A smooth, forgiving all rounder shortboard that gets down to business when you need it to, this is the Haydenshapes Ando review!
Craig Anderson’s signature model, the Haydenshapes Ando handles size, eats hollow, punchy waves but is still versatile enough to handle your average conditions. A must have for the swell season! This is Haydenshapes Ando review.
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Pluses
+ Forgiving all rounder shortboard – perfect for swell season
+ Can be playful or serious when you need it; turns sharply and smoothly, takes steep elevator drops and love a barrel! So good!
+ Packed with volume but it feels nice and tight and refined under the arm
Minuses
– I had to order a custom to get the volume I need. The largest standard model is much too small for me
Benny Rides
The Haydenshapes Ando surfboard at 6’3 x 20 x 2 3/4 @ 37.8L’s of volume (custom dims). I have been using the Futures Roberts fins – they compliment this board perfectly! Standard Haydenshapes Ando dimensions and volume at the bottom of this page.
Best Wave Type
Chest high to well overhead. Tears apart your local beach break or the punchy, barreling a-frame you’ve been dreaming of. Great for technical surfing, too.
Features
- Typical high performance shortboard outline
- Medium tip and tail rocker – flat through the center
- 3-fin thruster setup
- Nice medium to low rails
- Lots of volume packed into a refined package
Compare To
- Channel Islands Fred Rubble Review: one of my favourite all rounder shortboards, I love this thing when the swell is solid
- Stacey Surfboard Roach Review: an amazingly well balanced all rounder that I like especially in bigger, more punchy surf
- Pukas The Game Surfboard Review: a versatile, precise beach break board that can be ridden from chest high to well overhead
Video Summary
Hello, welcome to Benny’s Boardroom. Welcome back! I hope you’ve been getting some waves. I have been getting some waves. It’s Autumn now in Australia and we are starting to get some pumping swells through and I got this Haydenshapes Ando just in time to take advantage of these swells.
I got this board as a high performance shortboard but one that’s intended to be a little bit more forgiving. That was the feedback I had heard about the Ando and that’s why I decided to buy and ride it. I don’t normally ride boards that are of the rounded square tail high performance shortboard variety but I think the Haydenshapes Ando is a really good option for somebody like me who needs a little bit more volume but doesn’t like the bulk of a really thick board. This feels really refined under my arm, but it’s still got plenty of volume to get me into waves from chest to shoulder high all the way up to solid double overhead surf and it’s just performed fantastically well for me.
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The first time I surfed this board, I was surfing this hectic, wedgie a-frame beach break. It wasn’t small; in fact, it was big and solid with some really steep, fast drops. The conditions were not ideal. It was a little bit junky and I was really impressed by this board. I would take off on these waves with power and, with plenty of paddle power, I would get in on time and get down to the bottom of these ugly things and half the time it was breaking so fast that it would just literally launch me in front of the wave but I felt like I could just turn it and lock it in at the bottom turn. Never did I feel like I was going to slide out and so many times the board just held perfectly and shot me through.
I think that’s partially because of this cool tail at the back. This is a rounded square but almost a round tail; you can see how it gets pretty narrow right there and it’s quite round. So, that I think helps to A.) sit in a steeper face a little bit better and B.) it also helps in making those big, steep drops but it feels forgiving as well. I was able to turn the Ando really hard with that tail. All around, I think that’s been one of my favorite dynamics of the board.
The Haydenshapes Ando has a slightly wider outline [00:02:00] but slightly wider only in the context of a high performance short board.
This is Craig Anderson’s signature all-rounder shortboard and he has a pretty relaxed, beautiful style and I think this board suits his surfing well but it also suits an average surfer like me well.
The rocker is flat through the center here with a little bit of a kick in the tip and tail. Again, I think that helps you to ride those steeper faces and make steeper drops, and also to allow you to turn the board hard and then it has minimal rocker up the front so it’s just got a little bit of kick in the nose.
Nice medium to lower rails make this board feel very responsive, very lively and I am loving surfing this Ando model by Haydenshapes in better surf.
I’ve been using these Futures Roberts Fins and these have been great. I hadn’t used these fins before and they are great for a bigger surfer and again surfing in punchier waves.
And while I have surfed this Haydenshapes Ando in bigger surf, I have also surfed it on a waist to shoulder high – even a couple head high sets [days 00:03:00] – session the other day. This board has enough volume to get me up and going and I had a really fun surf on it in smaller conditions as well, so it’s not just about surfing big waves.
This is a great all around high performance short board by Haydenshapes. If you’ve had a go on the Ando, of course let me know how you’ve gone, and thank you very much for watching Benny’s Boardroom.
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Stock Standard Dimensions & Volume
Standard Haydenshapes volumes and dimensions from the Haydenshapes website:
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