Trip Forman: Welcome to the REAL Boardloft. I'm Trip Foreman. Today we have shaping legend Ricky Carroll with us. Ricky, welcome.

Ricky Carroll: Thank you.

Trip Forman: And Ricky is here dropping off some new boards at the shop, which is, I'll tell you what, two of the best things about working with Ricky are his ability to make some of the best boards in the world, but not only that, he delivers them right to our front yard so they show up damage and ding-free. So Ricky, thank you for all the great years of great boards and great service. It is windy in the front yard today, so I am holding on to this 8'9" right here. And this is a new model, right?

Ricky Carroll: Yep. So, we've been getting a lot of requests for a performance style board that can ride in small waves. You can ride in big surf too, but guys that are not interested in nose riding, they just want a longer board so they can get into the wave earlier, paddle in, catch the waves easy, and get the nose out of the way so they can kind of more performance surf. So, it's really a big shortboard.

Trip Forman: Now, I know your PLB is known by a lot of people around the world, like up and down the East Coast, in the Caribbean. There's some guys just ripping on it in Costa Rica. How does this board differ from the PLB? Because there's a lot of people out there that have that as a benchmark from one of the best performance longboards I've ever ridden.

Ricky Carroll: Right. So, I used that same platform and that same rocker in this board, but we did away with the chine rail to have a model that was just a little more widely accepted. Some people like the chine rails, some people don't. I love them. I'll put a chine on any board I ride, but so we took that out. It's a wider board than the PLB. It's a little thicker than the PLB. And then with less nose, it's a board that'll paddle and catch waves easier than the PLB will, but still turn and perform like it. And then also a little bit more area in the tail trying to keep more area for paddle. We got a diamond tail on it. We're doing this with a couple different boards. I mean, we haven't even named it yet, but we're thinking about calling it the Diamond series. That is one of the names that's being thrown out there. So, keep watching our website at Ricky Carroll Surf or the REAL website and we'll have a model name soon definite. But these are the prototypes right here.

Trip Forman: That's sick, Ricky. Yeah, we definitely saw a need for a board like this. Your PLB is so widely accepted and legendary in the performance, especially as the surf gets better, but going into summer where it's just like one to three foot every day forever, having something that had some more spark in the smaller surf is going to be, I think, a big hit. The other thing is really pulling down that nose width and getting that nose out of the way. I mean, there's so many people out there that are riding longer boards for the paddle power and for the wave count and for the ease, just for the fun, but they're never up there on the nose, right?

Ricky Carroll: No, they're not. And you could certainly go forward on this and get a cheater five and get on the nose, but it's not a nose rider.

Trip Forman: Okay. And then let's talk about fin setup. So, you're going quad plus trailer on this board, right?

Ricky Carroll: I've been riding the PLB as a quad forever. Two plus one's still a very popular setup. And then you could ride this as a single fin with the right fin and have this convertible. We call it the five fin convertible. You've got all the choices of options and construction on this board. So this is EPS epoxy, just like the PLBs can be done in poly. The thing about my performance board, the PLB itself has a very unique rocker. I make all my blanks for it. So, I prefer to do them in epoxy, but they're certainly available in poly.

Trip Forman: And let's talk about beach break summer surfing, right? And how much fun this board is going to be. I mean, a lot of times guys will go out on beach breaks on longboards and they'll be like, "I want to catch the wave, but the nose is getting in the way. It doesn't turn as easy as I want it to." So, they're having handling problems. This board will handle.

Ricky Carroll: That's awesome, Ricky. Well, hey, thank you so much. It is, as of right now, the Ricky Carroll PLB Diamond Series. And right now the board that we have here in our hands, actually holding with three hands just to make sure we don't blow away and we're fully powered, is an 8'9" by 22 1/4" by 2 3/4", and all of these are shaped by Ricky Carroll. Any questions on this board or if you'd like to place an order for one, either stock or custom, you can always reach us at the shop 252-987-6000 or look us up online realwatersports.com/surfing. Thanks for tuning in.