rather than trying to impose himself on it. And of course, hailing from the stretch of coast with endless point breaks, PLUS living on a sail boat Trevor has it pretty sweet to be a mat surfer. Not that I’m envious at all!

We started talking about this mat and Trevor asked for a Mackerel Print deck. I had a few goes and you know what? I just couldn’t do it! It just came out as a greeny, bluey stripy splodgy affair and not really conveying the mood. Trevor wanted his mat to clearly be all about the mackerel! We went back to the drawing board and here’s what we cam up with… Meet MACK DADDY! All hail! Gotta say, I dig this one.

Mack Daddy is a 70/70 G-Mat RB-JMC. He has negative rocker and is a super free breather. The deck is acid dyed and there is a sexy Mack on one rail (I’m trying to work out if this is the Mack Daddy or if Trevor is like some kind of fishy Dr Doolitle). There is also a bit of branding down the other rail, just in case anyone is wondering who is coming. Finally, the grip is added using ClearFix sealant which I have started to use for clear grip jobs.

Trevor and Maddie are currently in the Canaries and with the weirdness around Eupoean shipping since Brexit we’ve agreed to ship to the US so Trevor will have Mack Daddy waiting for him when he gets home.

 I’m looking forward to sharing some waves with Trevor and Maddie either when I’m next over there or when they’re next over here.  

 Cheers

G

Mat for a UK Legend!

I am stoked to have been able to build a 5 Star General for one of the legends of surfing history, Dennis Cross. Dennis is the man who founded Gul Wetsuits and contributed so much to the development of cold water surfing (so a man close to my heart).

For those unfamiliar with Dennis, here’s a wonderful film about the early years of cold water surfing in the UK and the influence that Gul had which can’t be understated on a UK and international stage.

Enjoy your mat Dennis and thank you!

Cheers

G

Happy Halloween?!

G-Mat 205 (AKA “Pumpkin”) is a RB-JMC heading to Noosa Heads in Australia. I am super excited to be sending this mat down there too because she is on the way to hook up with James Dylan Tanner. James is one of those people (that us mere mortals hate) who jump on anything and click. What makes it worse is he’s a really nice bloke…

What a c***! 😂

I jest of course but what I said about James other than the insult is true. Really solid mat surfer.

So on to Pumpkin. As mentioned, she is a RB-JMC. Super-Free-Breather with a negative rocker. Slightly unusually, Pumpkin is a 200/70 because James wanted a mat that is easy to spot should he lose it, but this 200d has quite an open weave and is certainly not as heavy as the 200d black material.

This is also the second mat in a row that I have built with clear grip using ClearFix. I have used this in the past but tended to stick with clear Sikaflex EBT just for consistency but the clear EBT formula feems to have changed with it being thicker than it was. The ClearFix works into the weave really well.

This mat is one of two mats that I am going to be doing for James but the second will be down the line once I have caught up on my backlog. I’m really looking forward to the feedback on this mat and am pretty sure she’ll tide him over until the next one.

Have fun down there JDT!

Cheers

G

PS James hosted Phileas in Sri Lanka and NZ as people may recall but HERE’S A LINK to take a look. He’s also been enjoying the delights of his G-Mat RFT down in Oz as you can see below.

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