RV Krystal Voyager
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Here we have a mat for Hamish Kent @clevestone Hamish is a Byron surfer with a deep interest in riding and creating surf craft. I always enjoy building mats for people who are interested in how what they ride and how it works. Hamish is certainly in that group and we had a few calls to get things right.
Hamish has gone for an RB-JMC, as his current go to is a G-Mat RFT. He was keen to get something a little wider with a different feel. This mat and Hamish's RFT are both 70/70 (70 denier nylon deck and bottom) and as Hamish likes to make lots of turns, we settled on a free elastic rocker (flat but flexible) rather than the usual negative rocker used with this design. The other key difference (apart fron the shape) it the venting. The RFT is a restricted breather (wheezer) where as this mat is a free-breather with extreme venting (what I call a super-Free-breather). Fast, sensitive, malleable and inclined to carve through turns. Nice... Oh and we have dyed her with scarlet acid dye. Hamish was after hi vis but not garish and I think this fits the bill nicely.
I asked Hamish about his journey into mats. He said:
“As a bit of a nerd, and a hard core surf and surf history nerd, I have always sought to have a variety of experiences on as many and as varied craft as possible. Not infrequently, I will ride as many different wave riding vehicles as possible in a single session.
I first started dabbling in mat riding around 2013 or 2014. I had watched Crystal Voyager a number of times, and was excited by the challenge of something new.
Some friends had started riding mats, and I saw them having fun, and thought I’d better see what I was missing out on.
I bought the most accessible mat that was on some kind of sale at the time, and started trying to ride it. After 20 or so years of regular brine time, this allowed me to reach a new level of humility and humiliation in the line up- there’s really nothing like sliding out and missing a section on a perfect wave, that you know you could make on almost any other craft you own. It was a strange combination of devastating and wonderful. Some brief low friction, high speed moments punctuated by moments of complete helplessness, getting flogged in the impact zone trying to hold onto a wet plastic bag cross to a balloon, and I was kinda hooked, like a beaten lover in a bad relationship. Clearly I had room for development.
Rather than slash a hole in my wave riding vehicle so that no-one else reach the subterranean depths of ego that I had been able to experience mat riding already, I decided to limit the humiliation to once a week. Once a week the morning session had become a prone zone with bodysurfing being the prone activity of choice. I added in mat riding as another horizontal humility building pursuit.
Fast forward to a trip to NZ; I wanted to take a quiver, but didn’t want to carry a quiver. I took a board, and a mat, and enjoyed a few lonely sessions with seals, started to get the hang of things, and with only seals to laugh at me, I was able to learn a few skills from them; they learnt nothing from me. I rode the mat most days for about 10 days. I improved slightly, but only slightly.
I continued to ride my mat intermittently, with another breakthrough coming on a 70km coastal hike where I decided that the mat was to be my only surf vehicle.
The last few years we have had some excellent mat riding conditions in the areas I frequent, and I have found myself using a mat more and more, and hoping for good conditions to ride the mat. It’s become the vehicle I am often most excited about riding. I’m enjoying the constant learning, the dynamic approaches to wave riding that are afforded a the mat, and the child like glee that comes from riding a wave with your mates new and old. ”
Lovely stuff and a testament to the words of Greenough to ride your mat and nothing else for at least 10 sessions straight when you first start out! Speaking of George, his influence on Hamish is clear with the name of this mat... "RV Krystal Voyager".
At the time of writing I'm waiting for Hamish's hoodie to arrive (Lilo Life print by Ry Akins @ry_akins) and then RV Krystal Voyager will head south.
Have fun Hamish. It's been a pleasure mate.
Cheers
G
