What's New At Boardshop January 2019

How can January almost be over already!

It’s been a great start to the year, surf, not too cold a couple of foreign excursions for the boys here and new boards arriving weekly.

Ian AKA Judith (named after travel show presenter Judith Chalmers because he’s away so often) was lucky to sample the delights of a very cool island off the coast of West Africa over Christmas and New Year.

Can’t give the exact location, it doesn’t handle crowds but some of you will no doubt guess. Mid twenties temperature, solid surf and light winds and £1 for a beer, who needs Indo??

The set up in the pic and video is pretty fickle and is often overrun with kiters if the winds are right but on a little road trip he discovered a few other good spots.

You only needed a shorty or neoprene vest, board wise he took a 6’ 6 Phipps One Bad Egg, his beloved Slater Omni 5’ 9 and his step up Bradley Grunter.

Rogers enjoying the fruits of Southern Portugal as we speak on his new FORM performance Flow Stik see below for pic – coming very soon – and the rest of the team are booking up trips as we speak from France to more Portugal adventures to Senegal!

We’re always keen to hear about you trips so feel free to send in detail, pics or videos and we’ll feature them in our monthly blog and whack them on Instagram.

The Firewire Rob Machado Seaside has arrived at last, one of the most anticipated boards of all time.

The first batch was presold in record time so we’ll start to get feedback on how it goes very soon which we will of course share with you lot.

The next delivery is due in early March and we’ll be listing it for pre orders by the end of the month, I can see we’re going to playing catch up on this board for the whole of 2019.

The FCS II and Futures fins specifically built for this board have sold out as well but there are more arriving any time soon.

Pukas INNCA 69er Step Down and Tasty Treat

There are a lot of epoxy boards being produced right now, we check them all out but only choose the ones we think offer something to the surfer that isn’t already covered, we really like this construction from Pukas.

Its lightweight, tough and surfs brilliantly. It doesn’t sit too high in the water like some epoxy and surfs pretty well the same as the PU version but with all the massive benefits of stunning durability, in terms of durability think Firewire helium, it’s that good.

Pukas surfboards using INNCA or Innegra Carbon technology are constructed with EPS Foam, Epoxy Resin and the Innegra Carbon High Performance Enhancing Frame.

The EPS Stringerless foam blank has 4oz fibreglass on the deck and is laminated with Epoxy resin and then INN.CA tape, this forms the unique frame around the deck giving strength and a balanced flex.

The bottom also has 4oz glass and has a UD (uni-directional) carbon tape running from nose to tail.

Innegra tech improves the impact resistance and damage tolerance while significantly reducing weight over regular PU construction surfboards.

Whether you like it or not epoxy is the future of surfboards and its great to see Pukas joining the party with one of the best builds yet.

The online surf mag STAB has just finished their annual Stab In the Dark thing where a famous surfer (Fanno this year) gets to try out a load of anonymous board to decide which he likes best – watch out for the results because all the rumours we’ve heard are that a Pukas INNCA tech board made in into the final three!

The two model selected cover a huge range of waves and surfing ability, anyone can surf the 69er step down from low intermediate to top end surfer, whilst the Tasty Treat will deal with better days for better surfers.

The 69er Step Down is a take down from the legendary Original Sixtyniner, it’s a wider, flatter, fuller version which is perfect for an average surfer in our standard waves.

Christenson Surfboards

While we’re talking Pukas they have another treat for us and you. The first colab with Chris Christenson is a stunner, we’re stoked to unveil the Pegaso.

A more performance based twin fin when compared to the Chris Fish model, the Pukas x Christenson Pegaso handles punchier and bigger surf than standard Fish surfboard but still has that twin fin mentality of flow, glide and rail to rail surfing.

It will surf more aggressively in the pocket and still has plenty of glide and drive. It’s a twin fin you can take to Indo or to your local beach break since it handles surf from 1ft-5ft.

Roger from Boardshop has just got his and after his first surf he back with a huge grin and stories of how fast this board surfs. Pukas recommend that you order the Pegaso: 3-4 inches longer than your standard fish or 3-4 inches shorter than your standard shortboard.

An average surfer of 70-75kg would go for a 5’7″ or 5’8″, Roger at 69.5542kgs went 5’ 10 to cope with a 6mm hooded winter wetsuit, slack Uk waves and his age!

Competition time

We ran a comp this month to give away one of Leo Fioravanti’s pro boards, wow! What a response, thank you to everyone who participated.

The winner is George Eccles. All you had to do was follow us on Instagram to be in with a chance.

We’ve got another amazing comp coming soon so get over to Instagram and follow us to be in with a chance to win.

Custom of the month

Its only January and we’ve already had some absolute beauties, but our favortuite one so far is this Pyzel Phantom is pale blue, its super clean and the finish is as good as any board builder on the planet.

FORM surfboards and Alan Stokes

Stokesy has been at it again, and this time he took a quiver of FORM surfboards to Iceland courtesy of travel company KAYAK.

Great waves, that funny green sky they get up there and freezing temperatures greeted surfing’s very own Peter Pan (he’s 58 you know!) and he loved it.

He had perfect waves for putting a new FORM groveler model through its paces, it’s in production right now and will be landing at Boardshop towers in 4-5 weeks.

There is so much going on with FORM right now we can barely keep up with demand, another new model in concept form for now is the Pro Flow Stik a more performance slanted version of the incredibly popular Flow Stik – sneaky snap shot below of Roger’s that he took to Portugal to test.

Wetsuits

Its bloody cold down here now, water temp has dipped below 6 degrees a couple of times this month and it’s only going to get colder.

The only choice of wetsuit in those temps is a wetsuit with a built in hood. We reckon its about 15% warmer than wearing a wetsuit and hood combo and will definitely keep you in the water longer.

Couple it up with 5, 6 or 7mm boots and gloves or mitts and you’ll get the most out of your surfing. Here’s our Top 3 choices.

1. Alder Evo Fire Chest Zip 6/5/4mm Hooded Wetsuit

As warm as it gets, incredible value, British surf company building suits for British conditions. Clive at Boardshop wears this suit from December until March.

2. O'Neill Psycho Tech 6/4mm Hooded Wetsuit

Compared to other wetsuits from other brands this top end suit is great value. This wetsuit is the choice of Ian at Boardshop.

3. Billabong Furnace Absolute X 5/4mm Hooded Wetsuit

Another great wetsuit and it's in the sale at 20% off so be quick! This wetsuit is Matt's choice, as Billabong wetsuits fit him perfectly.