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most of the boards I have or tested are around that. The GWT was 27.5L compared to my other boards: Mashup - 27.1 Seaside - 28.2 Dumpster Diver 2 - 27.8 Too Fish - 27.8 Dark Twin - 28.86 Hydra - 27.2 Hypto Krypto - 28.62 White Tiger - 26.2 (but I preferred my other buddies 5'4 which is closer to 28) Sharpeye FT - 25.5 (this I consider my performance board and it needs better waves)

I started to channel by mistake cuz of random videos I posted. But then after it grew, it was easy to justify getting new boards, LOL. She's all for it now. A lot of these are borrowed boards from friends and others second hand. I also started to do my own oil changes and brake jobs on my car to save money. I keep a log of how much I save by not going to a mechanic and use that money to buy boards and wetsuits. It's helped a lot. We have 5 cars in my family. Each car is 3 oil changes a year, it costs me $30 to do it myself vs 75 to 150, depending on which car. I can safely say, i save minimum $50 per car 3x a year. that's is $750 in savings, 2 wetsuits. Brake pads is roughly once every 2 to 3 years and that saves me about 150 to 350 a year per car. That's easily a board a year, used to be two before covid supply issue and covid inflation. :( Rotors are where I save the most but that is only every 4 years per car so basically 1 of my cars a year although the timing hasn't worked out that way, I'm currently doing 3 cars in 1 year and then going 2 years without. Anyways, I year yah, I had 2 girls in private school and that was basically all my money. I had nothing and had to figure out how to make additional money and figured out one way was to save. I also gave up starbucks. That almost justified a board a year for me, also lost a crap ton of weight. LOL Went from 170 to 145 Sorry, didn't mean to give you too much info but I remember years ago, when I had a zero budget and thought about getting a 2nd job. Then the savings idea came to me. although if you are already doing your own maintenance, then it's even harder to justify. LOL Sorry for the long comment.

Have you surfed it as a pure twin? My last two days I've surfed it only as a pure twin and I am very surprised at how well it goes. I can't tell the difference at the moment at least not in the smaller stuff.

@ThomyeSurfs I have, and I like it a lot. You get the release when you want it. You can definitely feel the difference when it's bigger. I've been surfing with the small trailer on bigger steeper days. I have yet to use the large trailer. I have a couple of Twinsman that are fun but get way too loose, but that's probably because I bought them too small for me. I'm 5'11" 190 and they are 5'7 27L and 5'8 28L. My sweet spot is 31-33L. My Sweet Potato 2 is 34L and I feel like I'm on a midsize.

@@Renegadee17 dang your twinsmans are tiny. My twinsman is 5'4 but 28L. Really fat.

it's what I say. I hear too many people in the water use their age as the excuse. You should never stop trying to progress.

way too different a board. The Seaside is the most user friendly board, it works is almost everything I surf up to about head high. The Too Fish is fast and requires an open face for longer drawn out turns even with a pivot fin. Much more than the seaside. The seaside is super loose and the Too Fish just super fast. for every day, I prefer the seaside. For certain days that fit this board, I like the Too Fish better. I ended up buying the Too Fish second hand cuz I liked it so much. I can't directly compare them though. Apples and Oranges.

interesting. Not sure how it would mount to a foil though. I plan to put out 2 reviews of this, one for surfing and the other for SUP and Kayak. Likely at the end of July cuz I'll be out of the water for 3 weeks.

No, I meant when I was learning.

I think the Seaxe was my very first mid-length. Then the S&B was next.

I didn't think I was going to pull it off. I was so late to it. So technically yes I guess it was a claim lol.

I like the weight and look of I-Bolic much better. But given that I don't surf a board much, other than the create the content, I like the idea of it now aging or not aging as much. It gives me an opportunity to surf it later and or sell it in excellent condition. The board seems super durable. in regards to surfing, not sure if it is better or worse, unless I surf an I-Bolic and Volcanic back to back in the same board, it is hard to tell if the sensation I'm feeling from surfing is the board design or the board construction.

haha, nice. Thanks

thanks, after I did it and seeing that flat section (engine), it just confirmed why some boards just go better in small waves. I will say though, although I knew the Mashup had a bigger engine, I didn't think it was that much. coupled with the low tail rocker, the rocker exaggerates the size of the engine. making it actually bigger. Having said that, the GWT still worked great, slightly harder to grovel but still groveled well. I think they offset the tail rocker with slightly less nose rocker. it was hard to see but it had a fraction less nose rocker than the mashup. I will put it up against the FT and DD2 in the fin comparison video and see how it compares, the rocker that is.

Rocker and fin placement comparison are super helpful!! Thanks

Love the rocker profile comparison also. In general I really like you comparing with other models you’ve reviewed that helps a lot!

Backhand was good but not great. Better than the Fishbeard and toofiah for sure but that was to be expected. I think I had 1 backhand wave in the video. I will try and get more.

I try and be careful of what I say since surfing is somewhat subjective and rockers tend to favor the back footed surfer. The board paddled well cuz of the easy medium front rocker but then when you step on the back, if the wave was soft, it would pull the nose out of the water a bit more than normal, and that would push water. so I had to surf forward quite a bit to drive for speed. I'm getting better at that so more and more boards are staring to feel comfortable to me.used to be, I hated performance type boards, now it doesn't seem as bad as I remember.

Thanks brotha, really appreciate it.

Thanks, appreciate that. I really like the way the board just snaps in the pocket. I probably should have mentioned that although that only happened on one particular set of fins. Hopefully I'll get my fin comparison out so people can gauge what fins work best on this board.

@@ThomyeSurfs Looking forward to the follow-up video with the fin comparisons!

I love the idea of an Asym and would love to but funds are drained. I am lucky that some of my friends have a good collection of boards they are willing to let me ride/review. But that list is drying up soon. Not sure I can afford to buy an Album for the sake of a review, I would lose way too much money. But the concept of an asym makes total sense to me. In fact, I think a lot intermediate surfers should be on an asym, especially if their backhand isn't as strong as their forehand. It's crazy to me that more people aren't on them.

@@ThomyeSurfs I agree they definitely help out I let you know if I get one and dims and if it works you more than welcome to do review

I'll try it. I did try it with the Mick Fanning thrusters and that went way better than the 2+1.

if you compare them by volume, you will end up on a much shorter SP2. Basically the 5'2 SP2 has the same volume as the 5'5 Hydra. so if you go by that, the SP2 might be easier to move around, less rail in the water. if you compare by height, say 5'5, the sp2 gets really big ang boaty. so Hydra for better performance. Just depends on how you compare. I liked the hydra better for me but that is because they don't make the SP2 any smaller. :(

easier said than done. they have to be willing to work with me and most don't. They Ghost my emails. I am in talks with 2 local shapers but only because they are willing to work with my budget. Also, it is much harder to find a local shaper's board in the right size second hand or borrow one since not many of my buddies surf them. Lastly, most local shapers don't have demo boards to try out. There's other economic factors as well. It's not as easy as saying "support local shapers". Lastly, I do consider Dan Mann, Rob Machado, Aipa, Lost, CI, and others local shapers.

​@@ThomyeSurfscould be your one of the many that are better buying a board off the rack. It's a shame this fire wires are junk. A lot of intermediate surfers make things really complicated for shapers. Demo boards ???? When you work with a local shaper and develop a relationship it's not like a car dealership, it takes time to build a relationship and you'll find in the end their boards are much better. They know what's right through their experience, they mostly have your best interests in mind if you just keep it simple. Don't take it the wrong way but the frustration could be generated on your end, and simple doesn't mean better. Got to support local, not foreign manufacturing 🇺🇸

@@mattgurin6168he rides a bunch of dan mann and machado boards. Firewire is based in Carlsbad. I realize that Firewire manufactures their boards overseas, but that’s still a ton of local support.

I don't own any. The ones that were on the board were for the demo board. I only got to ride the demo board twice and they worked pretty good. But once I got my own GWT I just used the fins I had which are mostly NVS. 😊

I think from a liters to length ratio, the Seaside and Hydra are better grovelers with the White Tiger being only slightly behind in grovel ability. However, that also means that the White Tiger can perform better in better conditions. All three are short grovelers so as the waves to bigger and punchier, all three would struggle above shoulder high waves, with the White Tiger being able handle slightly punchier waves. The swallow cut outs on the tails of the Seaside and Hydra make them better for groveling, more straight line projection. At least for me, someone that surfs very front footed or neutral. Rarely heavy back foot.

Awesome mate, thanks for the reply, gives me some good info! So the white tiger maybe has slightly more upper end range, and the other 2 covers more lower? How does the turning capabilities vary between the tail shapes, specifically the white tiger as the other two are quite similar? Considering one of them for daily 1- 3/4ft, constantly variable conditions where i am.

@@joshlittle2031 in a nutshell yes. WT higher top end, the other two better bottom end. In regards to turning, they are similar in that they all turn easily but here are the slight differences. the BQ with the widest tail turns the easiest when waves are smaller, better put, when you don't have too much speed. As it goes faster, wider tails get stiffer on turns. The seaside likely turns best at the mid size waves like waist to shoulder and WT best on the top end. They all work well throughout the different waves but each has their strengths. I'm not saying that the BQ doesn't work in waist to chest, in fact, in waist to chest, they all work their best, i'm just pointing out where each board is better than the other. Hope that makes sense. simply put, all three boards work best if you are only comparing the board to itself in waves waist to chest high. but of the three, BQ works better than the other 2 in sub 1.5, Seaside for 1.5 to 3, and WT 3 to 4. Let me konw if that was confusing.

Thanks mate, i presume BQ your referring to the hydra? So out of the 3,im curious which you'd pick?

@@joshlittle2031 sorry. I was actually referring to the Bobby quad. But same principle applies to the hydra. Nice wide tail

i guess that would depend on volume for me. That one video of Slater doing that crazy layback to round house cutback tells me that the rails can get wet but mileage may vary depending on skill. But I do agree this one for me is on top and for that matter, most of my boards in my preferred volume sits on top. I am likely riding my boards 3 L too big. I think if I went with what is good for my weight, I would need to go around 24L, but then the board would be way too small and knifey. A very good observation though.

I think I'm to blame for that though. Likely cuz I'm not great at getting my rails deep and I also ride by boards a tad bigger. I saw Kelly do some insane carve on this so I know it's not the board, LOL. Definitely requires skill to really set it.

I would love to. I reached out to Pyzel about the precious but they didn't have any demos for me to test. I looked around for 2nd hand but nothing in my size. I don't think it really caught on in popularity. I loved the way it looked but maybe other didn't. I also wrote to coco about testing her boards but no reply :( Her boards looks so sick and her surfing has gotten so much better in my opinion after she got off tour, more free and liberated. Hopefully some day. If I find one, I will definitely try.

hoping to try it this weekend as a pure twin, wish me luck. I keep thinking I'll just wiggle and not move. haha

@@ThomyeSurfs Can’t wait to see as I’m sure you could rip a door!

If only I could have turned it around. I was focusing too much on the first half, trying to do the TKnox layback to round house. I probably should have just done a normal round house then I would have pulled it. Decent board, so far so good on the testing.

@@ThomyeSurfs @ThomyeSurfs haha ....... When I surf and catch just one good one then it was all worth it! Which fin set up???

@@ThePokersurfer I'm running the NVS Kraken which are balanced Medium size Twin fins with a small stabilizer. I tried it with the NVS Orcas which are similar to Futures EN's, they are big and I also tried it with the NVS Taylor Knox hatchet style fins. The Kraken seem to work the best in most conditions. I may try it with the AIPA Ahi's next.

@@ThomyeSurfs so no twin fin only configuration? Funny how many fishes are advertised as that but takes a trailer hence an authentic tri lol.

@@ThePokersurfer not yet. I don't do well with straight twin unless it is keel but after my Too Fish experience, I may try it. Also, the board feels really tight with the Orcas and trailer so it might actually work well if I did just the Orcas. I'll do that and definitely post about it. Maybe this weekend if there some surf although the forecast looks crap for socal.

let me know how it goes. I had a few people tell me they were able to do it so hoping you can too. Start by taking the back fin out, it really helps and once you get the feeling of it, you can do it with the fin in and incorporate it into you surfing. Cheers

one super loose set I tried was the NVS AIPA DNA Sequencers. they are super pivot and the rear fins at super small for a quad set. What fins system did you get?

I've not tried the Phantom yet so, I can't really do a direct comparison but looking at the specs and shape, they are similar but I think the Phantom will have more rocker. which means it may require a bit more wave or curve to the wave. So, the phantom is more performance oriented. I think to get the same volume, you would have to go almost 2" longer on the phantom.