About the reviewer

I am an advanced freestyle paddler. During the period in which I was using this boat (the entire summer) I was alternative sessions in my Allstar throwing FAR bigger moves. And will be using that as my reference boat.

Test environment

All ranges of surf, from tiny to massive, saw it all. Please note I never bought or used fins, but installed the boxes to increase hull-speed. If you are looking for a full-on surf boat this really isn't the boat for you anyway.

Review

The first thing I have to say about this boat is that it is a specialty item. Treat it as such and don't bother buying it unless you will really use it. Second, it is not a normal playboat, you have a higher center of balance and zero primary stability. The best advice I ever got about this boat was that the first 3 sessions I was going to have my ass kicked but I would love it after that.

Goods: The hull design of this boat is quite interesting, insanely fast and loose. I wish all playboats were as fast and loose as what fluid cooked up here. This boat will let you do endless super clean spins down the face of a wave and still stay ahead of the foam pile once you get a feel for it. Similarly this boat wants to helix and flip turn. If you don't have one yet you will with some time in this boat. Back- blunts and back pan-ams are big and easy to land with the volume in the stern and rocker profile. Wave riding itself is pretty good, it would be a lot better with fins but that would kill the freestyle so I chose not to use them. Cutbacks are super clean and easy to execute, a very well designed boat from that angle.

Bads: This boat doesn't do blunts. Simply put it doesn't like to do it. A clean blunt isn't an issue, but an average paddler who just wants to be able to throw a blunt will find it tough to work with the bow rocker in this boat. If you want to blunt, try it clean and it will snap right around. Airscrews are similarly limited by this bow profile, and I have yet to find a work around that doesn't involve slamming my back into the stern. This is annoying, but hey without the bow this wouldn't be a surf boat.

Outfitting: This is the pitfall of this boat. The outfitting is incredibly poorly designed in this boat. For starters the back-band ratchets are located on the bottom. This means that after one use they are clogged with sand, and within 3 are rusted, jammed and useless. The seat comes way too far back from the factory and takes a pretty decent amount of modification to fix which involves removing and cutting the pillars, poor planning. The foot-block system is the worst I have seen, I wound up tossing the whole outfitting kit into my spare foam pile and using a Jackson Happy Feet rather then mixing and matching foam and buying glue (no they don't even provide adhesive).

If you are buying any Fluid boat demand the new seat system!

Conclusion

A great boat in the surf. Does exactly what it is supposed to.