Flat hood ornament = less drag.
When tackling massive Nazaré, like Garrett McNamara and Andrew Cotton did last week, “the best or nothing” can be the difference between life and death. When Mercedes Benz and Garrett McNamara collaborated on new board designs for his tow surfing exploits, they had nothing but the best in mind.
There’s little room for error at a place like Nazaré, which can quickly squeeze the life out of a surfer, so McNamara needed a magic carpet. Nothing less. “The technical aspects were from the last 35 years of surfing and having an idea in my head of what a magic board would be like,” Garrett explains regarding how these boards were conceptualized.
From there, two Portuguese companies built four boards, each of which have different materials. GMac will be the one test driving the boards, figuring out which works best. The boards are very different from what’s currently on the market. He explained the board he rode at Nazaré as “extremely stiff and heavy between the feet and extremely flexible towards the front to absorb the shock from the huge chops, like a built in suspension system with a dampener. The weight was put inside the board, between the feet, instead of having it screwed in on the top which eliminates swing weight.”
With McNamara’s big wave experience and Mercedes Benz’s proven world-class design, this may be the best thing out there gear-wise in big wave surfing. Word is there’s an internal system that measure’s the surfer’s performance as well. No details on that yet, though.
GMac’s new signature whip.
