Ricky Carroll TMM Diamond Series EPS/Epoxy 7'6"

Trip Forman: Welcome to the REAL Board Loft. I'm Trip Forman. Today we have Ricky Carroll with us. Ricky, welcome. Thank you. Ricky is here on a delivery tour East Coast road trip with his wife Carol, heading from Florida up to New Hampshire. Best in the business, Ricky delivers all of our boards right to the front lawn damage-free, which is one of the best things about working with Ricky, as well as obviously his legendary shaping and board building skills through his entire career. Ricky, what board do we have here with us right now?

Ricky Carroll: So, here we've got an evolution of the TMM model that I've done. The TMM, a lot of people ask what's that stand for? That's Tuned Mini Me. So, the Mini Me is a shrunk-down version of my performance longboard, the PLB. And then this board, the Mini Me with the pulled-in nose, is called the Tuned Mini Me. We've got a new model with this with the diamond tail. It's got a little bit more tail area, something that's going to bring it down in the lower surf that you'll be able to catch waves a little bit easier with it. Have a little more board area and a shorter board.

Trip Forman: There you go. Like a little bit more gas pedal under your feet in the smaller summer conditions. I've got quite a bit of experience on 7'2", 7'4", 8'0" TMMs. On those boards, the better the surf gets, the better those boards feel. This one, you're aiming for a little bit more horsepower, a little bit more small wave underfoot push and lift.

Ricky Carroll: Right. Yeah. You usually ride it a little shorter than you would your normal TMM size board. With the diamond tail, you've got a lot more tail back there. You're going to be able to stand back further on it.

Trip Forman: So like targeting your performance more for every day rather than the best days, right? Awesome. Let's turn it around and look at the bottom. What's going on with the bottom of this board? So five fin, like straight five fin Futures. And that's on all sizes, you're going on five fin, no more quad plus single?

Ricky Carroll: We do the quad plus single more in the bigger sizes. But I still have some guys riding these as twins. So the twin is available. But for the traditionalist five fin, you could run this as a quad or a thruster.

Trip Forman: And then your own TMM, what sort of setup do you prefer?

Ricky Carroll: I prefer the quad setup. I've kind of tuned all my boards to ride as quads, even small waves, big waves. So I've kind of gotten used to that feel and I can make it ride steep hollow waves or I can make it ride mushy waves just by changing the fins out.

Trip Forman: And what's the construction on this board, Ricky?

Ricky Carroll: This is EPS epoxy glass job based off the same TMM that we've been doing for a long time. It's just a modification to it, the Diamond Series that we're calling it so far.

Trip Forman: And you're going with your chine rail, right? This is something that you've had in your own designs for a while.

Ricky Carroll: The chine rail is that little bevel out towards the rail. It really frees the board up. It keeps it from catching. I prefer it on all my boards.

Trip Forman: And what are the benefits of this? As far as I've heard you talk a little bit about the stability when it's in the water, but up on top of the water it's reducing the wetted surface and giving you a clean release.

Ricky Carroll: Going to turn it sideways into the wind. Less power. So yeah, if you look right here, there's a fallaway edge and then another edge. When you're up and riding, the water's actually coming off the narrower board. So it does reduce the wetted surface there. Though this is out of the water a little bit, as you turn it, it really takes the responsiveness up to another level. It just responds so much quicker.

Trip Forman: Awesome. Let's look at dimensions. This is a 7'2". So this TMM is 7'2", 21 and 1/4, 2 and 3/4, no volume whatsoever. What's your stance on volume, Ricky?

Ricky Carroll: I don't have one.

Trip Forman: You don't have a stance on volume. He's got a ski stance straight ahead. Anyway, it's the TMM Diamond Series from Ricky Carroll. If any of you out there have any questions on the TMM Diamond Series or would 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.