How committed is Kelly Slater to his self-designed 'Deep Six' surfboard? He rode it in 8' Pipe and Backdoor during the Pipe Masters in December, 12' P-Pass the same month, and earlier this month at the Quikkie Pro. He's also had a few interviews over the summer devoted solely to explaining the unusual design, so I guess his enthusiasm for the Deep Six can't be questioned. But chuck a world title into the equation and his commitment to the performance capability of the unusual design is brought into question. Especially considering many commentators thought it was the Deep Six's design shortcomings – both literal and figurative - that brought him unstuck in the Quikkie Pro. Therefore I think the question of commitment will be answered when competition begins at the Rip Curl Bells Beach Pro next month. In the first round of the Quik Pro – held at small, peaky Duranbah - he rode a 5'4” quad-fin version, and left no-one in doubt as to the boards capabilities....in small peaky waves. He surfed a very different heat in his third round heat against Julian Wilson at down-the-line Snapper. I don't think the board performed as poorly as some commentators reported. A couple of times it lacked projection, but I think the primary reason he lost that heat was because of a lack of waves not flawed equipment. Nevertheless, the waves at Bells are very different than those on the Snapper. It's also very different from those other waves Slater has been filmed riding his new creation – Pipe and P-Pass. Lipless and pocketless, Bells is a big sloping beast that doesn't travel very fast down the line. Because it's not a fast wave the only way for a surfer to retain speed without outrunning it is to cover more ground up and down, rather than along the wave. This means longer bottom turns and vertical approaches to the face and lip. Sometimes very long, drawn out bottom turns. The sort of wave, and the style of surfing, that usually requires a longer board, not a shorter one. So I believe that the Rip Curl Pro will be the litmus test to Slater's devotion to the design. Does he believe in it enough to risk a world title? He's already admitted that he's going for his tenth. So no more keeping the punters guessing...it's game-on. Will he do it on unproven equipment? It also got me thinking about past world title contenders who rode unconventional boards. And curiously, The Rip Curl Pro has a historical precedent in this regard. In 1990, after a year of retirement, Tom Curren resurrected his competitive career in the most emphatic way by winning the world title. He was the first surfer to come out of retirement and do so. For most of that year Curren rode standard Al Merrick thrusters, though he had a 6'9” reverse-vee shaped by Maurice Cole in his travelling quiver. The reverse-vee was invented by Maurice Cole and first unveiled during the previous Hawaiian winter where Curren rode it to victory at Haliewa. Then, just six months later he rode the 6'9” reverse-vee to victory at the 1990 Rip Curl Bells Beach Pro. While the reverse-vee was considered a novel design at the time, Curren's real experiments with unconventional design started after he dropped off the tour. See the Rip Curl 'Search' vids from the mid-90's for his forays on Petersen Fireballs and other shapes. Heading even further back we have Cheyne Horan, who was competing on boards between 5'5 and 6'2” in all conditions (he even had a shot at Waimea on a 5'6”). Cheyne's boards were not only short and wide but sported the famous winged-keel fins. And although he never won a world title on this equipment he did win events, including the Rip Curl Pro at Bells in '84. Cheyne's shorter boards were considered unsuitable to Bells Beach, though when the swell dropped and competition moved onto the Rincon reef – as it did for the final in '84 against Tom Carroll - they came into their own. Cheyne's commitment to his winged-keel design was vindicated that year at Bells. Vindication usually takes bloody-minded commitment, and Cheyne knows a thing or two about that. He was the surfer, after all, to come second in the world four times, and many observers thought he cruelled any chance of a title by riding unconventional equipment. So my original question remains: considering that he has announced his intentions to compete, and taking into account what is at stake, and finally, acknowledging that he lost in the third round at Snapper and is playing catch-up – just how committed is Kelly to riding his design?// STUART NETTLE