BOARD STORY

"The Silmaril marks the beginning of an exciting time in our surfboard design journey. And like many worthwhile things, it was birthed out of adversity. We knew we needed to improve our lineup, so we spent 11 months in a head down, stroke till you croak focused effort with the whole factory team. The first step was finding a key team rider/point man to work closely with our two-man design team (Nat Woolley and myself) as we developed this new batch of shortboards. We called up Shayden Pacarro and went to work.

As we built prototype after prototype, his skill, sensitivity, understanding, and clearly defined performance goals gave us the accurate and systematic feedback we needed. Shaydo was looking for a power surfer’s blade—a fast and drivey shortboard that gripped and accelerated when he pushed on its rail, and with a subtle shift in weight, would corner off the bottom for a vertical attack. Now 12 months later, Shaydo has proven himself to be the most astute test pilot I‘ve worked with in 30 years (since Derek and Michael Ho).”

- Eric Arakawa