Surfboard of the Week: The Average Joe from Channel Islands

This week we’re checking out the Average Joe surfboard from Channel Islands. It’s not a gimmick shape with a weird tail or a bunch of cutouts. It’s not being hocked by a specific pro surfer or attached to anybody’s name. It’s just a simple, clean, functional surfboard meant to maximize the fun you have in the water.

The Average Joe shape was specifically designed for increasing wave count, linking sections, easy paddling, and allowing surfers to take an overall more laid back approach to their surfing.

The Average Joe. Deck, rocker, and bottom views. Photo: Channel Islands

As expected, the Joe packs on the foam, which is nice to have in the winter. The 5’5 actually floats at a chunky 21.375 wide, 2.5 thick, and with a super buoyant 33 liters of volume. (The 6’1 is nearly 50 liters!)

The hip in the rail line and the surprisingly narrow tail tip make the Average Joe more maneuverable and easy to surf off the tail, and the super wide outline makes the Joe an incredible speed generator going rail to rail. 

The Joe. Tail and fin setup. Photo: threeways.cl

It also has a nearly flat rocker to add to its incredible speed as it glides over sections. This combined with its beefy dimensions make it hard to imagine this surfboard ever bogging or slowing down. 

As for bottom concave, the Joe starts with a very brief single, turns into double for most of the outline, then a V at the very end flushing out the tail. Again, super functional and simple.

Joe looking clean in the grass. Photo: threeways.cl

The Average Joe is the tested and preferred surfboard of Channel Island’s employees, not their sponsored pros, which definitely says something for the shape’s usability.

Check it out. The Average Joe from Channel Islands.

Chris Grow’s Shred Show breakdown of the Joe.