A Mid-Performance Break From Your Regularly Scheduled Pipeline-ing

Traditionally, surf edits are made by throwing a few surfers on a plane to an enviable destination, and then documenting their different approaches to the same wave. Simple, effective, and enjoyable for everyone involved. 

However, it can sometime be even more enjoyable to watch your favorite surfers make magic on the waves where they cut their teeth. Channel Islands has clearly realized this.

Rather than flying people to wave-rich locales to test their new CI Mid Twin, they’ve just pieced together footage of a few team riders testing the freshly minted design in their local zones.

M-Feb enjoys empty South African velvet, Pick-Up star Cliff Kapono cruises at home in the islands, and Devon Howard navigates SoCal walls in Cadillac comfort.

The end result is familiar, as though each surfer is merely filling the grooves they themselves have worn in. Toss in a jazzy soundtrack, and all of a sudden I’m on CI’s site picking which color I want.

As for the actual theory behind the CI Mid Twin, Devon explains; 

“The original CI Mid debuted with the ever reliable 2-plus-1 fin set-up (big center fin, small sidebites), but when I became interested in seeing how it would ride as a straight twin we had to work on new fin placement for it to work properly—the 2 plus 1 placement was too far forward. Although it called for a slightly shorter rail line, we wanted to keep the Mid Twin’s stock volume (liters) as close to the original as possible for optimal paddling—so a tad bit of width and thickness was added. To help the board perform even better rail to rail and be more sensitive through turns when you need it, we added just a touch more tail rocker.

The style of surfing you typically strive for on this style of board is closer to long snowboard carves on a fresh bluebird day: Smooth and full rail commitment the entire time.“

Good luck looking like these guys though.