Pleasant Pheasant vs. JOY

A little reading material, if you find yourself interested in our mid-length surfboard models... 

In order to get a better understanding for the purpose and intention of each board model, let's take a look at where they sit next to each other in our lineup of surfboard models.

You will notice that the Pleasant Pheasant sits on the shorter end of the spectrum, while the Joy sits on the longer end.  If you want the simplest answer possible, it's this:

The Joy is a more natural step down for a longboarder looking for more maneuverability, whereas the Pleasant Pheasant is a bit more natural as a step up into the realm of mid-lengths, for surfers who are more accustomed to fishes, shortboards, and the like.

As with anything, the over-simplified answer has caveats, but I will explain.  The reason we say that the Joy is a natural step down for longboarders, is because of the way you generate speed.  The Joy glides, and in most cases will harness enough power from the wave to propel you down the line, without the need for much extra work from you.  Essentially, this board is designed to be surfed from the middle, hence the very elliptical outline.  You can slide forward a little bit to speed up, and you can slide back a little bit to put some extra power into a turn, but overall, our intent is that you can do much of of the speeding up, slowing down, maneuvering and basic turning from a more central position on the board.

For the reasons listed above, the Joy is a great board for beginner to intermediate surfers, because the middle of the board is the most familiar and comfortable place to stand for surfers who are gaining confidence in the water.

Important to note: I wouldn't write off the Joy as a "beginner board" entirely, because that would be discrediting the ability this board has to serve you well in a variety of conditions.  

Think of it as the absolute middle of the road, where it possesses elements of many of our surfboard theories, and serves the widest scope of needs.  To use an over-used and technically mis-quoted phrase, the Joy is a Jack of All Trades, and Master of None.  It's not the board you are going to blow the tail out of the water on top-turns, and it's not the board that will get you long noserides all the way to the beach, but it will hang with you in all sorts of wave conditions, and it will keep you exploring the face of the wave, without diminishing your wave-count.

If the Joy fills so many needs, what's the need for the Pleasant Pheasant?

The reason we introduced the "Plez Phez" was to answer a need presented by surfers who were more accustomed to fishes and shorter boards.  The biggest difference for surfers stepping up from smaller boards, is they are accustomed to pumping and generating necessary speed.  Shorter boards, even ones that are wide, don't have the inherent "glide" that longer boards do, so they require more of a proactive approach to generating and sustaining speed.  Because the Joy was designed with more of a gliding approach it does not "pump" exceptionally well. 

In order to make the Pleasant Pheasant respond and pump the way smaller boards do, we had to eliminate some of the long-sweeping curve in the outline.  The basic principle here is: in order to pump a surfboard, you must have plenty of resistance to push against.  We accomplished this by narrowing the board slightly, and straightening out the outline. 

If you compare the outlines side-by-side, you will notice that the Plez Phez is much straighter, whereas the Joy is much more elliptical.  

We also opted to give the Pleasant Pheasant a round tail, which makes turning radiuses tighter and more responsive.  But, the downside to round-tails is that they reduce the resistance needed for pumping and generating speed (the very thing we just tried to accomplish by changing the outline).  In order to gain back that "edge" and give the board the lively response that we desired, we opted for the small side-bite fins.  These little side-bites provide more than ample resistance for the surfer to generate speed, and initiate turns.

These two mid-lengths have rapidly become some of the most popular board models that we offer, because they fill a variety of needs in your quiver and keep your wave-count high.  Whether you are primarily a longboarder, and you want something with more maneuverability, or you're a shortboarder who is looking for something to get you in the water more days out of the year, we hope you will find just what you are seeking with these two mid-length boards.