Info

The Wire by Firewire Surfboards

The Wire is Firewire Surfboards platform for surfing, sustainability and social outreach, as well as other fun surf related stuff.
RSS Feed
The Wire by Firewire Surfboards
2023
November


2022
October
September
July


2021
November
July
June
May
April
February


2020
November
June
May
April
March
February
January


2019
November
October
August
January


2018
December
October
August
July
June
May
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
May
April
March
February
January


All Episodes
Archives
Now displaying: Page 1
Nov 18, 2023

Inspired by the body of the Great White Shark, Kelly Slater designed the ‘Great White Twin’ in I-Bolic Technology with Volcanic Lamination alongside Bali based surfboard designer Mike Woo.

This high performance fish fits in your quiver where most fish don’t - it creates speed in weak waves, but also controls speed in powerful waves, and it excels at tight arcs in punchy pockets and quick wraps on shoulder sections. 

This all new surfboard model from Slater Designs has volume hidden at center with fine rails for immediate response and quick reaction in the pocket. It has the speed of a twin fin with the controlled pivot of a thruster, and it's elevated tail rocker makes it magic on your backhand. 

Recommended to surf at your performance volume and designed to pair with Kelly's signature 'Twin + 2' fin set, the Great White Twin is available at Surf Shops and Online Stores everywhere on November 20th.

About Volcanic Lamination:

  • A sustainable alternative to carbon lamination in performance shapes.
  • Derived from natural fibers extruded from basalt rock.
  • A lamination enhancement for both I-Bolic and Helium Cores.
  • Increased response and deck durability.
About I-Bolic Technology:
 
  • Firm, drivey and reassuring underfoot.
  • Enables powerful surfing in good waves.
  • Unrivaled break strength.
  • A favorite among our most talented team riders

For more, visit http://www.firewiresurfboards.com

 

 

Oct 6, 2022

Kevin Shulz has a new career in the Fire Service but still maintains his old career as a professional surfer. In this episode he shares what its like to be called 'the Air GOAT' while designing boards with the actual GOAT, Kelly Slater. 

Oct 3, 2022

Fresh off a productive knee rehab, Tomo joins us today to discuss buying land in Scotland, ripping Surf Ranch on a REVO, and riding the most uncommon wave craft we've ever seen - a 'Surfmat'.

Sep 6, 2022

This August, nearly 20 years after winning the U.S. Open of Surfing in 2003, Taylor Jensen became the Vans Duct Tape Invitational Champion at the U.S. Open in Huntington Beach, riding a Thunderbolt RED Special T model by Dan Mann. Enjoy this episode. 

Jul 2, 2022

Charlie Ninegar began his career at a Los Angeles Surf Shop and after a storied series of roles at many surf companies you've heard of, he is today VP of Sales at Nixon, where he spends at least some of his working hours partially occupied by thoughts of surfing his Tomo EVO and REVO. 

Enjoy.

Nov 12, 2021

C.J. Nelson is a Duct Tape Invitational Champion and a Mexi Log Fest Champion who made a career for himself in the 90's and 00's as both a nose rider and performance long boarder. Today though he prefers the subtler aspects of surfing such as trim and turns, and he shares much in this episode about the shapes that enable his new surfing experience, focusing on what waves feel like without being mindful of who is watching.  

Jul 6, 2021

Jim Kempton spent years on the Quiksilver Crossing with Kelly Slater and others, seeking undiscovered waves around the planet. Decades previous in the 70's, he was the editor of SURFER Magazine. And today, he is President of the California Surf Museum in Oceanside California. 

On July 6th he is publishing his third book, "Women on Waves - A Cultural History of Surfing: From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions. You can find it wherever books are sold.

Jim has crafted a career for himself from some of surfing's most coveted dream jobs, and this episode of The Wire Podcast is one of our favorites. 

Enjoy.

Jun 19, 2021

Happy International Surfing Day! 

Chad Nelsen joins us in this episode to discuss saving surf spots, stopping single use plastic, and so much more. 

For more on Surfrider, and to become a member for just $25 dollars a month, visit Surfrider.org. 

The Surfrider Foundation does important work preserving coastlines and enabling beach access for all, in addition to efforts around clean water, preventing plastic pollution and more. 

Firewire is proud to be one of Surfrider's 'Surf Industry Coastal Defenders"; a coalition of companies seeking to support and elevate Surfrider's mission to protect the world's oceans, waves, and beaches. 

Enjoy this episode.

May 28, 2021

Would you move to the wilderness on the day your new album drops? Hayden Everett would. He's on his way to Yosemite right now. 

Today you can find Hayden's new E.P. 'Kennecott' wherever you listen to music. And you can find the music video for his new single 'Still' on YouTube. The video features one of C.J. Nelson's favorite Thunderbolt longboards; the Neo Classic. And the song is one of our favorite of the year so far. 

We're often asked to feature musicians on The Wire Podcast, and what inspired us to invite Hayden on for this episode was simple - we couldn't get his new music out of our heads.

We also found pretty quickly that we liked him a lot. He's got tons of energy, is super creative and entirely unique.

For example he's a surfer who is celebrating the release of his new E.P. by moving to Yosemite, at the exact moment you would expect him to be working to promote his album. How uncommon is that? It reminds us of Curren or Dora.

We think you'll enjoy this episode. 

Follow Hayden at @Hayden.mp3

May 9, 2021

This episode was supposed to be 15 minutes but it ran for well over an hour. 

It's a deep dive into Rob Machado's surfboard designing mind, tracing the Sunday back through a lineage of boards that began when rob left the tour twenty years ago, and hung up his truster along with his contest jersey, creating the mindset that has landed us at what looks to be his most popular and anticipated surfboard ever…. The Sunday..

Enjoy.

Apr 27, 2021

For the past six weeks, Akila Aipa has been scoring perfect right hand points in Mexico with Jackson Bunch. 

Jackson is one of Hawaii's most promising up and coming talents, and today, both he and Akila are in California, just hours after stepping off their return flight to the United States. 

Enjoy this episode, with thoughts from Akila and Jackson on Localism, the Flat Earth, and what it was like to watch Timmy Reyes catch what has so far been the most talked about wave of the Summer travel season. 

Apr 26, 2021

Having self-directed his own career around surfing and the ocean, Nik Strong-Cvetich is focused on saving our planets best waves from dangers both present and future through collaborations with many organizations, governments and communities around the globe. 

His Santa Cruz based organization 'Save The Waves Coalition' has the ambitious goal of protecting a thousand waves by 2030 through their World Surfing Reserves program.

This designation as a World Surfing Reserve helps protect a surf spot from runoff, development, mining and more.

Find out more in this episode.

Feb 22, 2021

Finn McGill lives life without brakes. And 'No Brains, No Headache' is more than just a life philosophy. It's an all new video part from him that is now live on Firewire Surfboards YouTube channel. 

Finn put two years, three injuries and more surfboards than we can count towards this 24 month endeavor, and in this episode he shares details never heard before. 

Follow Finn at @Finn_McGill.

Feb 19, 2021

Recorded at Kelly Slater's North Shore beach cottage, Brodi Sale shares the story of meeting Shane Dorian for the first time at just six years old, and soon getting sponsored by Billabong after performing well at Shane's annual Keiki Classic surf contest on the Big Island of Hawaii. 

Brodi also talks in depth about surfboard design, his favorite tail shape, and how Finn McGill's electric motorcycle nearly took him out for the rest of the Winter. 

Brodi is an integral part of the Slater Designs team. Follow him on Instagram at @brodi_sale.

Nov 23, 2020

Kevin Shulz has a broken hand. And he's not scared to elaborate on his scariest moments in the ocean. He is also generous. He wanted to give away one of his Dominator II's on this episode, so we said yes. Listen for more. Find show notes at firewiresurfboards.com/the-wire.

Nov 17, 2020

Timmy Reyes says that Huntington Beach is a wind factory and that all the wind in California comes from there, and from Oxnard too.

We're not sure if that's true.

But we believe him when he says it's good to be back in the water, riding a Dominator II, a shape that he describes as 'smoother' than his previous favorite shape from Dan Mann, the Spitfire.

As discused in this episode, the Dominator was a round tailed all-round shortboard by Dan Mann that came out in 2008.

The all new and updated Dominator II is a shape that Timmy describes as 'better in transitions' than the previous Dominator and the Spitfire as well.

This episode of The Wire Podcast covers much more than just the Dominator II, such as:

- Why Timmy wears a collard shirt every Monday, and what its like to not have a 'real job'.

- The fin system that Timmy says feels the loosest, and the fin system that Timmy says feels the most drivey.

- The reason that Timmy usually doesn't surf on foggy days.

- Why Timmy may 'un-retire' from competition this coming year in Santa Cruz.

- The Huntington Beach resident who surfs Huntington Beach Pier more than anyone (Hint: it's not Timmy)

- The way that Huntington Beach 'makes wind' like a factory.

...and much more.

Enjoy!

Nov 3, 2020

Dan Mann is a core board builder who describes the merits of Sandwich Construction in Surfboard Design as a 'lego blocks' process where different materials can be swapped in and out for desired strength, weight and flex.

The key benefit to Sandwich Construction as he describes it is the ability to "make a really light surfboard that is also really strong".

It's an innovation that Firewire was built on and a part of the brands core DNA today.

Dan's new shape, the Dominator II landed at surf shops around the world last week, and Dan shares much in this episode about the design and build process, as well as what its been like to surf with California Aerialist Kevin Shultz on the Dominator II.

Jun 8, 2020

Last year when the Seaside and Beyond arrived at Surf Shops for the first time, Rip Zinger became nearly more popular than the board.

You probably remember seeing him in a video with Rob, describing the kale salads he made for Rob in 2019, before each session at Seaside. 

If you haven't yet seen the video, you'll find it in the show notes of this episode at: 

firewiresurfboards.com/the-wire

Anyway, today, Rip Zinger is disappointed in Rob, because after Rob grew a sweet tooth in isolation, he named his new GLAZER shape after donut frosting.

But that did not stop Rip from serving us a healthy magic potion in this episode. 

Enjoy.

May 4, 2020

Trimming in Timbertek through chop and slop – the Twice Baked is made for coming out of isolation.

Dan Mann designed the Twice Baked to stay in your trunk because it excels in junk, so that your surf stoke won’t be wasted after being out of the water for weeks.

The Twice Baked is fun to surf no matter how small the waves are. And Dan Mann is with us today to break down this new design from the sun soaked grass of a park just up the road from Firewire's headquarters in California.

Apr 5, 2020

After years of effort Tristan Sullaway landed his dream job just several weeks ago. He's now a full time lifeguard with the city of San Diego, one of the most coveted career paths among surfers who seek to live a life near the beach aligned with their surfing passions.

The irony is that he was met with a global pandemic just days after getting the good news that his dreams had been realized, and he's now in the awkward position of not just being unable to surf himself, but having to enforce surfing restrictions on others. 

Enjoy this episode featuring Tristan, and #StayHomeShredLater.

For the most up to date info on the Coronavirus pandemic, visit cdc.gov.

Thank you Surfrider Foundation for creating the #StayHomeShredLater hash tag.

Mar 27, 2020

Sustainable Surf is recognized most easily among surfers for its ECOBOARD program - a standard for Surfboard Builders seeking to lower the toxicity of their surfboard building operations.

Since 2014 Firewire has been the only global surfboard manufacturer to qualify all of our surfboard production for ECOBOARD Verification, and we encourage all surfboard brands to collaborate with Sustainable Surf to do the same - the presence of the ECOBOARD lamination on any surfboard means it's carbon footprint is approximately 30 lbs less than a board made from traditional materials.

The ECOBOARD program however is just one of many programs they run. Today we discuss Sea Trees.

Mar 26, 2020

Timmy Reyes was in bed at Ten O’ Clock when the phone rang.

It was Kelly Slater. ‘Where you at?” he asked, with an immediate ask of Timmy, to take place the next morning.

Five hours later Timmy woke up with a Sci – Fi 2.0 in his truck, driving north from Huntington Beach to Lemoore where he met Kelly, who also had a Sci – Fi 2.0, along with some other assorted goodies for both him and Timmy to try.

This episode of The Wire Podcast comes with heavy visuals of both Timmy and Kelly riding the Sci-Fi 2.0 at California’s best point break.

You can watch and listen above, or find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts, for example iTunes and Spotify.

Mar 12, 2020

Welcome to Kelly's house on the North Shore of Oahu with Shane Dorian - describing his upbringing in entertaining ways as well as how surfboard designers and shapers impacted his life and career before material and design innovations began to impact his son Jackson through Jackson's relationship with Daniel Thomson, a relationship that influenced the Sci - Fi 2.0, along with input from other Slater Designs team riders, the details of which we discuss in this episode along with much more. Enjoy.

Feb 25, 2020

Today on the Wire Podcast - Richard Kenvin - AKA ' Hydrodynamica ' on Instagram, you probably already follow him.

Richard is a Surfboard Historian who has lectured in the University of California system of Collegiate Schools, he is also responsible for resurrecting Bob Simmons work from the 50’s, and not just inspiring Daniel Thomson’s surfboard design work of the past 15 years, but also bringing Daniel to the States in the early 2000’s when Daniel's shaping career began.

Richard’s roots in La Jolla, California run as deep as roots go and we recorded this episode in a secret boardroom he maintains in Pacific Beach California.

Show Notes are at firewiresurfboards.com/the-wire

Feb 12, 2020

Chris Cote has thrived through every switch in surf media trends over the past twenty years and today works as a commentator for the WSL among other projects,

Enjoy this episode.

1 2 3 Next »