Iconic shapers Christenson & Tomo partnered to create this all-around speed demon. This is the Christenson Mescaline (x Tomo) Surfboard Review.
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Have a question? Wondering if the Christenson Mescaline (x Tomo) Surfboard is the right board for you? Let’s talk about it in the comments…
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Synopsis
Leveraging Chris Christenson’s deep surfboard shaping knowledge combined with Tomo’s progressive modern planing hull designs to create this all-around surfboard speed demon. The Christenson Mescaline is very Chris Christenson in the nose but the tail is unmistakably Tomo.
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On the bottom, you’ll find a subtle vee through the nose transcending into a subtle then deep concave towards the tail. Hope you enjoy this Christenson Mescaline (x Tomo) Surfboard Review as much as I enjoyed riding it!
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What we rode
Ben rode the Christenson Mescaline Surfboard at 6’2″ x 21 1/2″ x 2 5/8″ at 38L’s.. He tried a few different fin setups on the board. He tried Futures AMT twin fins and Futures Fins Rasta quads.
Standard Christenson Mescaline dimensions and volumes may be found at the bottom of this page.
Best Wave Type
The best conditions for the Christenson Mescaline Surfboard are the waist high head high range. It’s got enough volume through it to handle smaller waves, but it definitely handle bigger surf.
Features
- Modern planing hull design
- Parallel rails reduce friction, making the board faster
- Pointier nose but with modern planing hull outline
- Flat rocker
- Double diamond tail that is super sensitive
Compare To
- Psillakis Surfboards Quad Fish Surfboard Review: a performance hybrid on steroids; great for pumping fun into your average days at home
- Gary McNeill Surfboards Entity Surfboard Review: GMC can do no wrong and this is a cracking all rounder with similar plan shape, wave range…and fun factor!
Video Summary
Hey. This is Ben. Welcome to Benny’s Boardroom. This is the Christenson Mescaline. You’d be forgiven if you saw this in the water and you thought that Tomo of Tomo Surfboards had come out with a new modern planing hull design because this is actually a collaboration between Mr. Chris Christenson and Daniel ‘Tomo’ Thomson.
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Apparently, they got locked in some mountain cabin and came up with this design. They’re two of the most progressive surfboard shapers on the planet. This melds their design theories into one speedy little daily driver pocket rocket.
The Board
The first thing you notice about the Mescaline is that it has a lot of modern planing hull design aspects to it. The more parallel rails, and this, again, reduces friction, makes the board much faster. This has the pointier nose, which Tomo sometimes chops the nose off, but that modern planing hull outline is the first thing that draws you to the board visually.
Then, if you look at the rocker, the rocker is very, very flat on this board. You can see there’s a little bit of a rocker in the tip and then it’s basically flat throughout the rest of the board. So, this thing bolts out of the gate. That’s the one thing I noticed about this board, more than anything else, is the acceleration.
You find that with a lot of the modern planing hull designs and with some of the Christenson boards, but this board in particular, I don’t know if the channels are working in conjunction with that flat rocker and with the amount of planning hull outline, but this thing is so fast. Even when the waves are small or even at waist high, you pop up and the board just takes off.
Like most of the Christenson rails that I’ve seen, and like the boards that I’ve been riding lately, Christenson puts these nice, low, sensitive rails on the board. It carries a lot of foam through the middle of the board. So, it carries a lot of volume, a lot more volume in a smaller package than the size of the board might otherwise suggest. But those nice, low sensitive rails, again, they make the board feel really, really connected to the wave.
You make a little adjustment with your heel and you feel the rail touch in and make the change in direction a lot more easily. Those rails that Christenson does, they’re some of my favourite. I really enjoy the way they feel.
The other defining feature of this board, and again, you see a lot of this. I think this is certainly some inspiration from Mr. Tomo Thomson, Daniel Thomson, is this channel that he was running through the centre here of the board.
Tomo likes the channels. I think this tail, this is a very intricate and probably well thought out tail. He’s got this double diamond tail. I don’t know if that’s what it’s called, but that’s what I’ve been calling it, with this big channel running through it. You can see the tail is really, really super sensitive.
It’s really thinned out. The volume through the front of the board even at the very front, there’s quite a lot of foam sitting up front, carrying all the way through the middle of the board, but again you come back to that tail.
Despite the fact it’s a wider tail, it does reduce a lot of the width and bulk through the backs of the tail, despite the width. It doesn’t feel like you have to push the tail through turns, which sometimes in riding other boards that have wider, rounded square tails for example, sometimes I feel like you really have to push them through. If you don’t have enough speed, it’s hard to get them to dig in. That tail didn’t feel that way at all.
Experience in the Surf
I felt also because you have this dynamic of the channels pushing the water through the tail here and through these big AMT fins—and we’ll talk about fins in a second—the flow down the line on this board was just beautiful. I mean, remember taking off on some bigger, better waves up the coast and the board just locks and it just has this lovely flowing feeling, but it’s still, again, because it’s thinned out, you can still get quite aggressive and turn it sharp off the top.
Fin Setup
In the beginning, when I started surfing this board, the fin setup I thought I would go with right away was a quad, because I like quads. I went with the Rasta quads, which are my favourite staple, all-rounder quad of choice. So, I put those in to start, and then I was talking to the main man Brent at Onboard Store in Mona Vale in Sydney and he was riding it with these AMTs, which are really a twin fin setup, but then they have this little baby trailer at the back.
Brent’s a very good surfer, but he reckons it was the fastest board he’d ridden with that fin setup. So, I gave that a try, and I really liked that feeling. I think that combination of having these big, upfront fins channeling each side of the board through turns as well as having this just little stabiliser here cutting right through the middle the channel and splitting that diamond tail in half.
It gave it a really different feeling to the quads. I like the quads very much. I honestly can’t say which one was my favourite, but I think if you did want to ride this board and you really; if you’re into the speed of it and maybe when you’re riding it, when it’s a little bit smaller, you can put those AMTs in or something similar to this. I think there’s an MR twin setup as well that has a similar bigger upfront fin with a little trailer. That combination, I think, in the back of the tail felt great.
Christenson (x Tomo) Mescaline Surfboard Summary
So this board, I think, would be a great board. It’s just a simple daily driver. This, I would put into the category of an all-rounder. It does everything really well.
It’s not an expert in bigger, bigger waves. This wouldn’t be the sort of thing you’d take and surf like double overhead in Indonesia or anything like that, although you probably could. I think it would handle it and it would hold. Again, you’re probably not going to surf it down to sub-waist high or in that thigh high range. Again, it probably could. It’s flat enough. It has enough volume, but to me, it’s great for 80% of surfs where it’s a little bit onshore and mushy.
It cuts through the mush just fine. The rails are sensitive, but they’re not too sensitive. It will handle bigger surf.
It will handle better surf as well, but it’s a really good, I think, daily driver. That’s the class I would put this board into. Again, if you liked Tomo’s modern planing hull designs, you liked the speed of them, I think you’re really going to appreciate this, and then, of course, you’ve got the refinement from Chris Christenson who makes I think some of the best surfboards in the world.
That is the Christenson Surfboard Mescaline review. Hope you enjoyed it. I’ll speak to you again soon.
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Stock Standard Dimensions & Volume
Standard Christenson (x Tomo) Mescaline Surfboard Dimensions & Volumes available at the Christenson Surfboards website.
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