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KELLY'S BOARDS
Much ado about round-nosed quads
Category: General
Posted by: tim
An almost hysterical amount of interest in Kelly's new equipment at this year's season opener on the Gold Coast, and the reviews were mixed. Kelly certainly managed to fit his little 5'4", round-nosed quad into the tight contours of small Snapper but it looked a little too loose and skatey and easily overpowered at times. The general consensus, even from the man himself, was that he had gone too short, and might come back to somewhere around the 5'7" or 5'8" mark as his shortboard, but he appears determined to persevere with his unorthodox, self-shaped equipment. It was interesting to note that the original design experimentalist himself, Cheyne Horan, was interviewed on the webcast and advised Kelly in no uncertain terms to ditch the alternative equipment. "I thought he would have learned from my mistakes," reckoned Cheyne, whose own unorthodox surfboard tastes are widely considered to have cost him a world title. It's certainly true that the judging panel at times appear to penalise surfers on unusual designs, whether this is conscious or simply because they look and surf differently. Kelly's turns on the round-nose sometimes look less dramatic in a cosmetic sense just because of the absence of that last six inches of pointy nose flashing around to accentuate the turns. Will be interesting to see what K rides at Bells and how he's judged.