Jay Davies Rides The Sexiest Full-Figured Groveler We’ve Seen This Year!

We’re not ashamed of our taste for curves, our penchant for the voluptuous, and when it comes to our daily drivers, we’re more than happy to straddle something with a little extra volume. 

Of course, there’s a fine line between an overstuffed dog, and a subtly curvaceous blade with a little extra cush for the push. 

Last week, while we were banging around West Oz., our favourite plus-sized bruiser, Jay Davies, swung through our house to pick up a bag of fresh Chilli’s that his dear friend and occasional pack mule, Chris Binns, was kind enough to haul back from Bali.

“This board is always super fast & easy to ride,” – Jay Davies

Photography

Joey Griffiths

While there were plenty of spicy pintails for West Oz juice, the board that immediately caught everyone’s attention was a slightly stubby, but elegantly outlined squash tail, with a noticeable but delicate hip that started in the middle of the side fin box. 

Jay Davies, perhaps the most nimble ninety-kilo surfer on the planet, with a board tailor-made for a full-frame.

Photography

Joey Griffiths

“This is a new model James [Cheal] has been working on,” Jay said. “It’s a really good board for punchy, small surf.” 

Which, of course, is a platitude w/r/t the subject of surfboard design, but it ain’t everyday that a groveller built for a 90k/20lb+ surfer looks svelte in the least. Most small wave boards border on boat status when they scale beyond the 30L mark, leaving man-sized surfers with bulky, clumsy-looking high volume equipment. 

The Hot Knife, even at 32-liters, looked absolutely sexy (prompting our publisher to call up the Chilli boys in Sydney immediately and toss one to the queue). 

James “Chilli” Cheal, and his new small wave blade for 2019, The Hot Knife

Photography

Joey Griffiths

According to James “Chilli” Cheal, The Hot Knife’s been a long time a-comin’. The new model comprises fan favourite aspects two of their most beloved and often repeat ordered boards, the Peri Peri from their current lineup, and the Step-Down 2, which was fazed out but still gets custom ordered more than they’d like to admit. 

“[The Hot Knife] is a combination of the Peri Peri’s much-loved bottom contours— a single concave through to a double with a blended vee exiting the tail tip this cre-ates a super forgiving rail to rail experience—and the classic outline from the Stepdown 2, “with the main feature being a slighthip at the side fin marks. This creates a straighter rail down to the tailfor drive. A slightly wider rounded square tail pod is fast.”

Despite being full-figured, the volume is distributed evenly, with forgiving but not bulky rails. Jay’s feedback “this board is always super fast & easy to ride.”

And ain’t that basically all you can ask for? 

You can custom order your Hot Knife here. 

Ain’t she just the foxiest, plump little thing?

Photography

Joey Griffiths