Slater Designs s Boss Ibolic

Description

Shop Crew Note: Kelly’s absolute daily driver design. Unique spine core engineering handles massive structural variety from small beach peaks up to clean reef walls.

Level: advanced, expert
Wave Height: 1-3ft, 2-4ft, 4-6ft, 6ft+
Board Type: everyday
Material: epoxy
Suggested Fins: Endorfin Kelly Slater KS1 Medium Tri-Quad Set

Slater Designs S Boss Ibolic Surfboard

The S Boss: a performance board with more range in small to big surf than any other high- performance board I have ever surfed. It is the board that I go to every time there are good waves for the last two and a half years. Kelly came to me with the idea of making a blunt nose performance board with parallel rails with this crazy double barrel v bottom. I liked all his ideas except for the double barrel set into a v (instead of a concave which is what I normally prefer) I could not talk him out of it and realized as soon as I surfed my first (5’11”) sboss that I was totally wrong about the v. Right away kelly saw a lot of promise with the shape as did kevin schulz and a friend he left the third one with in bali. I made a second round with a rocker that is tried and true in boards like the dominator2. That is when the shape was essentially set and since then we’ve refined the dimensions, the rail tuck and volume distribution. The key design elements a surfer will notice on this board that stand out from other boards is the outline with the blunt nose, the familiar frk roundtail, the s deck/foot wells on the deck, and as I mentioned the double barrel set into a v bottom contour (I have thought about this bottom more than any other bottom I have put onto a surfboard), surfers will want to ride their sboss shorter than their regular short board and an inch or two longer than their grovellers. Pay close attention to the volume on this board and error on the side of more volume (foam is your friend). The turning radius is super tight because of the volume, bottom contour and narrowness packed into a shorter board.

About this board:

Construction: Ibolic (Read More about IBolic below)
Fin Boxes: Futures x 5 (Choose option above – Fins not included)
Tail shape: Round Tail
Dimensions/Litres: See size graph above

About Ibolic Technology:

Firewire has spent the past year innovating newer, better construction processes for its wide range of boards—which is pretty impressive, since it already led the industry in futuristic tech. The latest option is the Ibolic Construction, which replaces the LFT construction.

Ibolic was designed around the fact that many of Firewire’s more futuristic shapes had pretty complex bottom contours, particularly the vee quad concave bottom used on many of Tomo’s boards. This “performance hull” contour is quite involved and is difficult to glass with a bottom skin, which was the typical process used for the LFT boards.

To address this, Firewire developed the Ibolic construction, which features parabolic high-density foam rails and a foam I-beam down the middle to create the central spine that provides the foundation for a pronounced vee.

This results in a build that is 35 percent stronger than LFT and more strength in the rails (which results in a lively flex, similar to the Helium build), but without sacrificing the LFT’s feel and performance that so many surfers have come to love. The Ibolic still uses a single skin on the deck, providing a strong, durable platform from which to do your best surfing.

About Slater Designs:

“I’m not sure if the perfect board really exists, but I’m enjoying the freedom to collaborate with some of surfing’s most innovative shapers and designers.

It is a quest to create something different in a slightly different way that appeals to where I want to go on a wave. Discovering a new feeling under my feet, drawing a new line, or taking a completely different track on a wave is something I never stop dreaming about.

Now being able share and grow that idea with others is what keeps surfing fun for me.”

-Kelly Slater

Colour: FUTURES – SHOWROOM