Channel Islands’ New FishBeard Joins The 2020 Lineup

With a new decade comes new surfboards, or rather… modern twists on old surfboards. We’ve all heard the classic fashion adage, trends are cyclical—and, when it comes to surfing, they are indeed. 80’s neon and twin fins are back! Channel Islands’ FishBeard is a high performance twin-keel fin fish that’ll have you frothing to hit the water.

Parker Coffin said it first: “A Neck Beard 2 would work sick as a twin-fin fish!” So Britt Merrick and the folks at CI got to work redesigning the back half of the NB2 template and rocker, paired the board with their Al Merrick Keel Fins (AMK), and alas, the FishBeard was born.

Directly from the mouth of CI: “The FishBeard is pure business in the front and all party in the back. Get forward on this user-friendly board and drive from the center and you’ll have all the speed and flow you always desired. Step back on the tail to engage the fins and rails, which provides you hold, pivot, projection, and the freedom to rip as hard as ever. To keep the party going, we dug into the archives and found some vintage mid-80’s, fluorescent logos and recreated CI’s iconic layup from that era.”

For the fins, you’ll want to use the Al Merrick Keel (aka AMK by Futures). “Make no mistake, this fin ain’t retro,” says CI. “Although inspired by classic keel outlines, the all-new AMK template boasts a modern rake shape, graduated tip flex and flat inside foils finely tuned for fast, high performance surfing. This keel-fin design is built to rip but also ideal for those that just want to groove.”

The FishBeard is offered in the following standard dimensions and is available for custom order:

Is This Board For Me?

CI has been into revamping their older models lately, and the FishBeard is no exception. The FishBeard, as you’ve likely realized, is a hybrid of the Neck Beard 2 and the CI Fish. For context, the Neck Beard 2 (an updated model of the original Neck Beard) is a user-friendly, single concave shortboard made for knee-head high waves. The CI Fish (a refined version of the Retro Fish) is a thinned-out, user-friendly performance fish perfect for grovelling or flying down the line on head high sets. 

So, if you’re comfortable on a traditional thruster but like the flair and flow that comes with surfing a fish, the FishBeard is a dream come true! 

If you’re a beginner looking to step down from a longboard to something smaller, this high-performance twin likely isn’t the best choice for you. Instead, check out Channel Islands’ other brand new 2020 release, the CI Mid!