Mat Fink
/Meet “Mat Fink”. The new ride for Tasmania based mat surfer, Wyn Herrick.
I asked Wyn for his story about getting into mats and he really let rip. It’s too good to summarise so here you go:
“How I learned to stop worrying and love the mat-
I’ve been vaguely aware of matting for a long time. When I lived in Malibu, I would see a mat guy at Leo Carrillo pretty regularly. I struck up a conversation with him one day; he told me he lived way over in Pasadena and would ride in on his motorcycle to dodge traffic with his mat rolled up in a saddlebag. It would be almost a decade after that conversation until I actually started riding mats, but that was the first time I thought, “Huh, this mat thing is kinda cool!”
Fast forward a few years—I’m living in Ojai and completely obsessed with surfing Rincon. Of course, anyone who spends any time with the queen of the coast will inevitably cross paths with Andrew Buck, or at least his wake as he highlines over you. Watching him day in and out get set waves, make impossible sections, and just generally go really fast completely changed my perception of matting from a neat tool for travel or a fun thing to goof around on when the surf’s small to a serious wave-riding vehicle. Still, I was on my own journey experimenting with different board shapes, fins, etc., and matting evaded me through this period. It wasn’t until my partner and I relocated to Australia that I would finally pick it up and quickly become infatuated.
We were living in the Byron Bay zone which, for me, carries this duality of epochal surf history and a paradise lost to development and tourism. I arrived, perhaps naively, hoping to trace the steps of my surf heroes of the transition era. What I found were crowds somehow worse than Southern California and etiquette so far gone that even the local regulators had given up long ago. Of course, Byron is still gorgeous and did hold a few “oh my god, this is just like Morning of the Earth” moments for me, but by and large, I found myself dreading going surfing. Enter the mat back into my psyche: Byron has a fair few mat riders—the Greenough effect is still strong. Seeing guys out on mats with big smiles on their faces picking off wave after wave that grumpy, too-cool-for-school surfers weren’t even looking at made me say, “Now’s the time.”
We had a couple of friends who matted, and I couldn’t believe how happily they said, “Yes! Take one of my mats, keep it for however long you want!” My very first go-out was at the Cape in Byron on a bigger day with kinda wild conditions. My attitude was, “Fuck it, let’s just rip the Band-Aid off.” We had a trip coming up to Tasmania that we planned to bring the mats on, and I wanted at least a few waves under my belt before that. Immediately, I was reduced to kook status. I could barely just lie on the thing. It kept popping out from under me, I had no idea where to even position myself on the mat, and the fins felt so awkward on my feet. It didn’t help that the swell period was short and there was a strong current running down the point. I managed to catch a few waves and do a couple of walk-arounds before I was completely knackered. The waves I caught were basically whitewash, the malleability of the mat felt insane, and every little wave paddling out absolutely rocked my shit. I’d seen what was possible, though; I left discouraged but determined to figure it out. It felt good in a way to suck at something again—posturing and jockeying in the lineup were now thrown out the window. I was free to be a kook.
I progressed quickly, however, and the next three months would be a crash course in matting. There was plenty of help along the way. After the first session, I messaged Buck with a laundry list of questions, to which he responded, “Just call me.” He proceeded to school me on the finer points of matting for the next 30 minutes, and I attribute that call greatly to my fast learning curve—thanks, Buck. I rode five different mats of different deniers and shapes, fixed pinholes, patched a puncture, rode all sorts of waves and conditions, got a tube, got womped, and stopped stand-up surfing entirely. Soon, I was trimming down the line at the Pass at Mach 3 with a shit-eating grin on my face. I found it so much easier to navigate a crowd. As mat riders know, you are completely invisible to most of the lineup and are able to take a wide variety of waves that others might dismiss as too fast or too small.
The mat community welcomed me in the ways I’d always hoped surfing would. Where surfers were tribal and suspicious, I found mat people running up to me on the beach just to connect over our shared love of the pool toy, zoom balloon, or goon bag. I read a Jamie McClellan interview where he describes the mat community as what surfing in the 1950s might have been like—a global community of people doing something they hold sacred, small enough that you all have at least a loose connection to each other. I was soon hanging and matting with the greater Byron/Lennox mattists, including one halcyon session with ten of us serendipitously out at the Pass together playing bumper cars. Recently, my partner and I bid adieu to Byron for the less crowded shores of Tassie. Knowing basically no one down here, I was stoked to find that Ben Zubkevych is here carrying the mat flame. We have yet to link up, but I’m sure we’ll get a session in one of these days. The mat provides.
I was asked by Graeme for a paragraph on how I got into matting, and I feel this has probably been a bit long-winded and overly personal, but matting saved surfing for me. I have gone back to standing up about fifty percent of the time these days, but before I got on the mat, my surf life was feeling ever-grim. Matting brought the joy and purity back. I had the honor of some hangs and even a mat sesh with George Greenough before I left Byron, and every time I saw him he’d say, “It always puts a smile on your face.” I reckon it puts a smile on the face of everyone in the lineup. When you see the little-kid joy of someone locked into the pocket at full speed on a pool toy, you can’t help but grin.”
So straight onto the mat. Wyn is friends with Andrew Buck @aslbuck and is highly influenced by his surfing. He has an RFT2 already (the stock version of the RB-JMC) but was still keen on an RB-JMC. When scaling the dims actually were slightly smaller for this mat so Wyn will feel a difference. He has also gone for a super-free-breather, so this mat will be more responsive. Mat Fink also has a negative elastic rocker, like his RFT2.
Wyn came with an idea already set in his mind with regard to colours, wanting to emulate the Greenough shaped yellow and orange edge boards ridden by Rasta a while back (see shot 16). Hopefully no injuries for Wyn though! I’m pretty pleased with how the dye job has come out on the bottom skin. I have recently switched to a new brand of acid dye and right now I’m stoked on it’s even, true colour finish.
So Mat Fink is heading down to Tassie. Hopefully Wyn can catch up with Ben Zubkevych.
Have fun man!
Cheers
G