Kelly Slater Theorises In Tomo’s Shaping Bay

Oh, how we drop what we’re doing to soak up the words of Kelly Slater. Particularly when it concerns his theories and non-standardised approach to board design.

Kelly first unveiled his board label, Slater Designs, at the 2015 Pipe Masters. Since then, under the guise of Firewire, his boards on a performance and commercial aspect have gone from strength to strength. Yeah the boards bear the 11x World Champ’s name, but the performance exhibited by Kelly and others (see: Stuey Kennedy at Snapper) atop the boards is greater argument than any conceivable marketing push. 

Some vocal dissenters lament Kelly’s venture into unorthodox craft, pleading with him to “get back on CI”. But as seen here, Kelly is no longer interested in pursuing the well-traversed realm of standard high-performance shortboards. 

There’s a whole world out there beyond squash tails and 6’0″s, and cutting the nose off his boards is simply the beginning. Rail-line, concave, and surface area are often underlooked aspects of a board under the eyes of a normal consumer, and Kelly’s just trying to make a bunch of boards the ‘every man’ can enjoy.

Let’s be real, most of us (myself included) aren’t surfing anything like the pro’s who’s boards we’re often inclined to buy. 

The above conversation between Daniel Thomson (the shaper behind most Slater Designs models) and Kelly went down at Tomo’s Currumbin shaping bay back in 2017, but there’s no way a little tardiness would ever avert us from this clip.

Set aside 15 minutes and just try to pull out your favourite quote.