Loligo

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Meet "Loligo". A G-Mat Ute built for Mark Garcia (not to be confused with Mark Sheridan Garcia who had a mat recently).

Mark has been riding mats for a long time and I'm proud to say that he has been riding mine for years now. I built Mark a Ute back in 2016 named Narwhal. More recently Mark has been surfing a 200/70 G-Mat RFT-M and has really settled into that size of mat so we agreed to scale his new ride around that.

Mark loves his RFT so has opted for a Ute (the mothrr of the RFT) to expand his quiver, rather than replace his mat. Mark wanted Loligo to give a different ride though, so with that in mind we went for a 70d deck and upped the internal venting to make Loligo a free-breather. We also went for a negative elastic rocker.

Loligo is named after a species of squid native to the waters around Mark's Californian home. A pretty apt name then on several levels!

Loligo should land with Mark any moment. Have fun Mark!

Cheers

G

Pacific Express

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Choo chooooo! All aboard the Pacific Express!

This mat is a G-Mat RB-JMC built for Mark Garcia. Mark lives in Southern California and is a pretty experienced mat surfer. A while back, Mark picked up a couple of RFTs (200/70 and 70/70) from Mollusk and had been trying for a custom for a while.

Mark was pretty clear on what he wanted having fallen in love with the 70/70 feel and managed the snaffle up the last of my olive green 70d fabric to boot!

Mark said:

“I honestly feel like the mat riding has clicked more with each mat I’ve got. 200/70 to the 70/70. The craziest thing about the 70/70 is I’ve had insane sessions in the shitiest spring surf.
I came home from sea ( May is the worse time of year for surf in San Diego) and had some good and memorable mat sessions. Had one with Dane, Osprey Surfboards (one of the best local surfboards) where I was really in the zone. And even he was asking about the mat.”
— Mark Garcia

So then, Pacific Express is something of a step up again. PE is a Super-Free-Breather so pretty much completely unrestricted air flow internally. Mark has some long empty point breaks lined up so I was super excited to hear about how this all turns out and Mark has had his mat for a couple of weeks. I reached out via email as it turns out Mark has had his Instagram hacked.

He said:

“I got to ride the mat a couple since this last week and had some great sessions on it. So lively and responsive. It just seems to bend into the waves and fit the curve of sections. Can’t wait to get it down to the longer Baja points.

I gave my 70-70 RFT to my good friend Adam Burns to try. He’s a really stand out surfer here at the cliffs and has been riding mats for a while. Anyway he was so stoked on it after one session he reached out to Tom and ordered a 70-70 for himself.”
— Mark Garcia

Pretty stoked on that!

Have fun Mark. And have fun Adam!

Cheers

G

G-Mat 114 (AKA "The Narwhal")

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This is Mark Garcia's new mat named, "The Narwhal".  When I was talking to Mark about his mat he said:

"When my girlfriend bought me my first mat just over a year ago, there was a popular AT&T commercial that had a catching tune about narwhals swimming in the ocean and causing a commotion because they’re so awesome. We have associated our matting sessions with the Narwhal ever since, which is why I thought it would cool to go with the Narwhal theme."

The challenge was getting the blotchy fade from black at the nose to white at the tail right. I've had a good go. Whether or not it is a good match might be up for some debate but Mark says he's happy.

Perhaps more Arctic Camo than Narwhal print but Mark did make the point the those two things are maybe one and the same.

The most tricky bit of the build was gripping right around the valve to get the black nose. Fiddly stuff!

So then, some technical jimbo jambo. The Narwhal is a 200/70 Ute. She is scaled to Mark so may feel like a little less mat than his current mats, a G-Mat 5 Star General and a 4GF Tracker Round Tail, but should fit him nicely. She is a free breather with free rocker and I expect her to be quick. The grip is Sikaflex EBT to offer some durability and stability to the deck.

As I said, this is going to be a lively and fast mat so I'm looking forward to hearing how Mark gets on with The Narwhal. Certainly a different experience to what he's ridden to date. 

Cheers

G

UPDATE: 28/04/2017

Word from Mark:

"The Narwhal is going great, absolutely love it. Great travel companion. Just got back from a week in Maui. The swell was small, long rights in warm water was like heaven.  Heading to Taiwan at the end of the month, hopefully my timing is good and we catch a bit of swell. it is either awesome or it is nothing. I'll try to get some pics from Taiwan to send along."

Sounds sweet! 

G