The last (but not least) model in the Kelly Slater Designs lineup is the Omni — another LFT-built board, this time designed as your everyday go-to. It’s part of our Firewire partnership and available to intermediate and advanced guests at Kalon.
Here’s Kelly in his own words on the Omni:
“Where do you surf this board? As the name implies, it’s an all-rounder for every kind of wave. I’ll ride this in basically any surf that’s not too big, but even then, I’ll try it if I can catch the wave. My personal favorite wave for this is a punchy, head-high (or slightly bigger) wave with a face to carve.
What makes this board work well? This board is a collaboration of ideas with Tomo. It’s his basic dimensions with my more drawn-in tail and scaled more for my eye. This board looks like it would like a small wave but it’s surprisingly good in overhead waves, also. The drawn-in tail can handle a bit more speed and allows you to push the turns on the face. I’m a junkie for all fin setups, but for typical surfing on the face I go Tri Fin and for barrels I like the quads.
This board plays into the less-is-more concept and allows you enough planing surface to do what you want without anything getting in the way.”
The Omni
From Kelly Slater Designs: “The Omni takes modern functional aesthetics to new places with a clean and minimalistic meeting of Kelly’s performance round tails and Tomo’s modern planing hull designs. The Omni will revel in smaller waves up to 5ft with smooth and extremely radical performance capability. Suited to intermediate to advanced riders. 5-fin setup.”
Stabmag noted: “With its blunt nose, the Omni is Slater’s vision of an everyday, go-to board. He rides it at 5’3″ x 18 3/4″ x 2 5/16″ with 24.8L of volume. The board is an updated version of the planing hull theory that Thomson’s been playing with over the last several years. With a more pulled-in, rounded tail than in most of Thomson’s other boards, the Omni is built to Slater’s specifications and fits with his interest in the less-is-more concept.”
At Kalon
The Omni is one of our most versatile boards for intermediate and advanced guests. Its all-round design means our coaches often reach for it when conditions are punchy but not huge — which describes a lot of days in Dominical. The 5-fin setup gives flexibility too: tri-fin for face surfing, quads for hollow days. If you’re curious about how board volume and shape affect your surfing, we wrote a guide on that.
Explore the rest of the Slater Designs lineup we carry: Sci-Fi · Banana · Helium Gamma · Eco Traction Pads
