SMTH Shapes Maytrix Review

The SMTH Shapes Maytrix is a straight up performance shortboard, you get custom like I did or run the stock specs it comes in. Either way you’ll be getting a board that has a moderate entry rocker which will help with quicker glide in day to day surf, you’ll also enjoy the outline of the Maytrix – which has a slightly wider nose to help with easier paddling into waves. The wider nose gives more area to land on when doing airs and the wider tail breaks into a hip in front of the fins to bring the tail in for control. 

My custom was tweaked a little from the general template, which resulted in a shape that was a bit straighter through the middle rail line. I also went a touch narrower but also a bit longer. Overall it was a board that had all the charateristics of the model, but tweaked a touch to suit my current needs. The beauty of getting a custom vs off the rack.

Overall, as we mentioned earlier, it’s sleek outline is slightly wider around the nose to ease with paddling combined with a subtle tail hip at the fins, pulling in the squash tail and giving you that reliable high performance feel. As high performance shortboards go, it’s not as refined as something like a CI Pro but thats a good thing in my opinion. The SMTH Shapes Maytrix is a little more forgiving, giving us regular joes a board that will suit our performance levels and manage our expectations.

The conditions I surfed the SMTH Shapes Maytrix in varied from 2ft high tide local beachies, to 3-4ft Dbah off the wall, to 3ft Greenmount and Kirra to 4ft North Wall. So we got a pretty good range of conditions and the waves it really shined were around the 3ft+ mark, playful type waves with some push.

This board doesn’t enjoy small average/general beachy waves. It’s not for 2ft surf where you gotta be quick response with in/out conditions, snapping here and stuttering bottom turns there. For that you probably want a CI Happy or Patterson Stoke’d. If you’re surfing beachies over 2ft, with a bit more time between sections it’ll be a lot more fun to ride. It needed some push to really shine, something you’ll notice in the video below – the way the board carries in small, shitty beachbreak vs some surf with a bit more juice, or lined up banks.

Where it really excelled was when I was on a point break, or beachy with a solid bank, and it was 3ft+. In these type of waves you’ll really enjoy surfing this board on open faces, laying the rail over and having speed to burn through turns.  It’s not an up and down board, I found it was performing much better when surfing more laterally. By that I mean rail work – carves, cutbacks and waves that are more point break or down the line. You’ll find your carve work improving dramatically on this board once you get used to, and I found myself turning in areas on the wave where I previously couldn’t draw a carve. Was quite a nice surprise.

Overall Best Conditions:
3-5ft point break or well formed beachies. No preference on forehand or backhand, it’ll go either way. Just needs the juice and down the line opportunity.

Stats were:
14 sessions
87 waves
Top Speed of 35km/h (Greenmount)
Longest ride was 297m (Kirra)

This isn’t the board for the surfer who just wants to get out there and rip, shred, tear, the Channel Islands Mid is more for the surfer who enjoys the challenge of different boards, the glide of something bigger or is looking for a board that’ll help smooth their surfing out a bit.

The beauty of the board is how much work it does for you, if you let it. It’ll run around a section with a slight push off the bottom, go the highline and you’ll get an immense amount of speed. Having said that, if you try to over-power or ‘force’ it through turns, you’ll come unstuck or heavily catch/bog more often than not.

You can go straight up, do snaps, round houses, probably even airs, but when you’re trying to surf it like that (like a proper HP shortboard) you tend to catch, lose your arms and generally flail a lot. It’s brilliant at cut down’s, highline speed runs, sectional floaters (long as it’s not dumping) and even pretty good for some larry action.

The fins I used in the beginning were different to what I ended up on, and the second set – the True Ames Merrick set – left the first set dead in the water. You can see in the images below the difference in size, rake, depth, etc and the biggest win I felt with the Al Merrick fins were more stability, control and speed. Basically all things I want more of in a board.

Overall, the biggest thing I learn with this board was to give yourself more time when surfing, more time off the bottom, off the top or doing cutbacks – stretch it out and take your time, the board will do a lot of the work for you if you let it. Something that is (should be, I hope) noticeable in the video above. The difference in how the board looks under foot in small, shifty beachbreaks vs waves at Snapper or Dbah where there was more push, etc

It took me a hot minute to really figure out how to approach riding this board, but once I got a handle on it the board become a favourite and was my go to short board for a while. I really loved the way it changed my approach to carving, allowing me to start the turn a touch earlier on the wave face and still hold in surprisingly well. And while I said earlier it wasn’t particularly fantastic going straight up and down (vertical surfing), in the right waves it was more than doable. The big challenge was balancing it between the right waves and it being my daily driver…

The SMTH Shapes Maytrix isn’t for the person who wants to get out there and ‘Hulk Smash’ every wave in every condition. It’s a better wave board for surfers who are confident in their wave reading ability and seeing sections to hit before it’s glaringly obvious. Take your time with this board, slow your surfing down a bit (the board maintains speed, so you don’t need to worry about jumping around like a failed CS superstar) and you’ll find you’ll get rewarded in multiple ways.

The Wins:
*Loved how well it carved, kept it speed and felt underfoot.
*In the right waves it’s a sensational board
*Held up surprisingly well

The Challenges:
*It’s not quite for the quick in/out beachy approach
*Condition reliant to really shine.

If you’re not quite sold on the SMTH Shapes Maytrix model but are interested in getting a new shortie, some alternatives include the CI Pro from Channel Islands, the Shortie from Chilli Surfboards or the Juliette from DHD.