Surfing Waves

I've been sucked in to the FireWire fan club after my dominator and brought this today!
Reviews and science of the board look amazing and someone sold the whole package with fins and bag for only $600.

It's crazy looking at the quad concave through the fins and planing hull at the nose.
This one is 5'8 x 19 1/8 x 2 5/8 and 33.9l so it's on the big side for me but my dominator is 33.5l and I do well on that. I thought this one might still grovel the same but handle a bigger spectrum of waves on steeper drops?

Time to get testing!

Next thing you know big H will get one and DBB probably allready has one. Looks like a fun board for small waves.

The irony is that this isn't made as a small wave board, it's stated to handle 2xOH!

Well first review was interesting: was 2-4ft semi-clean / choppy heavy beach break.

Seemed to paddle ok although the nose takes some getting used to and trying to get the right positioning on the board. I found the nose kept getting buried under the water while paddling due to the lumpy sea.

I got a couple of solid lefts and immediately I was up on the first wave. The drop seemed to give me lots of time and the board felt really stable, it didn't scream with speed and looseness like my dominator despite being basically the same volume and similar construction.
I didn't feel like I could turn it as tight as the dominator but this is still early days and it felt like I had so much control of the board. Couldn't believe it felt this easy in the first wave!

The second wave was a bit more steep and I was surprised at how easily the board made the drop, again just so stable and in control. This wave would've started off about shoulder high and then peaked up to overhead while riding it but didn't feel it. I remember going down to do a right-side bottom turn and ended up doing a more steep turn than I've ever done, it felt like I was literally parallel to the water and just drove the right down deep off the bottom.
definitely seems that it could easily take well overhead and be in control.
I'm also surprised at how the large amount of volume didn't feel like it at all. It didn't feel like a bulky board or anything that would be 34l in a 5'8 guise, it also felt longer than 5'8. Almost like 6'0.

I didn't get much of a chance to try and grovel but I did get one .5-1ft face and it picked it up ok. Would probably be ok grovelling on anything clean with a face.

Like the dominator though, it needed a good face to take off so I guess I was already in the right zone after riding the dominator yesterday.
Didn't get to try it on any white-washy take offs but seems a little bit heavier and stronger than rapid fire But pretty similar.

Can't wait to try it again!

Back in 2012, Daniel Thompson ( Tomo ) came by the shop I worked at. He also hand shaped 12 boards while he was in Hawaii. It was hard to sell them since most customer thought they were strange. I told many Japanese to buy them because they were the "next thing", but they said "no way". Funny to see them going nutz over his designs now.



Oh yeah, and he said the boards are meant for good fast waves.

I've seen them in lineups here....oddly, two out of the three times were under the feet of Japanese....

There is a tv show I've seem here called "Hydrodynamics", in which a guy tests different boards, including boards with unusual designs. In one episode they tested one which looked like this one: sawed nose.

It seemed to be a faster board, because of less friction with water due to the lack of a extended nose.
I'm curious about new board designs, would like to try one!

Keep us posted about how the board works with you!

I can't wait to try it more as well. I think it will suit out west coast conditions which always never have an abundance of power and dump in the waves although not always very clean.

My experience might also be a little different than most as mine is quite high on the volume scale so it will plane and paddle differently to people that have 8l less volume for around the same respective weight. Even still though, so far I am impressed with the control for the waves I've had.
I think if I'd gone for a 5'5 or 5'6 then the turning would be a lot more dynamic but I'm also hoping this can grovel a bit and replace my 5'10 dominator

For you Aussies: my partner was just reading through new idea and I saw this. Looks like Pete Evans has a Vader as well!!

I saw one in lineup the other day, the rider wasn't that good but it did peak my interest

Funnily enough I came across a girl who had the 5'7 one in a 1ft lineup yesterday as well! She wasn't very good either but still kudos for trying.

I can give another piece of a review in 1-1.5ft small but cleanish waves. I initially took my 7'2 out and struggled to catch some waves on that so the co fictions were pretty small and choppy at times.
Eventually I decided I'd just give it a go as my 7'2 not felt like a big unturnable log after riding my 5'10 and 5'8 recently!

It's safe to say that it can grovel, even while set up as a thruster! As long as there's a face to the wave, it can catch it no matter how small. Once up though, it's hard to keep the speed as the board won't glide and neither is it loose enough to really flick around like my dominator. I want to try it as a quad now as it looks like it would be a lot faster!
It feels as capable as the rider in small conditions but it's not it's natural environment, as soon as u got a steep clean face it really started to boost and pick up speed and come in to its own