Father Ted's words

Thanks Kat for bringing the board this way, it definitely has a WOW factor when you see it up close; the rails and the fin are especially detailed and the whole thing flows nicely from its tip through its dramatic rocker shape to the extreme pintail. Roy has a genuine talent for working with wood and he’s created something really beautiful with this board.

Surfing a 13’ Olo board for the first time was quite an experience, having picked Kat up and making our way to Muriwai the sense of vague nervousness began to increase. I really had no idea as to what I was in for but I was excited about the opportunity to try something new. The waves were just about the perfect size for a first time, S2S had called it 2-3’ with the occasional 4 footer and it was probably fairly accurate although the 4 footers were fairly infrequent. Having dealt with the obligatory photo session the moment of truth arrived and the real excitement began.

The lowdown from a layman’s perspective

The board paddles really easily and the ‘rather pronounced’ rocker gives you quite a lot of lift over smaller whitewash. Rolling it is quite easy on the bigger waves and the more forward you are the less likely it seemed to me that I would get whacked in the head by it. It’s really nice to sit so high in the water and you feel your making good time paddling, aside from the rolling and the typical Muriwai reform you’re out the back in no time at all. I discovered that nothing happens on the spur of the moment with a board like this- there’s no such thing as a quick spin around for a late takeoff, and even if you sit right on the tail it takes awhile to bring the front around. Forward planning seemed like a good idea and I was to discover that getting caught ½ way round can be fairly exciting.

The first wave put a smile on my face for sure, Paddling in fairly early on a head high peaky wave I felt like I was getting hung up in the lip for a moment (could have been because the waves were a bit lumpy) and then the board seemed to release and I was off, leaning to the left a little and the rail had me shooting towards the open face. Initially it felt like the board had a mind of its own but it didn’t take long to get dialled in a bit and my confidence increased to the point that I had no hesitation taking off on a few set waves. You can move around quite a bit on the board and that’s pretty helpful on the double up inside reforms that seem to frequent Muriwai on the outgoing tide; There was more than one “Oh SHOOT” moment when the wave wedged out underneath me and I was faced with a steep drop with the tip buried in what was quite possibly very shallow water but a quick shuffle to the tail seemed to be enough to bring the nose back up and we carried on with my heart beating wildly nonetheless- quite a rush. The last thing I wanted to do was snap the beast in the shorebreak and I didn’t want to get catapulted by it either.

I was stoked to get a couple of quite long waves from right out the back, the board links the tricky sections together easily and it doesn’t bounce around in whitewater sections either. I’d hesitate to say that I ‘threw down a few turns’ but I felt like I was busy all the time and it’s easy enough to bring the board back around to the curl again, The rails/rocker do all the work so it seems like the harder you lean the board over the faster it turns and I never felt bogged down at all.

I was stoked when I first held the board to realise it is quite light considering its size, because I have to admit I was pretty wary about the possibility of surfing it without a leg/calf-rope. There was no problem with that at all, although the surf wasn’t all that big bit it’s not much heavier than a ‘traditional’ or older mal. I reckon the only thing you’d need to worry about would be copping the sharp end of the pintail to the head if it came shooting back quickly- maybe that’s why Roy wears a helmet.

Kat, did really well, she’s quite petite and it’s a big board so I think the impression that I had initially felt about the board having a mind of its own was possibly more real for her, but she had no trouble getting up and sizzing along the wave and I’m sure that on a cleaner more lined up day she would have had no problems at all picking up a few big ones out the back.

All in all I had a blast on my first excursion and it’s awesome to have an opportunity to be a part of something like this, thanks again Roy for sharing your board with us and to Spud for making the suggestion. There are a whole lot of people who are going to have a whole lot of fun. I’m really keen to keep it a little while longer if people don’t mind to see if I can get out in something a bit more solid, I’ve got my fingers crossed for another swell like the one that came through last week. Here’s hoping J in the meantime I’ll get back to giving it a polish, I’ve attached a couple of photo’s of it, hopefully they show a bit of the detail in the board. It truly is a beauty.