Firewire wave surfboard Seaside black rails Helium FCS II

Seaside

Rob Machado himself says that he has never ridden quad boards in his entire life, but has only ridden thrusters when competing on the tour and in recent years has experimented with different twin-fin concepts.

But once he shaped Seaside and tried out different fin set-ups on the board, the answer became simple: Seaside should be a dedicated Quad board!

Like Gofish, Seaside has a Retro-fish-like shape. However, the tail is significantly retracted and the nose is tapered to make the board faster rail to rail and provide more response in cutbacks and big hacks!

Interview with Rob Machado about Seaside

Hey Rob, tell us about Seaside!?
- Seaside is actually an evolution of Go Fish. Go fish is fast and feels skating and loose and I love it. After surfing it for a couple of years, I felt that I was looking for something more performance where I could turn tighter and go more vertically on the wave and that's when Seaside came along.

Compared to Gofish, Seaside has less area in the tail, less swallowtail, a little more rocker than Gofish and a slightly narrower nose.

These are all the elements a board needs to be truly high performance!

Does Seaside only come as a Quad?
- I decided to make a dedicated quad board. Bottom structure, rocker curve, everything is shaped according to a quad setup. The board only has four fin boxes and this is because Seaside is a Quad, nothing else!

The first prototype of Seaside is built in LFT, why did you decide to only have Seaside in Helium?
- The first time I tried the board was in Tahiti on a 6 foot tube wave (Tehupoo). LFT was a good fit there, but that's not where the board will be surfed by most surfers who surf Seaside. The board will be surfed on people's home beach breaks or small point breaks. With Firewire's Helium construction, the board becomes lighter with more pop and lots of response that is better suited where the waves are a little smaller and slower.


CONSTRUCTION: HELIUM(HE). This construction is incredibly light, which helps you get a great responsive board. Firewire uses the lightest possible foam to shape the board. Together with balsa and paulownia rails, the board gets the right flex and durability. The board is also laminated with a brand new material that makes the board incredibly light.

The board has FCS II fin boxes, delivered without fins