Review: Corridor Craw 4’6″
Summary: The Corridor Craw is one of the fastest shortboards I’ve ridden, while still ripping turns and spinning incredibly well. Continue reading for the full review…
The Craw is a speed demon packed into a tiny board. It generates speed so well that and I found myself being able to make my turns higher up on the wave than any other board. With all its speed, the carves on this board are incredibly fun. And because of its small size, spins and other tricks are on the board are relatively easy to do.
The Craw is best suited for shortboard river waves that don’t require a paddle catch or popup. However it does work very well on a wide variety of shortboard waves. It works great on small/narrow waves like RRP’s Sixx, big waves like Scout at high water, and flatter waves like Pueblo’s Spillway wave.
While the wide tail and the flat rocker makes this board incredibly fast, it also makes it hard to slow down. On most boards I can point the nose upstream and weight my back foot and the board will slow down. This doesn’t always work with the Craw. When Scout wave was at its biggest, I found the myself unable to slow down and unable to straighten the board out because surfing straight down the wave would generate even more speed that I couldn’t bleed off! I had to keep turning and zipping back and forth across the top of the wave until fell or kicked out. Not a huge deal, but it could be quite intense.
An interesting feature of this board is the extra FCS fin plugs. These allow some forward/backward adjustment to where you place your fins. This is particularly useful if you’re surfing a slower, flatter waves where you need to be further forward on the board. Usually it’s more difficult to turn a board when you’re forced to surf it too far forward. However, if you’re able to move the fins forward, you should be able to turn easier. It’s a cool feature, but on a board this short I don’t feel like it makes a huge different. It is a nice touch though and has gotten me to start playing with asymmetric fins and placements
As far as skill levels best suited for this board, I think the Craw would work fine for most intermediate river surfers as long as they aren’t surfing waves like high water Scout or a big Citywave. For waves like those, I feel like it’s best suited for an advanced river surfer. For a beginner river surfer looking for a small board, I’d recommend checking out the Catch Surf 54 Special.
In 2023 I got a 4’4″ version of the Craw. While that size was incredibly fun, at times it felt like there wasn’t enough board under my front foot. For 2024 I got a 4’6″ version, and for me at 160ish lbs and 5’9″ it feels perfect.
If you’re considering the Craw, there are a few other boards you should take a look at. The Badfish Wave Farmer 4’10” is slower than the Craw, but easier to surf and easier to spin. The Peterson Tomahawk 4’10” is harder to surf, but makes snappier turns and is generally more responsive. The Lib Tech Hydro Snapper 4’4″ won’t surf big waves like the Craw, but if durability is a concern the Lib Tech construction is hard to beat. However if you want one board that works at the widest variety of shortboard waves, I think the Craw beats these other three boards.
The Craw is incredibly fun to surf, even when I’m just making speedy carves. It’s also my favorite fish shape I’ve found for the river. With its ability to surf well at all the different shortboard waves here in Colorado, I’ll be keeping the Craw in my quiver.