Advancing again on Channel Islands Rocket model, this time adding width and removing a fair amount of entry rocker, the short, vaguely fishy Rocket Wide is the newest adaptation of the popular CI design. The Rocket Wide's low-entry rocker makes for effortless paddling and enhanced speed in mushy, marginal summertime surf, while the board's overall outline and bottom contour ensures it maintains the balance between liveliness and control-attributes that made the Rocket such a versatile, user-friendly board to begin with.

The perennially stoked Dane Gudauskas helped fine-tune the Rocket Wide with CI shaper Mike Andrews. And while it may be hard to imagine the incessantly positive Dane G. dogging any board, in the video above--which features Gudauskas putting the Rocket Wide through the paces at various SoCal beach breaks--he seems extraordinarily charged on the new design.