Film by Daydream Surf Shop Editor & Cinematographer: Chad Greenberg Surfer: Erik Paulson
Where do we even begin with Ryan Lovelace’s FM design? Honestly, our first look had us confused, it seemed overcomplicated… What’s that thing in the middle? Is it a twinzer? Kinda… but the middle fins seem like they’re set closer to the stringer. The Kinard fins are so small. The list goes on. Little did we know we were about to experience something that would completely blow us away. The first day we took the Daydream Research Center FM out, we actually put our tried and true Thick Lizzy in the car and opted to get some waves on that model first. After a fun session in head high surf at San O, we swapped the Thick Lizzy our and the FM in. We were absolutely blown away by the immediate feedback we felt.
You really need to put the FM under your arm and just surf it. Don’t get caught up with the analysis of the design until you’ve gotten it under your feet because it is complicated; however, it all makes a lot more sense after surfing it. Since we had the opportunity to surf our Lizzy before the FM, a lot of the comparisons were drawn in relation to the feeling of a 7’6” Thick Lizzy vs a 7’0” FM.
The obvious initial impression was the difference in volume, even if they were the same size, the FM is so much more refined, you can feel it in the way the deck and the rail is shaped, it’s much more progressive compared to its fuller Lizzy counterpart. The rocker is also more progressive in the sense that there’s a bit more curve in the nose and tail.
Once up and riding there’s an intuitive desire for the FM to move, it felt spunky, like it had all this kinetic energy building up and needing to be released through putting it on rail and turning it. The acceleration is remarkable, when you lay it on rail you feel the velocity increase as it projects off the bottom. It has more vertical projection than the Lizzy, not to the same degree as a shortboard or fish but definitely several more degrees of vertical projection than any midlength that we could compare in recent memory. The turning radius is tighter than you’d expect as well; for example, when flowing through a carve or cutback you’ll notice the board wraps turns a little tighter than you’d expect and also carries a nice acceleration through the carve.
All of these observations are heavily centered around this energetic nature of the FM when surfed off the tail but we don’t want to forget that it’s a mindlength, meaning there’s a lot more to them than just surfing them off the tail. You’re going to have such a good time shredding this thing but please remember to take a cross step forward, trim and glide through speedy sections, or even dabble with the top half of the FM.
We have three Lovemachine FM’s available to demo through our shop right now - 6’9”, 7’0”, and 9’6” - so come by and get one of these under your feet. Anyone who enjoys surfing a midlength really needs to try one of these. We’ve tested over a hundred different midlength designs at our shop and we can say with certainty that this is the most rippable midlength we’ve ever surfed.