Fanatic are making mileage from having come out with their twinser a little later than the other brands, giving themselves what they consider a crucial extra investment of time! In terms of design the New Wave Twin has a conventional twinser outline (short with a relatively narrow tail) and relatively high rocker in both tail and nose. Like the JP and RRD it has a single concave hull. Its most distinguishable feature is the high volume that it packs into its small size, as with its extra thickness it clearly is chunkier than the other twinsers.

On the water: At this size and with this much rocker the Fanatic was never going to be a ‘fast’ waveboard, and needs proper ‘waveboard winds’ before it is satisfying to sail, preferring 5.2m and below. However, it is not especially slow or sticky, and the extra volume gives good float even for heavier sailors (our 80kg+ riders didn’t find it too sinky). In fact it seems to ride high and feel smooth on the single concave, feeling quite fast considering the high rocker. Although not a board that you would expressly pull out of your quiver to go jumping with, it accelerates reasonably through the break so if conditions favour jumping it is still perfectly acceptable. Nevertheless, it is basically a riding board and likes a reasonably well formed or decent sized wave to really do its stuff. With the high rocker, narrow tail and single concave it really does feel very smooth, redirectable and tight carving when on a wave, and although it doesn’t keep speed as easily as a wider tailed board it will turn very tight and has reasonable flow even at quite slow speeds. What it lacks over the other twinsers in sharpness and precision or speed it makes up for with smoothness, ease and redirectability.

Fittings: The fins didn’t seem appreciably different to the other twinser fins tested in either size or distribution. The straps are good (see comment under New Wave on Fanatic’s insert spread) and the pads and domed deck also notably comfortable.

Overall: A true frontside riding board for relatively competent sailors. It will handle very big and fast waves and yet still works quite well in smallish onshore. It is one of the easiest of the twinsers to ride, feeling very loose and smooth and is also comparatively easy and conventional to sail. A little bit too voluminous for our lighter weight tester, but very popular indeed with our 80kg+ riders.