Firewire Mashup Surfboard

Two shapers merged their most popular designs. Rob Machado's Seaside is known for speed in weak waves, Dan Mann's Spitfire for vertical drive in good ones. The Mashup is built to keep both: it goes fast in gutless surf as well as a Seaside and drives vertically in good waves as well as a Spitfire.

The maker calls it the groveller you'll never want to take out of your trunk — the board for mediocre days, which is most days of the year.

Helium Core. Firewire's best-selling technology: a stringerless EPS core with flex controlled at the rails by Paulownia and Balsa wood, under proprietary deckskins. No stringer means the board flexes across its whole area rather than around a stiff spine, and springs back returning energy.

Who it isn't for. In powerful overhead barrels a hybrid gives ground to a dedicated shortboard. And size it separately — grovellers are ridden with more volume than standard.