We’ve already heard what the people thought of this debacle. Stab’s own fans and subscribers, for that matter. Now, since we are still on the topic, I would like to share my thoughts.
Most of you likely already know what Stab In The Dark is. But just in case, for those in the back – this is a double blind surfboard test, in an attempt to find the “best surfboard of the year”. Something like that. Double blind meaning the guy who shapes the board doesn’t know who he is shaping it for, and the surfer doesn’t know who shaped which board out of a batch; they all look exactly the same. Ideally.
It’s a really cool concept, and past editions of this series have been great, featuring some of the best and most entertaining surfers in the world: Dane Reynolds, Jordy Smith, Julian Wilson, Italo Ferreira, Kolohe Andino and a bunch more. A solid roster. They only had never had the biggest surfer in the world, until now, and that is Kelly Slater. The Greatest Of All Time. One of the best athletes of all time, in my opinion. Great feature.
One small little issue; Kelly owns his own surfboard brand. Now, this shouldn’t be an issue, and let me tell you why. This is Stab’s project, and rules are rules. This is the 10th edition of this series, it’s supposed to be a big deal. That’s the reason they wanted to get Kelly in for it anyways. The guy has more experience handling surfboards than a baker does dough. He knows a lot about boards and design, and like I said, he makes for a great feature. Anyways, the shapers that were invited to this anniversary edition were all past winners. That’s why there were only (supposed to be) 5. Kelly wasn’t having it.
The way that Sam MacIntosh (Stab’s founder) put it, whichever board would be deemed the winner, Kelly would be doing a service to that shaper and their brand. Logically, that board would see a large spike in sales. Kelly wanted the shapers to sign up and make the winning board into a collaboration board model with his surfboard brand FireWire. You help me, I help you. 2 of the shapers said yes, 3 said no. And for some reason or another, because of that, Dan Mann was entered into the competition. Dan Mann has been Kelly’s personal surfboard shaper for the last 10+ years. Seems fair, right? None of you guys want to help my brand, so be it. Now my brand is going to compete too (wink wink).
Back to the rules we were talking about – double blind. Supposedly Dan didn’t know he was shaping a board for Kelly. I have not heard that from his own words, that’s all from Stab’s side. I would be interested to hear Dan’s take on all of this. But of course his board was entered into the contest looking just like the other entrants – unrecognizable. Or so one would think. Kelly, still today, is trying to say he didn’t know it was a Dan Mann shape. Many holes were poked in this straight up lie, have a look. He obviously knew; how could he not? He designed that board model.
Be that as it may, I think I lay more of the blame on Stab. I guess I just have a lot of questions for them. First and foremost, why did this take a year for Stab to put out? The next rendition of Stab In The Dark is already due to drop next month (April), featuring Ethan Ewing. They sat on this project until they just about had the next one ready? Interesting. Why not just cann the whole thing? I think they didn’t know what to do, maybe had some deal in place with Slater, and just went with it. Now they are actively trying to save face – even going so far as to have Sam MacIntosh sit down for an interview with Dane Reynolds and Damien Fahrenfort – two guys who we didn’t know had roles with this company but two weeks ago.
Secondly, why not just call this something different, give it a different project name? Like an offshoot of SITD, just not under the official series. This puts such a tarnish on the work they have already done. It’s a good thing they got the most stylish surfer in the world right now as a follow up act. Fingers crossed for Ethan Ewing to be the savior Stab needs. I will say the trailer looked great, but the panic and tourniquet action coming out of that office right now is borderline shameful.
Here’s another one for you – was that board a standard PU? If not, was it at least built with the same materials as all the other boards? How’s it supposed to be fair at all if that is not the case. FireWire is notoriously known for being an Epoxy brand. Really curious about that one. One big thing going around on the internet right now is how the Dan Mann board that was supposedly the winning board that got pulled out of the bag at the end was without a deck grip – brand new. Again, interesting.
I want to go back to the blame on Stab one more time. Same deal as with the shapers – Kelly is basically his own brand. In his mind, he doesn’t need to do this project; he is helping you. And apparently the other board manufacturers as well. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to help himself, if you are not willing to scratch his back? He’s got to force the hand and put the Dan Mann in, if the shapers are not willing to bend. There is nothing else in it for him, right? But this is your project, Stab. Your baby. 10th anniversary. You’ve got a real fanbase, paying subscribers. Are you bending the knee to Kelly, dropping anchor right on top of your supporting base? Sure looks that way.
And I can’t help but think – did Kelly Slater just shoot himself in the foot on his way out the door? The whole Channel Islands ordeal was a terrible look for him. The fact that he absolutely knew that was a Dan Mann FRK model, yet he is still holding his line, we all know. You saw the comments. The public is not happy. Not that he needs to do anything for anyone, but I do think it’s a bit different of a story as a businessman rather than a competitor. You can’t burn everyone. Maybe he can, fuck, he’s Kelly Slater.
Think about this – in the words of Pedro Ramos (Stab writer) Kelly is, “no longer keeping pace with the current CT crop, and with an Olympic Medal permanently out of reach, he still manages to bend the conversation back to himself.” Great point. My question is, how much longer will Kelly be able to do this? Was this an Au Revoir? Did he lose any credibility within the industry folk at all? Would Stab invite him back for an Electric Acid Surfboard Test, which he mentioned interest in? Would people boycott it, shapers included? I thought I heard Sam Mac say that Marcio Zouvi (Sharp Eye) was not keen on doing another SITD after this, but I saw a clip of Ewing riding one in the preview. Maybe they figured it out.
I guess to wrap up my final thoughts – I think Stab should have renamed this to a different project. Actually, I think they should have just cut all the corpo business shit out of it – if Kelly signed up to do the project then just do the damn project how you intended. Hold him to it. At the very least, change it to ‘Kelly compares his board to past SITD winners in blind testing’ – something like that. He burned you, why even give him the credibility of your 10th edition of SITD. Sucks.
Also, I think Kelly should cut the crap. Can you just admit to your fault now? How many FRK’s do you think he’s ridden over the years? I saw a post from Dan Mann on IG that said “Back in 2017 Kelly surfed an FRK I made him for the first time. We continue to refine it through every batch of FRK’s we make, but the guts of this shape remain the same as it was in ‘17.” He fuckin knew exactly what board it was. Quit embarrassing yourself.
Like I said, I feel like he shot himself in the foot. Sure, I know he’s a Dad (again) now, maybe he doesn’t care to be relevant anymore. I feel like there is no way that is the case with this guy. So when he does come crawling back, I’d say within the next two years due to lack of boredom from no competition rashie, no Olympic medal to strive for, no victory to chase, are you going to accept him back with open arms? Are you going to trust his word on just about anything he says? And even if not that, are you even going to respect his opinion on any matter at all?
Lastly, I also need to include this text, sent from Matt ‘Mayhem’ Biolos to Sam MacIntosh, Stabs founder, after the result. No I didn’t hack anyone’s phone, he read this off of his phone in the Stab Mic podcast:
“Business mucked it up, and you made a concession to get the prettiest girl at the prom. You killed the premise, but based off precedence we all figured you would tastefully disqualify them, like you did with myself and DH in the past. But this is even worse than DH…because Dan knew it was Kelly. We never knew. Him winning is not even winning. It’s actually straight up cheating, and it nullifies the entire competition. It’s no different a situation than Kelly calling him and saying ‘make me a copy of my favorite board’. Too easy, no excitement. Kelly chose it because no other board forced him not to. Our boards were not good enough, but it sounds like mine was the best of the bunch. Based on watching 15 waves on my board, I could easily adjust that board to be 25% better in one or two tries. Easy. Touch more tail rocker is all it really needs. Maybe a touch more in the center. Make two boards – figure it out. Dan has had 10,000 waves to watch Kelly on his boards and Mae adjustments. It’s quite literally a rigged competition.
And you, like the lord, has giveth and the Lord has taketh away. But even more so than you taking away from me, Lord Slater has taken from you. He has won, again. He gave you what you so badly wanted, and he somehow, like he did to so many careers over so many decades, ruined your beautiful baby. Ruined your dream. It’s what he does. He somehow fuckin manipulated it and manifested that perfect set wave when he needed it the most, and twisted the whole fucking thing to suit what he wanted to get out of it for his business. He played you. He played us all.
But you are the victim here, not me. Cause it looks like you sold out. Like Robert Johnson coming to the crossroads and trading his soul to the devil. I wish we just made you better boards. We let you down. Matt.”
Absolutely beautiful Matt. That will be all.
Cheers,
hwilsin
Drew Stanfield