How many times have you waxed up a brand new sled, chucked in your favorite fins and lucky leash, and paddled out on a fun day at your local... only to take off on the first wave and feel like you’re riding a coffee table backwards.

And it’s not that the board’s even bad, per se.

After a few sessions it may start to feel as good as, if not better than, boards you’ve ridden in the past, but for the duration of that first session exists a profound disconnect between you and the novel craft. It’s not uncommon.

In fact, for those of us not in the top 0.01% of surfers, this is completely normal. New boards are hardly ever “magic” from the first wave. But I recently had an experience that made me question if that coffee table period was ever really necessary in the first place.

Enter Pyzel’s new hybrid craft, The Phantom.