Mason Ho dances on the water. His craft look lively and responsive. The man behind them – Matt Biolos, has teamed up with Mason to create his first pro model board – the Voodoo Child.
The description of which reads:
Designed with creative input and vision from the freewheeling, freethinking freesurfer… Mason Ho. The “VooDoo Child” is Mason’s mash-up of classic and current performance surfboard characteristics. Mason likes effortless forward glide projecting from his front foot, but demands quick and loose release off the tail. To do this we started with a lower than typical nose rocker, a relaxed curve through the centre and a healthy kick in the tail.
The VooDoo Child features a modern, cutting edge, high performance, concave hull. There is a generous single and double concave cutting through curvy rail rocker, with the deepest concave being through the fins, directly under the rear foot. These elements work together to easily generate speed, and whip tight radius carves, still allowing controlled release for tail free surfing. Other elements include a more noticeably parallel outline through the centre (for drive) that blends rapidly into a pulled in nose tip. There is a noticeable bump/hip into a wide squash tail, which encourages quick, angular surfing and harkens back to some classic lines from late 80’s design ethos.
We built a slight double concave deck into the tail. This helps Mason lock his rear foot in the board (especially with Mason’s typical no traction pad approach) and gives the board that magic “surfed in“ feeling, right off the sanding rack. One thing Mason demanded was a classic, 1980s influenced “beak” nose. Visually pleasing, and a nod back to the days when Mason’s pop (Michael Ho) and Uncle Derek, ruled the North Shore and beyond. It actually helps to carry a bit of extra volume forward into the nose (helping with momentum, a bit of paddle power and lessens risk of breaks ) then rapidly reduces thickness in a stylish way. It works well with low nose rockers, like the that of the Voodoo Child, in reducing the thickness without kicking up the rocker from the bottom. Finally, the rails are modern (full, forgiving and tucked soft) throughout the length of the board, but unlike current trends utilizing a thin square tail block, we foiled the rails down in the last 12’ of the tail, allowing us to retain some more volume under the rear foot for stability, and allows Mason to “knife in” the wide and deeply concaved tail block. All in all, the elements combine to not only make a creative expression of Mason’s concepts and interests, but they balance out into an easy to ride, generously proportioned all around short board with post modern and retro chic influences.
