Channel Islands G Skate "Initial Thoughts" Review - The Surfboard Guide

Welcome to our "Initial Thoughts" of the Channel Islands G Skate, the new high-performance fun shape from Britt Merrick in collaboration with Dane, Tanner and Pat Gudauskas from San Clemente California!

I have been riding the G Skate in custom dimensions to add width and thickness - check out the clip to learn more about size and volume!

If you have questions or comments, leave them below in the comments - let us know what fins etc you want to see in the board!

From https://cisurfboards.com/products/g-s...

The G Skate is built to inspire you with the signature Gudauskas brother energy – Pure stoke.

This fast, skatey and responsive swallow-tailed hybrid design was born of a collaboration between Britt Merrick and the three Gudauskas brothers—Dane, Pat & Tanner.

Their goal was to create something fresh feeling that turned well in good surf but skated with ease through the not-so-good stuff. There was one major stipulation during its development: the G Skate had to still perform at the highest of levels possible. They achieved this by shortening their typical shortboard rail line by 5” and adding curves and contours in key places that would keep them on top of the water and not hinder their turns in any way. Adding a 2 + 1 (twin plus trailer) fin set-up tied the whole concept together.

The G Skate has a lot of get up and go speed thanks to its light single to double concave, low entry rocker, wide point forward—and its contemporary shortboard rails provide all the precision and control you could ever want.

This stoke-infused collaboration also yielded an all-new Merrick / Gudauskas 2 + 1 fin set for the G Skate, and they also found that the AMT (2 + 1) fin set up also works very well. The purpose of this twin plus trailer fin set-up was to offer the beautiful “free feel” of a twinnie yet have the refined control of a thruster—which is critical in creating a board that accommodates the broad spectrum of approaches between all three G Bros. For those that prefer traditional thruster set-ups, their favorite thruster set will work well in this design—giving surfers twice the options and value.

The G-Skate serves as a strong utility piece in any quiver where fun and performance are the goal. Ride this board 3” to 6” shorter and the same thickness as your CI Pro.

We will be bak with the full review shortly - including surf clips etc!

Be sure to leave any questions about the board etc below in comments, or check us out on Instagram @thesurfboardguide to make sure you are across what we are doing!