Michel Bourez, longtime Firewire devotee. Photo: Cestari/WSL.

Get Concave

“A quad inside a single concave bottom contour really gives the board a ton of lift off the surface of the water. I think that’s something that can really be utilized in a wave like this, a freshwater wave which has less buoyancy. The water’s less dense, so you need to counteract that lack of density in the water. And this bottom contour helps with the lift, and also the responsiveness, to fit turns into a really tight pocket.”
— Daniel “Tomo” Thomson, Firewire

On Your Rocker

“We found that the lower entry rocker was good, but with accelerated rocker out the back. That really fit the curve of the wave.”
— Britt Merrick, Channel Islands

More Fin

“In this pool environment you don’t have what you have in the natural environment, which is this lateral movement of water sucking off the face of the wave that helps you project, creating a force to push against with your fins. This wave doesn’t have that, so you don’t have that same projection off the bottom. One of the big things about fins is they create depth. So, if you’re riding waves with more push, you actually want a little smaller fin. But out here, you get more projection and lift off the bottom with more fin.
— Britt Merrick, Channel Islands

“My gut feeling is that you need way more flex in the fins. That may be due to surfing in freshwater and the power of the wave, but playing with both the density and size of the fins will be a huge factor.”
— Darren Handley, DHD