Everyone’s Crazy About Channel Islands’ New Neck Beard 2

As the old saying goes, you want people to listen these days, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder: you have to hit them with a sledgehammer. 

Well, we’re hammering away at y’all the past few days about the new Channel Islands Neck Beard 2, and for good reason.

After working with Britt Merrick to resurrect the as-of-late-ignored model, and being reminded of just how radical they look under Dane Reynolds’ feet, young Eithan Osborne took a Spine-Tek to Waco and wowed onlookers, with Bobby Martinez and others ripping the Stab High biggest air-winning board out of the young lads hands and taking it for a spin. 

Well today, with the model officially available at all fine Channel Islands retailers worldwide, and with the most recent of our Electric Acid Surfboard Test profiles live on the site, the crew up in Carpinteria sent over this gushy new amp session of Pat Gudang on a fresh Neck Beard 2. 

We’ll let Patty G and the CI folks take it from here:

The Neck Beard 2 is a new Channel Islands Surfboard model. The impetus for the update to one of CI’s most popular models ever was to have something fresh but familiar for Stab’s late summer 2018 surf film with Dane Reynolds called “The Electric Acid Surfboard Test” 

Typically, when something isn’t broke, there’s no need to fix it. That said, Britt Merrick and Dane Reynolds still felt a few slight refinements to the Neck Beard would make an already epic board that much better. 

A big fan of single concave, Dane asked Britt to take out the vee from the original Neck Beard, creating single throughout. This changed the rocker landscape some, but in a very positive way—enhancing its wave entry, down-the-line speed, and overall control. They also widened the tail block 1/2” and added a slight hip, resulting in increased responsiveness and maneuverability. The results of the Neck Beard 2 updates are best illustrated by the explosive surfing of Dane Reynolds in The Electric Acid Surfboard test, now available on iTunes.

A few days before the model became available to the world, Pat Gudauskas had his first ever surf on a Neck Beard 2 (his was built with Spine-Tek for adding pop). “I have no idea what this board’s going to be like,” Pat said before heading out on the maiden voyage. “All I know is that I want to surf like Eithan [Osborne], and that’s pretty much my goal right now. Eithan circa the Waco [Stab High] event.”

Pat’s surfing right out of the gate was beyond electric. He came in from the session upbeat and energized, sharing these thoughts: “Pretty much super happy about this experience right here. It feels like you can go super fast and do big airs. I didn’t stick any, but I was psyched to go fast and do big airs. This is 5’6”, 19 1/2” and 2 5/16” but i was kinda tripping because it’s really short for me, but it paddled insane. I was having no trouble on the paddle. And that was kinda sick for it being my first Neck Beard experience. Thank you Dane Reynolds [laughs]. That was fun. Actually, thank you Eithan. He was the one I was freaking out on when I saw him surfing it in France. He was just doing the biggest airs, and then all I wanted to do was the biggest airs—so I got all psyched!”

You can find the Neck Beard 2 at a local Channel Islands dealer near you or head here. 

The music featured in this video is by the Santa Barbara based band Clean Spill. You might recognize one of its members—Pat Curren—as the son of legendary Channel Islands team rider Tom Curren. Learn more about Clean Spill’s music and upcoming shows here.