Goodbye wax - hello Hexatraction

Yip - that's got grip on - you just can't see it!

Don't you hate it when your wax melts on your car seat? Or messes up your expensive boardies? Or looks like a glumpy dirty mess covering up your epic spray job? Or you're at some remote jungle spot and you've run out of Mrs Palmers and the closest to wax you're gonna find is a candle?

Thanks to the guys at RSPro, the problem is solved. Say goodbye to wax, hello Hexatraction.

After sitting for an hour in the boiling tropical sun cleaning surf wax out of the grooves in the non-skid deck of a yacht with a toothpick I was pretty much over wax in general. So that evening I sat googling to see if there was an alternative. And up popped RSPro. A Barcelona company who was making transparent deck traction. Boom! I was onto it!

My box of goodies arrived from Deon Bosman the South African RSPro rep, that included not only the Hexatraction but some cork front deck grip as well. Hexatraction are these awesome transparent grippy lil pads that you just glue onto your stick. And throw the wax away! They're super thin, but stick to your board like sh*t to a shoe. 

You just stick em on where you'd normally put your wax. I use a back deck grip so I stuck em on from just above that to about 2/3rds the way up my board. Took a bit less than a pack of the stickers (for a 6ft board).

It doesn't take too long to apply (depending on your level of OCD). I'm pretty finicky about stuff so it was a 30 minute process of carefully placing and gluing the pads down. Cos obviously the more care you take sticking em on the better they gonna stick! Air bubbles are your enemy! Using a spray bottle of water and getting some moisture on the deck also helps minimize the air issue.

Your board looks as good as new with em on - so if you want your stick to look just like the day you bought it, this is the way to go. I love bright board sprays and this is the perfect way to not obscure any of your board art with cruddy wax.

The feeling of the pads is like a fine grade sandpaper, just lightly rough. Giving you good grip without that "foot stuck" feeling. I surf with booties so feel like it gives me plenty of traction. Another Millers Local, Gavin Rother, has a full deck of Hexatraction, and he surfs without booties and says he has never slipped on it at all. So it certainly does the trick either way.

I've only surfed on it with a wetsuit so far, so not sure how it'll feel on bare skin from a paddling perspective, although the RSPro peeps say it's "non-aggressive" - meaning it shouldn't chomp up your chest. Off to Indo soon so gonna get to test that aspect out.

Ozzie with an ollie © Tom Carey

Now prior to this I'd thought front deck grip was for air guys like Ozzie Wright. My attempted airs were more like Noah the Ark than Noa Deane, so it had never entered my mind to try some - plus am not convinced about black front deck grip - just don't dig the aesthetics. But cork? Well, that looked flipping cool.

I'd just bought my brand new eco-board shaped by The Boardroom and glassed with hemp by Brendan Basset, and the natural cloth fabric was just the perfect canvas for the RSPro cork deck grip. Time to unleash my inner Noa. Or not really.

​It's a really rad grip - super duper skinny at only 1mm think, so a heap better than normal traction. Normal deck grip tends to be over-grippy and lock your feet up (and tear up your skin), whereas the cork almost feels like you're not even using grip. Your feet don't slip anywhere, but it's still easy to adjust foot placement without feeling like you're glued to the ground.

And of course cork is renewable, recyclable and energy efficient. It's the bark stripped from the cork tree and the trees can live more than 200 years. So - great grip and it's pretty darn eco-friendly too.

I'm so frothing on the hexatraction that I'm gonna be converting all my boards to it over time. 

So, should you buy it?

• sick of wax on your car seats (or your board sticking to your boardbag) - GET IT
• hate getting wax stuck to your lekker expensive boardies? - GET IT
• got a kiff top deck spray and don't wanna obscure it? - GET IT
• going to the tropics and don't wanna apply wax before every sesh?  - GET IT
• don't want to worry about whether you need warm, cool or cold water wax? - GET IT

When you consider how much wax costs these days (and factor in the bars that melt in your car or what the guys in the parking lot scam off you) then at R699 a pop for a box of the Hexatraction it actually isn't expensive at all. About the cost of 10 blocks of wax. Do the math. It makes sense to go Hexa.

The cork front deck grip is R899 a pop. Which isn't too much more expensive than traditional rubber front grips, which look iffy and chow you stukkend. 

It's awesome when surfers come up with a cool product that works, then make it locally and at top quality. None of this Made in China junk (One day good. Two day good. Three day no good!). This is made in Barcelona with love. By surfers for surfers. Am super stoked to be part of ​#teamRSPro. ​

Wanna grab some for yourself? - cos you silly not to! Tune the SA rep, Deon Bosman:
 ajretailers@gmail.com or on Facebook

​If you give the surfer in your life this for Christmas they gonna love ya!
​#saynotohankiesforxmas

​PS - got a white stick and wanna funk it up - you can get black Hexatraction too. 
PPS -they also do rail protectors for SUP and surfboards, grip tape for SUP/kayak/surfski paddles