STAB inspired “Lightning in a bottle” pocket rocket shaping genius!
A collaborative tri-fin project by Matt Biolos and artistic, innovative South African hand shaper, Donald Brink, now based out of San Clemente. Motivation for the project was Stab’s Electric Acid Surfboard test where the original asym shape was given a 5’3” size restriction and intended for use by Mick Fanning in the wide variety of waves on hand in the Maldives. The boys, knowing Mick’s power, skills and refined board knowledge, created a craft that would hit his volume sweet spot while packing in maximum motor, and would rail through proper arcs, fit into tight pockets and utilize both flat faces and power sections… they won!
We asked Matt and Donald to create a more user friendly symmetric version designed to work with board building process and they went to work… thanks guys!
For the Lib Micks Tape our shaping savants went up to 5’4” as the base size and added a 5’6”, 5’8”, 5’10” and 6’ to open up the doors to everyday surfers who might want a bit more volume and paddle power but still want that mix of spontaneous freedom and power on rail that the board was created to manifest. Designed to be ridden finned up as thruster and effective much shorter than your standard shortboard (even your fish) choose a volume you can be comfortable with and push yourself to fit into new parts of the wave like Mick did!
To bring this Micks Tape to life visually Donald and Matt combined efforts on the visuals with 80s mixed tape patterns in CMYK colors and tonal greys and custom fonts.
Real World Experience
Our Lib symmetric Mick’s Tape absolutely rips in the pocket and anywhere else you can think of for pros like Ian Crane and is actually two boards one shape depending on your interpretation… A compact pocket rocket thruster that doubles as fishy twin plus trailer groveler in longer lengths for us regular rippers… happy accidents… crazy fun!
Compact “Pocket Rocket” Thruster
Surfed in shorter sizes / lower volumes (as small as you can paddle) and set up as thruster as designed it is an amazing high performance mind expanding pocket rocket thruster and loves quality waves. “When in doubt thruster out” — Donald Brink
“Fish Take” Twin Plus Trailer
As Donald, Matt and our squad have experimented with surfing larger sizes/volumes of the Micks Tape in small to medium sized surf it has proven to be a magically fast loose performance groveler. Set up as twin plus trailer the full nose, speedy straight rail line and wider swallow tail create an amazing high performance fish like feel that gets up to speed quickly, glides through flats and flies through the corners in smaller or softer surf.
Handcrafted in the USA near Canada in our unique “dang difficult to ding” environmentally nicer construction the Mick’s Tape is guaranteed to elevate your surfing and relax your lifestyle.