With The Shop Next Door in the hands of O'Neill for the next three months a few of the crew from O'Neill took advantage of the demo boards on hand for a little board test session early this morning.  It's always interesting to see guys with a high calibre of surfing take to alternative surfboard shapes.  It's a big transition from a tight, precise 18" wide thruster to a flowing 20"+ wide quad and I was pretty keen to see what Jay and Jarrad could make of the demos.  With a low-tide at 9:14am the waves on offer at Manly weren't ideal for boards designed for long down-the-line waves but the boys still managed to generate a ton of speed and even slip a couple of tight turns into the mix. In the end a 5'10 Chris Christenson Quad was picked unanimously as the favourite probably because it was the most conventional and made by a guy that shapes everything from high-performance boards for the likes of Jordy Smith to 11' Guns for chargers like Greg Long and just about everything in between.  If you want to take a Christenson or any other demo board for a spin, drop in and see Taylor and he'll sort you out.

There's 2 foot of South Swell at Manly at the moment and hardly a breath of wind.  It's looking a bit better now with the higher tide so slip in for a sneaky lunch-tide session of go slide this afternoon.

Don't forget The Shop Next Door/O'Neill Launch Party on tonight.  Couple of drinks, live music and good times on the cards.  See you down there!

All watershots: Max Ralph