Steph Gilmore is a living legend. She’s the GOAT. The woman with the breeziest style on a surfboard. Perpetually happy, always with a smile on her face, Gilmore combines grace and power on a wave better than just about anyone else. Her style of surfing is an anomaly — despite her competitive success, her gracefulness seems better suited to a surfboard that’s a little less standard (for competition) and a little more suited to stylish wave riding. And when it comes to surfboards, there’s no one with more clout than Bob McTavish. Which is why this McTavish/Gilmore collaboration is just about perfect.
As I mentioned, Gilmore likes to surf in a certain way. She really likes to go fast. “All I’m trying to achieve when I’m surfing is speed, to be honest,” she told McTavish. “If I can go fast and feel the wind in my face, that’s all I’m going for.”
McTavish has shaped plenty of surfboards over the course of his exceedingly long career, and in that time he’s learned to craft a shape that a surfer might not even know they needed. He looks at the boards on their rack, as well as looking at how they surf, and then goes from there.
“You’ve got to dig into their quiver,” he explained. “What they’re thinking, and what they’d like to try. You pull all the elements out of the ether and put together a package for someone.”
So with that in mind, the 80-year-old set about shaping a Custom 5’8” x 19” x 2 3/8” asymmetrical. And after watching the edit that came out of it, it looks as though he absolutely nailed it.
