Watch: Dane Reynolds Destroy Right Sand Points On A Mayhem Fish

“Wait… So, there’s a Mayhem in here?!” Dane Reynolds demanded, baking under a midday Mexican sun and with ten of surfboard design’s oddest ducks lined up in front of him. 

“Is there really?!.. Huh.” 

About three seconds later, he figured it out. While the 5’6 Round Nose Fish Retro is a fresh addition to Mayhem and …Lost’s very large catalog, the outline’s got Matt’s fingerprints all over them, drawn from the lineage of the board that he’ll be the first to admit defined his early career: the fabled 5’5″ 19 1/4. 

“Twenty five years later, guys like you are still fuckin’ asking me about it,” Mayhem grumbled when we tapped him for an Acid Test inclusion, specifically an exact replica of the iconic swallow-tail twins Cory, Shea, Wardo, and Andy blew a generation away with in 1995. But as Matt was quick to protest, the board wouldn’t be foreign to Dane’s feet, as he’d had one in his garage before. 

So when Stab picked up the vaguely rasta acid splashed quads, we were admittedly perplexed. With an outline resembling Rich Pavel’s Speed Dialer, the board featured funky-looking wings and rails that a layman might miss at first glance. 

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“The evolution of the modern fish, on certain sides, has been so pigeonholed by recreating the vibe and the look of the ’70s kneeboard fish—the Steve Lis,” Matt tells Stab. And while there’s certainly plenty of Lis in any wide-nosed, deep-swallow, the wholly modernized rocker profile, and “snowboard influence” double-sidecut in the outline resulted in one of the most hi-fi doses in the Acid Test. 

Dane, however, was unconvinced. 

“I’m having a hard time picturing myself, like, ripping,” Dane told Stab, while standing the RNF Retro against the rest of the lineup.  

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While the Acid Test team was wholly impressed with Dane’s first go on the split-keel quad, he was quick to offer sharp criticism, though not directed at the board, itself, but the placement of the traction pad.

“It’s really annoying to paddle on,” Dane said. “If my chest is where it feels natural to paddle, the nose is this deep under water, and I’m swimming. So I move back and my knees are hanging right over this deck pad and I’m doing a wheelie. I wish this deck pad to get way back on the tail, because I want to get my foot over this back quad fin and I feel like I can’t.”

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The next session, at a slightly punchier sand point to the north, Dane savagely tore the tailpad off applied his beloved Fu. The difference was obvious the very first wave.

“It was pretty fun!,” Dane said after the second session. “My knee and groin hurt from trying to keep my foot from sliding off the back the whole session. But the board works a lot better once I took the deck pad off. The board flows over water really well, and it’s fun on rail. It’s really hard hitting the lip, especially with no deck deck pad.”  

See for yourself in to the short profile film above, and scroll south for a look at some of Stab‘s South African stud, Alan Van Gysen. 

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You can pick up your own Round Nose Fish Retro here, or at any number of Mayhem’s fine retailers, in a any variety of …Lost’s many technologies and constructions.