Glenn Pang

On the shape of what’s to come

FreeSurf: When we first saw Slater take that now-infamous Wizard Sleeve board out at the Quik Pro, we tried to hold back our comments. But now, nearly a year later, it seems that the smaller boards are sticking around. What did you think when you saw Kelly ride that board last year?

Glenn Pang: I think Kelly took it a little too far. On some of his boards he looked like he wasn’t surfing to where he was capable of. But now he’s brought it back to something more workable. You’ve got to know where the limit is. He sort of took it down to the limit and now we’re coming up a little bit. And it seems to be working.

FreeSurf: So what’s your take on the small-board craze?

GP: We’ve been doing a bunch of new stuff that’s going smaller lately. We’re pumping up the volume in the boards; you’ve got to do that when you go smaller. We’re also doing a bunch of refinements on our fish, carrying the width and thickness with lower rockers. A lot of the R&D we’re doing is an evolution from the fish.

FreeSurf: Can you talk about how you guys come up with a new model? How much of it is based on rider feedback?

GP: The more ideas you get from other people the better. I work closely with Mikala Jones and he’ll ride anything and give me a lot of feedback. Roy Powers is a little more conventional because he has to be, being on the tour and all. But he gives me a lot of good feedback as well.

FreeSurf: So when you guys launch a new model, do you go through any roundtable discussion with riders to make sure you have something solid?

GP: It starts out with me trying the board. And then Travis [Hashimoto] tries it too. We see how they go. And if they work for us we’ll take it to the team guys and see what they think before we keep going with it. But like I said, Mikala’s really good but he travels so much he’s not always here to give feedback. But if he were here, he would be the best person; he’ll just ride anything. But we use a lot of other riders as well. So before we finish with a design, after we’ve tested it and the team’s tested it, we’ll take it to some of our preferred customers and see what they think. And from there, we’ll bring them out and do some stock to really put the board out there.

FreeSurf: So, in your eyes, what would a solid three-board quiver look like for your average guy?

GP: Well, not everyone is super into the fishy boards, but we have this T-1 model that is a conventional board with a fuller outline, lower rocker and super-deep concave. That’s probably one of our best-selling boards for summer. You’d probably ride that model around four inches shorter and a half-inch wider than your regular shortboard.

We also have a Gobbler, which has a diamond tail, super deep rocker. It’s sort of like a cross between a fish and a small-wave board. And for your regular shortboard, our S Series would be a good all-around board. We can do that in any sort of a way. Either a squash or pintail or whatever you want it in.

And if you need a step up board we have the V42K. We also have a W2. I shape a loft of those for when the tour comes to town.