Misc From Daniel...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Tremor...

Hi Paul,

Hope you're well. I just scored a couple of excellent days of matting, and I wanted to share the stoke.

 

The first session was with Mary on Sunday morning, and conditions were stellar. Ken Samuels got this photo of me. One of the best barrels I've ever had.

 

Yesterday afternoon I went back on the low tide. Beautiful, belly-high sets were sucking out on the rock and lining up through the inside but no one was out... the kelp was atrocious! No fear - I blew up my Greenough-Spec UDT and dragged myself across the kelp bed for a solo session. What an amazing mat! I absolutely flew over the weed, connecting sections and locking into screaming little walls whenever they appeared. The GSUDT felt like a rocket - especially on cut-backs. I'm guessing that's a product of the added length, width and roundtail of the UDT? Anyway, the GSUDT continues to surprise me - thanks for that!
 

Lastly, my recently married friends, Dan and Katherine just back from the Dominican Republic, where they scored some fun, warm, blue-water waves on their wedding gift 4gfs. I'll send pics as soon as I get them.

 

Cheers,

Tremor

DIY Rubber Duck Riders!!!

At the 7:10 mark, the footage that once was Rubber Duck Riders was used in Crystal Voyager...



To recreate the buzz of the most classic air mat movie of all time, play the Crystal Voyager segment with the sound down, and substitute the original Rubber Duck Rider soundtrack...Keep On Chooglin' by CCR!



Or, as an alternative, here is a kick ass live version of same...

From Daniel...

 

PG,

Here's a few I had on my blog not sure if I sent them to you or if you seen them I'm riding the Standard.

DH

From Greg and Polly...

Photos: Polly

 

 

Hi Paul,

4 shots of 4, 4th gear mats. No boards!

Greg

Matt Riding His Mat at Matt Peak...

Nice "8 Ball in the side pocket" move...

Greenough's Hidden Genius...

 

 

One of the best lessons I learned from George was back in the 70's. We were down at Panavision in LA, picking up something relating to his homebuilt, waterproof 35mm movie cameras. As soon as we walked in, he immediately gravitated to the oldest, geekiest guy in the place. Later on, I asked him why he picked that one guy to talk to.

"Anywhere you go, anything you do, find the oldest geek you can and pick his brain. They know everything!"

In Crystal Voyager, there's a quick shot of George chumming with a photographer fitting the description of that mythical techie/guru. It's a small moment in CV...but it says volumes about George.

4GF Stealth Mats...

After receiving a number of emails over the years from mat riders wishing to remain the background of surfing's insatiable need to document itself, we've finally developed what can best be described as a "Stealth Mat."

Utilizing the same technology employed by US bombers and fighter jets to avoid radar detection, these next-gen 4GFs simply refuse to be photographed with proper focus.

The above stealth prototypes were plopped into the surf in full view of a professional surf photographer, hell bent on documenting mat surfing for posterity...and the positive result speak for itself. Mission accomplished!

Introducing 4GF Australia...

 

(A Reasonable Facsimile of Neil)

4GF mats are now available through Mr. Neil Pye, of the greater Brisbane area.

His email contact is:  4gf.australia@gmail.com

His facebook page is:  www.facebook.com/surfmats

The main advantage of ordering through Neil -- if you're Australian, or live in Australia, or plan to visit Australia in the near future -- is a much quicker delivery time. He can get a mat out within a day or two, and shipping time will be around 3 days. His price is $199 AUS, plus shipping. So it's about the same, or few bucks less, than ordering directly from 4GF. But again, much faster delivery.

I've been slaving away in order to fill his pantry of mats to it's bursting point. As of today, his inventory looks like this:

1 x 5GF

3 x Standard

3 x Tracker

3 x Omni

4 x Fatty

4 x Vespa

2 x XL

2 x UDT

2 x Classic

Neil is, of course, an avid mat riding enthusiast, and will keep a real time 4GF inventory on his facebook page.

So give him a shout out! (Do people still say that?)

 

4GF Spring Cleaning...

Spring has finally arrived, at least here in the uber-civilized Northern Hemisphere. So now seems like a good time to download a few things I've had lurking on my hard drive...

 

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First up is a nice piece on recapturing one's childhood. Seems appropriate for a mat surfing blog!

 

 

 

What, me worry?

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Next up is an improvement to the 4GF deck non-skid. The raw nylon canvas deck is pretty good by itself, but it became a lot better when we started apply the hot wax treatment. 

One downside of the hot wax is that it was hard to get the right grip in the middle and the tail of the deck, since the middle calls for more grip, and the tail for less. (Too much grip in the tail area catches on your abdomen when you pull yourself up upon takeoff.) I used a compromised amount of hot wax to address that problem, so neither the middle or tail areas were ideal.

Several creative matters (WP and TT) began using nonstick sprays such as silicon or Armorall in the very back of their decks to assist in taking off smoothly. I took their idea to heart, and stopped applying the hot wax treatment on the tail area on my own mats, and liked it a lot.

With the tail grip situation resolved, I realized that I could now apply more grip in the middle portion of the deck.

After a number of ideas were tried, what worked best was scrubbing the deck with a rotating nylon brush in a linear stripe pattern...

 

 

Then I mark off an area in the tail designated as a no-wax zone...

 

 

...followed by a light application of wax to the area ahead of the aforementioned line.

 

Then I soak the wax into the scrubbed fabric with a heat gun...

 

 

And voila' ... lots of grip in the middle, light grip in the tail area.

 

 

After testing over 25 varieties of wax on the scrubbed decks...

...I realized that, much to my chagrin, Zog's Red Label Navel Wax worked the best. Yeah, that's right...body board wax. It's a bitter pill we have to swallow in the name of progress!

In any case, the "Hot Wax Deck 2.0" is now a standard feature on all 4GF mats, and has been for several months.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the power scrubbing loosens the deck up, and accelerates the break in process by a month or so.


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A while back I started a foto folder of mat surfers blowing up their craft. I don't know why photographers like to take these shots to begin with, or why they're so much fun to look at!

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Now...a sneak preview of 6 prototypes that may indeed lead to the next 4GF Model. Conceived by GG, and built by yours truly. Gloria sent them off to NSW this morning. It'll be weeks or even months before any meaningful feedback comes over the 4GF transom...but I slipped two of 'em out for a quickee surf the other day. One was a dud (IMO), while the other was interesting enough I made myself a copy as soon as I got home. Time will tell.

I put tags the mats so the test riders could keep track which mat was which...

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And finally, for all the (hopefully) good natured fun we poke at Charlie Sheen, we would be remiss not to mention that there's a Anger Management mini-marathon here in the States, tomorrow evening on the FX Channel. Check it out, it's a pretty good show...


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From Bretto...

Hi Paul,

First off sorry for the lack of correspondence of late but we've had such a great run of waves!

I'm heading overseas at the start of next month and taking the new standard, an old standard (for backup), my 5gf, Michelles 5gf (for back up) and a fatty ( in case theres no swell or for something different). I think for a short 3 week stint I should be pretty right with that selection and has me covered in case of carnage.

Thanks mate

Regards,
Bretto

From Steiny...

PG,

This was in my friend's garage...

Steiny

From Barber's Baskets...

 

PG,

UDT with over 300 go outs...celebrated with a little artwork. Mostly for visibility when it gets washed up in the rocks!

Greg

From The Kendog...

 

 

 

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A couple of sequences from the other day. Kendog on his Omni...

Photos: Corey Senese