It’s absolutely fascinating to listen to Kelly Slater and Daniel Thomson rap for 15 unedited minutes about board design. The conversation above happened in Tomo’s Currumbin shaping bay back in 2017, when Slater Designs’ new model, the Cymatic, was in its early stages of research and development. It ranges from the specific – e.g. why Tomo didn’t put channels in the bottom of the design past where one’s front foot would go – to the esoteric. For instance: what stealth bombers can teach us about board design.
The opportunity to see behind the curtain on how Slater and Tomo work together to develop designs underscores why the shaper/surfer relationship is so special. Slater, for his part, brings a developed understanding of design to the table, but like all surfers, is trying to communicate a feeling. Tomo’s job is to translate that abstract feeling into design to produce a functional craft.
There’s so much to glean from this little convo, we recommend you listen to it in its entirety – or bookmark it for the car ride home and listen to the audio.
