An Everyman Board Delights Pros and Average Joes

I once heard Britt Merrick explain how designing boards for the one-percenters actually helps the rest of us peasants. By dialing in the minutia of high-performance surfboards, he’s able to apply all those granular details to models most people can relate to and enjoy. It’s not dissimilar to an F1 team taking notes for its commercial operations.

It’s a mark of a true mastery that Britt and Channel Islands are celebrated by the kings and queens of the sport (hello, 2X Stab In The Dark winner) and by the masses. That duality has led to one banger board after another and recently takes shape in the form of the Happy Everyday, a step-down for, you guessed it, everyday conditions. The board is basically a (happy) medium on the spectrum, not your polished sports car (see: Two Happy) but has more zip than your average cruiser (see: Rocket Wide).

The genesis for the board goes back to the Stab In The Dark. No, not this last one, the one before. With Taj Burrow. Taj’s carbon-wrapped runner-up was a prototype of what eventually became the Happy Everyday. Fast forward two years later and the board has made its way to Hawaii, where we see the CI CT squad (plus Mikey February) put it through its paces. The result? Pure joy.

Foam for thought: Two CI blades are popping up on the radar right now. Jack Robinson just crowned the CI Pro as the new SITD winner and has ordered several batches to cook on the Australian leg of the tour. No doubt his competitors are taking notes. But based on how much this current crop of CT team riders liked their Happy Everyday, it begs the age-old question: What boards do you take where? Might we see more of these Happys in board bags around the CT comp site? You can be sure they’re already in the parking lot at your local.