Firewire Surfboards have finally hit Hawaii surf shops and the hype has been building. These boards have a Rolls Royce like price tag at over $700 a pop…I went into Hawaiian Island Creations and saw boards selling for $800! There’s been so much hype surrounding these boards and all I’ve been hearing is how Taj Burrow claims these boards are insane. For the steep price tag, I hope he’s right.

Firewire Technology

Firewire Surfboards feature their ‘Future Shapes Technology’ which produces flex memory and rapid rebound. Most of the hype surrounding these boards lie in the rails which utilize a parabolic balsa wood rail (not new technology). These boards have no center stringer and according to Firewire Surfboards, the wood rails flex and store energy (compress) throughout the turn and spring back to the original rocker (decompress) thereby releasing the energy in the form of speed which triggers rapid acceleration. All Firewire Surfboards are made with epoxy resin which ensures that these boards maintain their long lasting flex patterns unlike traditional fiberglass boards which lose their flex as they age.

Customization

While the majority of these stock surfboards are sold off the rack, the company’s website states that Firewire boards with custom dimensions can be ordered. However, I would expect the custom boards to take quite a while to get back to you.

Durability

One thing I noticed while looking at Firewire boards was that they lacked thickness. The company claims that their epoxy/composite surfboards are up to 20% lighter than traditional fiberglass surfboards which is why they can offer a shorter and thinner board. However, these boards last 5-10 times longer than tradition PU boards and the composite materials ensure that these boards do not loose their flex and ‘liveliness’.

Models

Flexfire – Standard shortboard outline with performance in mind and is designed for maximum speed and quick turning. The website claims “Flexfire series explodes through turns while the parabolic rail configuration guarantees 100% return memory for years.”

Alternator – Slightly more forgiving shortboard outline geared for the intermediate surfer designed to paddle well but still turn in a tight radius. Probably the most all around shortboard shape for average to intermediate surfers.

Quadraflex – Combines the control of the Alternator with the speed of a twin fin fish. This board basically looks like a shortboard with a wider swallow tail…board also features quad fin setup. This is Firewire Surfboard’s stab at the increasingly popular quad fin surfboard.

Futura – Somewhat of a modern fish outline and design. High top-end speed with tight turning ability in a thruster fin setup.

Fishtail – Retro twin fin fish design and in my opinion the most fun looking board in the Firewire quiver. Old school design meets new school composite materials and construction. A twin fin fish with parabolic rails means the fastest fish ever built? I find it hard to believe but if you see the regulars at your spot running circles around you with this board, the myth must be true.

Skeptic

I’m somewhat skeptical that these boards really explode out of turns with a greater amount of speed than traditional surfboards. The one aspect that has me questioning the worth of these boards is their epoxy construction. I’ve yet to find an epoxy surfboard that has really worked well in choppy, windy, or sub-par conditions. The company claims that these boards perform well in windy conditions but I’ll let you be the judge.

Perhaps the local rep here may let us test drive a few boards. We’ll let you know as soon as we ride one of these boards. Stay tuned for our conclusion.

Mike Hynson rose to fame in surfing’s iconic film ‘The Endless Summer’. His stylish surfing helped him become one of San Diego’s top surfers and he become one of the first surfers to surf the Banzai Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu. A short time later, filmmaker Bruce Brown asked Hynson to star in his upcoming surf movie ‘The Endless Summer’. He went full time into shaping in 1959 and joined the Hobie Surfboard’s team in 1963. After filming ‘The Endless Summer’, he shaped for Gordon and Smith Surfboards and unveiled the triple stringer Hynson model, also known as the ‘red fin’ for its red skeg. He was also instrumental in creating the ‘tucked-under edge’ surfboard rail and invented the ‘DolFin’. The surfer turned shaper now shapes out of his studio in San Diego, California under his own label ‘Hynson and Company’ shaping “one-of-a-kind masterpieces” from balsa to foam.

Get it: www.michaelhynsonsurfboards.com

Edge Core Surf is a direct wholesaler based in San Diego, CA offering traditional fiberglass, epoxy, and carbon fiber boards direct to the public at discounted prices. Their current shapers include Tom Eberly, Wayne Rich, Joe Blair and Dennis Murphy (12’2″ Standup). Edge Core Surfboards can be shipped to any destination in the world. Our main warehouse is in Carlsbad, CA where we have our entire line of products from boards, board bags, and rash guards all at wholesale pricing! You can view their websites at www.bisect.com and www.edgecoresurf.com

Pope Bisect in action!

Keola Rapoza was born and raised in Makaha on Oahu’s west side. An accomplished surfer as well as shaper, Rapoza had been working for Town & Country Surfboards for several years and shaped T&C ‘s only Surftech epoxy longboard, dubbed the K Star. His progressive longboards have been tested to their limits from Pipeline to Ala Moana Bowls by top Hawaii surfers including Kekoa Uemura, one of Hawaii’s top up and coming pro longboarders.

Rumor has it that T&C cut the majority of their surfboard shapers and Rapoza has since started a new surfboard company called Home Grown. The company claims to be the only surfboard manufacturer producing environmentally friendly surfboards.

Tommy Tanaka, son of the late respected Hawaiian shaper Ernie Tanaka, grew up in Santa Monica, California but moved back to Hawaii to live with his dad during high school. He started off body boarding Waikiki and then progressed to surfing. Soon he was competing in summer contests and won Hawaii’s biggest longboard contest, China’s Uemura’s Annual Longboard Contest.

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Arguably one of California’s top shapers, Todd Proctor grew up surfing some of California’s best point breaks including Venture and Santa Barbara in LA’s northern county. After high school, he spend some time traveling and surfing in Australia, South Africa, Hawaii and Mexico. While honing his surfing skills, Proctor found himself interested in learning about surfboards and how they interacted with waves. He shaped his first board in his grandfather’s shed in 1991 and later got a job finishing boards at McCrystal Surfboards in Oxnard, CA. He started his own label in 1992 shaping board for friends and fellow surfers and in 1994 was offered a full time shaping job at Lost Surfboards with Matt Biolos. During his time at Lost, Todd learned about different design ideas and shapes alongside Biolos while shaping boards for a number of Lost team riders.

In 2000, he started Proctor Surfboards in Ventura with a vision for a state of the art board operation and factory. Todd Proctor has been there ever since looking to push surf design and shaping to the next level while providing surfboards of the highest quality on the cutting edge of innovation. They’ve also got one of the best websites I’ve seen for a surfboard shaper with interesting videos and shaping resources. You should definitely check their website out, especially if you surf in California!

I’ve watched a number of Proctor Surf videos and the one board which really intrigues me is the Lil Rascal. According to Proctor, this board is designed for those slow small days when your groveler shortboard just won’t cut it and you don’t want to ride your longboard. Jay Phillips (riding Lil Rascal in video) makes this board look super fun and I’d be interested to see how this board would work here in Hawaii on the South Shore which is known for slower and smaller waves. A lot of us just don’t want to ride longboards most of the time!

After the fallout of Clark Foam last December, epoxy surfboards were thrust into the spotlight once again. With an extremely limited supply of Clark’s PU foam, the abundance of polystyrene foam (foam used in epoxy boards) looked quite attractive. However, the previously bleak future of traditional foam is looking better than ever with more foam companies producing a larger variety of foam types, densities, plugs, etc. which has brought their popularity back up to the pre-Clark shutdown era. There are many pros and cons to both epoxy and traditional PU surfboards which we’ll examine below.

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Al Merrick of Channel Island Surfboards located in Santa Barbara, California has been one of the world’s premiere shapers since the 1980’s. His claim to fame rose as when his top team rider Tom Curren turned pro and exploded on the professional surfing scene. Both Curren and Merrick worked hard tweaking Tom’s boards in attempting to create the higest performing surfboards ever seen in that era. Curren, who has been riding for CI Surfboards since he was a teenager, won 4 world titles on Al’s magical boards. After the 80’s and Curren’s dominance in the sport of surfing, CI Surfboards exploded again with the rise of Al’s most successful protoge and up and coming surfing star Kelly Slater. Throughout the majority of Kelly’s career, he and Merrick have consistently worked together refining and improving CI Surfboards and creating surfing’s most famous surfer/shaper relationship. That relationship was a key force helping Kelly win an unprecendented 8 world titles. Read more…

Makani McDonald of 808 Shapes is one of Hawaii’s top amateur surfers having won a few of Hawaii’s prestigious amateur competitions and has been shaping underground for several years. His ability to efficiently ride both longboards and shortboards provides him great versatility in building big or small boards for a variety of surfers. A native of Kauai, Makani honed his surfing skills while surfing some of the Garden Isle’s world class waves. He has a number of 808Surfer members riding both longboards and shortboards and many of them have raved about his ability as a shaper and surfer.

Kerry is the other half of Hawaii’s famous brother/shaper combo. Like Wade, Kerry has shaped for some of Hawaii’s largest surf shops which most recently include HIC Surf. He now has his own shaping label called Vesso International featuring team riders: Kekoa Bacalso and one of Hawaii’s top longboarders Duane Desoto.