Watch: Kelly Slater’s Mindcraft Experiment

Originally posted on SURFER | By August Howell | Last updated Feb 12, 2026 3:53 PM ET

“I want a board to get out of my way,” Kelly Slater summarized. “And I want to be able to feel like I can go anywhere on the face.”

It’s a tall order to create a surfboard that impresses one of the most astute high-level surfers who has ever lived. When Kelly Slater launched his own board label in 2016, his first partnership was with a surfer/shaper who was up for the task. It didn’t hurt that, in addition to being a creative and talented craftsman, Daniel “Tomo” Thomson rips and is a well-attuned test pilot for these very boards.

“Kelly has pushed me immensely as a shaper to explore other shapes and more deeply explore more traditional shapes, which I’d kind of left behind on my pursuit of the planing hull journey,” Tomo said. “So that has been really rewarding and a challenge to try to come up with board designs that are worthy of the greatest surfers of all time. That’s an incredible challenge.”

Their latest work, dubbed the Mindcraft, is all about “maximum minimalism,” as Kelly put it. Essentially, it’s about doing more with less. In creating a smaller high-performance shortboard, Kelly and Tomo aimed for a fast, maneuverable blade with a built-in sweet spot. The theory being that with a shorter board, one doesn't have to move their feet around turn the thing. Though the Mindcraft is geared toward surf 5-foot and under, Kelly has of course ridden it in a range of conditions, from Lowers to V-Land to Cloudbreak.

“This idea of minimalism in a board, no one does it like Tomo,” Kelly said. “It’s really his forte to make these small boards and fit everything in a small package. I’ve obviously been going in that direction for a long time.”

For those who watched Kelly in the first round of the 2025 Lexus Trestles Pro, this board will look familiar. But the real proof of concept dropped online just before the event, when filmer Dan Scott captured Kelly zipping across Snapper Rocks on an early iteration of the Mindcraft. The board looked like an extension of his body, frankly, with all the control and speed he wanted.

“All these years of working with Tomo has been really fun for me,” Kelly said. “My mind and his mind separately were into that minimal thing. There’s really nothing extreme about this board except for the fact that it’s a lot less board than you’re typically looking at.”

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: