Some surfers just have that natural tube-sense. An innate connection with board riding, no matter where (on earth) they do it. One such human is Laguna Beach, California’s Nate Zoller, a talented regular footer who seems to bag the wave of the day, like…everywhere. One of Roark’s very first team riders, Nate’s scored waves in the Aleutians to the Falkland Islands; Java to India; Senegal to far above the Arctic Circle. He’s also been a boatman at Tavarua Resort, paddled into XXL Nazare, caught bombs at 2nd Reef Pipe…the list goes on. Nate’s been sampling agave surfboards for a few years now, too, and has been loving the way they ride. We caught up with the guy before he slipped away yet again, and got his thoughts on a few models he’s ridden.
Agave Brothers Ranch: What agave surfboards have you ridden?
Nate Zoller: The first one I got was a Mayhem in agave. It was a Driver model. They tried to make it extra light, and it worked great. I rode it a few sessions in Newport and Laguna. That was probably three or four years ago, but I remember I really dug the flex. It was fast and I just remember being able to surf the board like a normal shortboard…which at the time was surprising, but not so much anymore, you know. It was a round-tail, good-wave board, and I was doing airs in Newport, getting it in the pocket. The waves were kinda punchy I was surfing it at 54th Street and in Laguna at a couple little reefs.
You could do airs on it?
Yeah, I could do airs and get out of the lip and all that. It had pop. I do remember that. Maybe I’d have felt different if it was a quad… But I think that Driver felt so good because it had such a light glass-job. It was almost like the pro or Kolohe glass job, where it's single, four-ounce on each side. I don't know if a consumer would want that light of a board, but I was pretty pleasantly surprised.
What fins did you feel like it worked with?
I just used thruster honeycomb ones. Normal fins, probably a medium size. But I'd like to try a quad or an alternative board in that material and see if it's any different.
You try another board?
Yeah, I actually recently rode this Gary Linden 5’8 shortboard on a bumpier day up North. It cut through the water SO well. Like, my friend was complaining about his board feeling the chop and I realized it hadn’t even crossed my mind during the session. That board handled so well in the pocket and even out of the lip, giving me full confidence in the board by the end of the session.
Wow, right on! So, you go on, like, three more surf trips all over the world every year… Do you feel like you’d take agave on a trip?
Oh, for sure. It’s like, there’s definitely a place in everyone’s quiver for agave, but people just haven't been exposed to it enough. It's clearly a more sustainable way to make surfboards, and it’s getting closer to that end goal of less waste. So, I think the more people are exposed to it, the more people will be willing to take it on surf trips. People just need to see if it actually holds up in an Indonesian reef pass, though right? I mean, out there, if you bail a board — agave or polyurethane — it could break regardless.
True.
I think it's about just selling them more. Getting them into surf shops and getting people buying them, and then establishing more of a general consensus that they can work. Hopefully, with all the new batches of blanks coming in, the quality will get to that point where it's on par with a Channel Islands or something, I just don't know if that's been fully proven yet. It still feels like agave is in that trial phase. Nobody's been able to truly crack the code of alternative materials to make a surfboard…but agave certainly seems like the best, and strongest option. It does seem like the place for agave surfboards is in that “alternative” space. If you're trying to make a super-duper high-performance surfboard, I don't know if agave is the best for that, in regards to weight, and maybe the density.
So, what are the improvements you would make on them?
I’d say in the overall consistency of the densities of the blank. They glue them together, right, so it's hard to be 100% consistent with the blanks. I do feel like they're getting a LOT closer. We'll see what these new blanks look like. It'd be interesting to try one step-up, because then you could get away with any added weight. Like a 6'6", you know? I’d take that around the world, especially to a certain wave below the border…