Firewire Spaceship: Kelly Slater's Step-Up Shortboard by Mike Woo — The Complete Guide

What Is the Firewire Spaceship?

The Spaceship is the board Kelly Slater built for himself when his own everyday shortboard wasn't enough for a good day. He developed it with shaper Mike Woo (@woosurfboards) over sessions in Bali, and it went public when Slater rode an early version at Kirra in March 2024. It's a conventional shortboard shape, built specifically to hold when a wave has real power.

The design centers on a rounded pintail and a bottom that runs a single concave through the front half into a double concave between your feet. That combination is what gives the board hold in tubes over reef passes, drive on rail at point breaks, and enough push to work as a performance shortboard at a beach break with some size to it. It's a step-up board — not a replacement for your everyday shortboard, a second tool for the days that board runs out of grip.

Who Is Mike Woo?

Mike Woo is the Bali-based shaper behind the Spaceship — and the two of them didn't even start working together until 2020. Woo grew up in Palolo Valley on Oahu's south shore, surfing Ala Moana Bowls, before heading to Japan in his early twenties to shape and compete. A trip to Bali after that turned into a permanent move — he's been building boards there ever since, running his own respected label, Woo Surfboards, with reach that now extends into Japan.

It took a mutual friend to actually get Slater and Woo in a room together: on a trip to Bali in 2020, Slater's longtime friend, Indonesian surfing legend Rizal Tandjung, introduced the two. What started there turned into years of shaping side by side, eventually leading to the Spaceship.

Who Is the Spaceship For?

This board is for a surfer who already owns a shortboard and wants a second one for the days that first board can't handle. If you've ever paddled out on a good, powerful day and felt your board skip out on the bottom turn or lose grip in the pocket, that's the exact gap the Spaceship fills.

It's built for intermediate to advanced surfers stepping up into better waves — a reef pass, a point break with some size, a beach break that has real push behind it. It's not the board you learn on, and it's not a small-wave cruiser first. Think of it as the board you reach for once your everyday shortboard starts feeling outgunned.

That said, it's not a one-trick board either. The five-fin box gives you the flexibility to keep it fun on a smaller, easier day too — you don't need to wait for a swell to justify owning one. The Spaceship is a board you grow into as your surfing improves into bigger, better conditions, not one you outgrow in a season.

What Sizes Does the Spaceship Come In?

Eleven sizes in Ibolic 2.0, seven in Proflex — both run the same shape, just a different width/thickness curve at each length. All dimensions below are the confirmed, live specs for each construction.

One data point worth knowing: a rider at 5'9" and 150 pounds rides the 5'8" as his step-up size. That's one rider's real setup, not a formula — we don't recommend a size by weight alone. Send us your height, weight, current board, and the waves you ride most, and we'll point you to the right length and construction.

How Is the Spaceship Designed?

Every part of the outline is built around one job: holding on when a wave gets powerful, then releasing cleanly the moment you want it to. The rounded pintail carries a single concave through the front half of the board that runs into a double concave between your feet — a subtle, functional shortboard bottom, not an extreme one.

The tail carries the same idea down to a fine point: it's thinned out to a narrow spine right at the back edge, on purpose. That's what concentrates the board's hold and release right where a rider needs it most — at the tail, in the middle of a turn.

The rails run medium-to-low and pull down firmly well ahead of the fins, which is what gives the board its acceleration — a straight, low-profile rail line built for instant speed off the bottom.

Thruster or Quad?

The Spaceship has a five-fin box, so you can run it as a thruster or a quad — which one is "right" comes down to preference, not a hard rule. A thruster's center fin adds hold and control, which is why it's often the pick for critical, powerful surf and sharp direction changes. A quad drops that center fin for more speed and a looser, more down-the-line feel — often the pick for smaller, softer waves, though plenty of surfers run a quad in big, hollow surf too for the extra speed through the barrel. It genuinely comes down to feel, and the five-fin box lets you try both without owning two boards.

One Hawaiian South Shore customer who rides this exact board found it the other way around: he started on a thruster, then switched to a quad specifically to push into bigger, more powerful days. That's his own experience on this board, not a rule — his full account is in the "What Do Real Riders Say" section below.

Fin length and rake come down to your weight and how you like a board to feel, which is exactly the kind of thing we help you dial in when you come by. Shop fins at Hawaiian South Shore

Ibolic 2.0 or Proflex — How Is It Built?

Same shape, two honest reasons to pick each build. Ibolic 2.0 is Firewire's proven, durable construction — an I-beam core with flex-controlled, high-density foam rails and a carbon strip inlay along the bottom deck. Proflex is Firewire's newest and most advanced carbon layup — a 1.5-pound EPS core wrapped in a 3mm deck skin over an engineered carbon cage, with S-glass on the deck and carbon wrapped over the rail on the bottom for strength and even flex.

Both are EPS-foam, epoxy-sealed builds — which matters most when it's time to fix a ding (more on that below).

What Waves Does the Spaceship Handle Best?

The Spaceship is built for the day your everyday shortboard doesn't have enough hold — a reef pass, a point break with size, or a beach break with real push. One Hawaiian South Shore customer reaches for his 5'8" Ibolic 2.0 specifically once a swell gets over five feet with real power behind it — his full account, breaks and all, is below in his own words. Below that five-foot mark, on a smaller, easier day, it can take a session or two of dialing in the right fin setup before it comes alive.

The board handles two different kinds of wave well: an open, rolling face, where the rail line carries you through a long, drawn-out turn, and a steeper, more hollow "cupping" wave, where it holds hard on the bottom turn and then snaps off the top for a quick change of direction. That range is why it works as a step-up board rather than a specialist for only one type of wave.

Riders elsewhere describe a similar range — holding fine in six-foot-plus, punchy conditions, with some finding it stays surprisingly lively and maneuverable even on a smaller one-to-two-foot day. That's consistent with the board's design intent: it's at its best once a wave has real size and power, without being a one-trick board on the smaller days in between.

How Do I Fix a Ding on a Spaceship?

Use epoxy-only repair materials — never standard polyester resin. Both Ibolic 2.0 and Proflex are EPS-foam, epoxy-sealed constructions, and polyester resin can react with EPS foam and make the damage worse instead of fixing it. Always check that a repair kit is labeled epoxy before you use it.

For a small surface scratch or ding, an epoxy-specific repair kit handles it. For anything deeper — a crack, a puncture, or damage that goes through the deck skin or carbon layer — bring it by Hawaiian South Shore and we'll point you to the right repair option, or send us a photo of the damage and we can usually tell you what it needs before you make the trip.

What Do Real Riders Say?

Here's how one Hawaiian South Shore customer, a North Shore local we'll call by his first name, Kamaki, describes riding the 5'8" Ibolic 2.0 as his step-up board.

He walks through the same experience — the fin experimentation, the tail's hold-then-release feel, and an 8-foot Laniakea session where he ended up surfing on his wife's quad fins and found they worked better than expected — in a full video review filmed at the shop.

Watch Kamaki's full Spaceship review →

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