Firewire Surfboard Review (2026): Neutrino, Revo Max, Machadocado | WIREDSkip to main contentMenuSECURITYPOLITICSTHE BIG STORYBUSINESSSCIENCECULTUREREVIEWSMenuAccountAccountNewslettersApple MacBook NeoM5 MacBook Air ReviewBest REI Outdoor DealsBest Mountain E-BikesBest Paper PlannersDeals DeliveredSecurityPoliticsThe Big StoryBusinessScienceCultureReviewsChevronMoreExpandThe Big InterviewMagazineEventsWIRED InsiderWIRED ConsultingNewslettersPodcastsVideoLivestreamsMerchSearchSearchBrent RoseGearMar 20, 2026 7:00 AMThe Firewire Neutrino Surfboard Takes Off Like a ShotFirewire makes the most innovative surfboards in the industry. This winter, I tried the Neutrino, Machadocado, and Revo Max to see if they're worth the hype.Photograph: Brent RoseCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyFor decades, the process of making a surfboard has more or less been the same: cut a piece of foam; put a wooden stringer down the middle to provide structure and strength; shape it, then wrap it in fiberglass, sand it, and leave holes for the leash and fins. That was until Firewire Surfboards came along. Now the company uses a 21-step construction process and a dizzying assortment of aerospace-grade foams, carbon fiber, and bio-resins to produce a board that looks straight out of science fiction.The surf world tends to favor the tried-and-true, but in Firewire's case, every new material and design serves a purpose. Much to every Luddite wave-rider’s chagrin, the boards work really damn well. I spent most of the fall and winter testing out three new boards from Firewire—the Neutrino, the Machadocado, and the Revo Max. Each uses different materials and different designs made for different wave types (and surfers). Here’s what I found.A Bit of BackstoryPhotograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RoseChevronChevronSave to wishlistSave to wishlistFirewire SurfboardsMachadocado (2026)$995 Firewire Surfboards$875 Jack's Surfboards (2025)In December 2005, Clark Foam abruptly closed its doors in an event that became known as “Blank Monday.” Clark made roughly 90 percent of the traditional polyurethane (PU) surfboard blanks that were being sold, and suddenly board makers were forced to scramble for alternative core materials. Many in the industry turned to expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, which also required the use of epoxy resins because traditional PU resins melt EPS.However, EPS presented some significant performance issues. First, it possessed roughly 8 percent more buoyancy than PU, resulting in a "corky" ride that left surfers feeling like they were floating awkwardly on top of the water rather than digging into it. It also didn’t flex the same way, which changed the way a board turns.Around the same time, Australian shapers Nev Hyman and Bert Burger were collaborating on a radically different design. A deck skin was affixed to the top and the bottom of the EPS foam core, in what became colloquially referred to as “sandwich construction.” These skins were made of 3-mm thick aerospace composite material that added structural integrity and vibration dampening, as well as dent resistance. The whole sandwich is vacuum-bagged together.The most noticeable change, though, was the removal of the central wooden stringer that ran down the board from nose to tail. Instead, it was replaced with two parabolic rails that run down each side of the board. Not only did these two wooden rails provide more control, but they pop you out of your turns with a little more speed. This construction would become known as Future Shapes Technology (FST).In 2006, Mark Price, a former Association of Surf Professionals (ASP) World Tour surfer and then vice president at Reef, tried a prototype of the FST board. He left his cushy job to found a surf startup called Firewire with Hyman and Burger. In 2007, Taj Burrow—one of the top-ranked and most innovative pro surfers on the world tour—began competing on Firewire boards. That same year he won the Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay (defeating Kelly Slater in the final), as well as the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach. It was the first time an elite World Tour surfer won a major event on non-traditional construction. In 2015, Kelly Slater (still the all-time winning-est competitive surfer in history) became the majority shareholder of the brand.Helium and I-BolicPhotograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RoseChevronChevronSave to wishlistSave to wishlistFirewire SurfboardsNeutrino$995 Cleanline Surf$995 FirewireOver the next decade, the Firewire team continued to iterate on Future Shapes Technology. In 2017, the base construction lost about 15 percent of its weight and became known as Helium.New and improved foam and deck-skins were swapped in, the vacuum process was refined to use even less resin (further reducing weight), and the rails went from solid balsa to a combination of balsa and paulownia woods. This resulted in a board that had a softer, forgiving flex. It's also quicker and easier to turn.I’ve tried several of Firewire’s Helium boards over the past five years, which includes this year’s Machadocado. Shaped by iconic pro surfer Rob Machado, the board’s bulbous outline is inspired by arguably the world’s best fruit. It’s a short wide board that is billed as a hybrid “designed to create speed in weak waves and control speed in good waves.” I tested the stock 5’ 8” version, and while it doesn’t catch waves as readily as a true groveler, it had ample glide to get me around flatter, mushier sections. The Helium construction felt springy, especially when pumping down the line. I felt like I came out of turns with a bit more speed than usual.Photograph: Brent RoseWhile Helium is great for crappy waves, what happens when you get into waves of consequence? "When Kelly [Slater] got onto our Helium technology, he was like, 'This is amazing. However, it's like riding a wild stallion. When I come out of a turn, I need to know exactly what my board's gonna do and where it's gonna go,’" said Brett Savage, who is Firewire's general manager and leads research and design at the company.After numerous trials, they came up with I-Bolic construction, which is the most complicated smorgasbord of materials the surf world has ever seen. The bulk of the board is a 1.5-lb EPS foam core (stronger than the 1-lb used in Helium), but it’s split in half. Instead of a wooden stringer down the middle, it has a column of even higher-density foam with high-density, fiberglass-wrapped deck springers on top and bottom.This effectively gives the board an I-beam running down the middle, which is one of the strongest shapes in civil engineering, enabling the board to flex without breaking when turning at high speed.Courtesy of FirewireLike Helium, the perimeter of the board features bent parabolic rails, but here they are made of high-density EPS so that they match the foam used in the I-beam's outer caps. Keeping these components within the same family of composites ensures a stronger molecular bond between the internal foam and the outer fiberglass shell. It’s not as springy as the wood rails, but it’s still lively.While the I-Bolic boards have the same 3-mm composite deck skin on top as the Helium boards—which also makes them dent-resistant—it doesn’t go full sandwich. Instead, for a skin on the bottom, the I-Bolic boards use two layers of 4-ounce E-Glass fiberglass, along with a carbon reinforcement strip running from the nose to the tail along the bottom deck. This strip acts as an additional cap over the floor of the I-beam to provide longitudinal strength, reinforcing the fin box area against impact and giving the board more spring.If you’re wondering why I-Bolic doesn’t use the deck skin on the bottom of the board like the legacy Firewires, it’s because the 3-mm thickness of the skin smooths out the bottom contours. That’s fine for the majority of subtle concaves and convexes you see out there, but when it’s just thin fiberglass, the vacuum-bagging mechanism allows for deep precise contours, and that’s where things get really interesting.Mastering HydrodynamicsPhotograph: Brent RoseWhen I first got a look at the Neutrino—the newest board from shaper Daniel Thompson that uses I-Bolic—I thought, “There’s no way this is going to go.” It looked like an ironing board. The rails are super straight and parallel. The chop tail looks abruptly cut off, leaving it superwide. The bottom contours are deep and dramatic. It looked more like a science project than a surfboard. I hemmed and hawed for weeks before actually trying it because I didn’t want to waste a day of good surfing.When I finally took it out, I found that it paddled surprisingly easily for a 5’ 10” board. It had a bit more volume than I was used to, but I could still duck-dive it without issue. I teed up a wave, popped up, and the board took off. And what I mean by that is, it nearly shot out from under me, almost like you’re standing on an escooter and hit the throttle before you were ready. It turned, too! I shot down the line, raced around crumbling sections, and cut back into the power pocket. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like sorcery.Daniel “Tomo” Thomson is known as one of the most experimental shapers in the world. He’s also one of the few shapers that still surf at a pro level, making him a sort of self-contained R&D lab. Back in the late oughts, Thompson was working with surf historian Richard Kenvin in San Diego. Together, they studied the historical boards and planing hull philosophies of mid-century surfboard designer Bob Simmons. Rather than replicate past designs, Thomson wanted to apply Simmons' concepts in a modern surf context, incorporating principles from naval architecture and the boating world."I wasn't trying to chase what has been done before,” Thomson said in a call. “I started to use these scientific principles to engineer a board to create more effective surface areas and more usable rail lines, packaged into a smaller space."Photograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RosePhotograph: Brent RoseChevronChevronSave to wishlistSave to wishlistFirewire SurfboardsRevo Max$1,125 Firewire SurfboardsHis first board to feature these modern planing hulls (MPH) was the Nano, released in 2010, followed by the popular Evo. The Evo begat the Revo and then the Revo Max, but in 2025 he went back to the Nano and turned it into the Neutrino. The Neutrino has a quad concave—four deep channels within one deeper channel—on the belly of the board. It’s designed to create lift at lower speeds.“This bottom contour constantly tries to lift the board out of the water so it can plane on a ‘boundary layer,’" Thompson said. As the board accelerates, it teeters on this boundary layer, reducing “wet areas,” which in turn reduces the board's overall drag.While his primary method of testing his theories is just by surfing the boards, he also wanted to make sure he wasn’t just loving the smell of his own cooking, so he turned to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to study his shapes in computer simulations. The simulations demonstrated how this increased lift directly translates into "drive.” As the water is channeled and forced to flow down these narrower concave corridors (the planing surfaces), it generates the “unnatural” acceleration and bursts of speed that he was experiencing in the water.Over the decades, there have been plenty of boards with deep channels in the belly. Generally speaking, they went really fast, as long as you just wanted to go straight. But something about Thompson’s geometry makes this thing turn effortlessly. I didn't press too hard; Firewire didn’t want to give up the secrets.The ResultsPhotograph: Brent RoseThe Neutrino has turned out to be one of my favorite boards. It’s an absolute fun machine. I’ve taken it out at both pitchy and mushy beach breaks around L.A. I’ve had it in fast point breaks in Malibu and Ventura. I even took the board to the North Shore of Oahu where a grizzled surf instructor confidently told me, “That board won’t work here.” Then I paddled out and caught a bunch of waves.The board has three fin boxes, allowing you several ways to customize the ride. It worked well as a thruster, but using it with a 2+1 setup (two larger fins on the side, and a small trailer fin in the middle) is where it really came alive. My favorite set I tried was the Endorfins Twin + 2 set (size large), though I also really liked the Tomo Max Keel fins (plus a small trailer).I’ve been surfing for 20 years, but I’m still extremely average. When I was on this board, though, I had people coming up to me in the lineup and the parking lot asking me what I was riding nearly every session. It isn’t a Swiss army knife built for every wave, but it works well in a wide range. I had such a blast on it I bought the demo rather than return it—the highest compliment a reviewer can give.Photograph: Brent RoseFirewire boards aren’t cheap. The Neutrino and the Machadocado both start at $995. If you want something like the Revo Max—a really fun mid-length that utilizes a volcanic basalt cloth, which is a more sustainable version of carbon fiber—that’ll start you at $1,125. Generally speaking, that’s around $100 to $300 more than a comparable PU or epoxy board. That said, Firewire boards are known for being durable. After dozens of sessions on the Neutrino, there’s still not so much as a pressure dent on the deck.Just as I finished testing, Firewire launched a new board from Kelly Slater and Mike Woo called The Spaceship, and it uses an entirely new construction called Proflex. It has neither a stringer nor parabolic rails, but it does have a ton of carbon used in a whole bunch of ways (though the bulk of it is on the bottom of the board to prevent wax from melting off). I didn’t have time to test it, but it’s designed for very good surfers in very good waves (think Slater in Indonesia), so I’m pretty sure my LA waves and I wouldn’t qualify. Maybe that tech will make its way over to a more intermediate board, but until then if you see me in the water, the odds are I’ll be on the Neutrino, having a blast.Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that's too important to ignore. 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Firewire Surfboards has revolutionized surfboard construction with its innovative approach, moving beyond traditional methods of foam cutting, stringer insertion, fiberglass wrapping, and sanding. The company, founded by Nev Hyman and Bert Burger, utilizes a complex 21-step construction process incorporating aerospace-grade foams, carbon fiber, and bio-resins. This design philosophy, spearheaded by Mark Price, initially gained traction with the Future Shapes Technology (FST) construction, which dramatically altered surfboard performance by eliminating the central wooden stringer and introducing parabolic rails. This shift resulted in increased control and speed, ultimately contributing to Taj Burrow’s historic wins on Firewire boards, further solidifying the brand’s position at the forefront of surfboard innovation. Over the years, Firewire continued to refine their construction methods, notably with Helium – a lighter, more forgiving design – and subsequently, I-Bolic, a more robust system utilizing an I-beam construction for enhanced flex and strength. The company’s approach, particularly with Kelly Slater's significant investment, has consistently pushed the boundaries of surfboard design and materials, resulting in boards like the Neutrino, Machadocado, and Revo Max, each engineered for specific wave conditions and surfer preferences. The summary focuses on how Firewire’s innovative use of materials and construction techniques, driven by a team led by Daniel Thompson, has fundamentally changed the surfboard landscape, particularly evidenced in designs like the Neutrino, which leverages a complex bottom contour design to enhance speed and performance.