I actually look forward to and enjoy conditions that are crap and I meet a gal..........

....who used to ride a Hodgman! Ah summer surfing. Not sure what it is like where you are but for us here on the south coast of Western Australia it is blustering on shore south easterlies pushing up an often quite sizable chunky wind swell that a surf mat justs loves and everybody else avoids like the plague! A Swaylocks thread on that very subject for your further edification.
I have mentioned it many times before but here we go again mats "Turn junk into gold!". Do take your mat out in these conditions as apart from being a great physical workout they provide an intense workshop in all areas of mat riding technique. Constant duck diving, lots of take off practise, constant position adjustment as you endeavour to actually stay on your mat and every sort of wave imaginable as the ocean can deal up just about anything from big sloping double ups to racing little barrels closer in to shore. Bloody good fun! So I have been out in these sort of conditions for the last two sessions with the first on the Tracker as I know it will go well in these conditions and it did. After that session, as I made my way back to to the where I leave my gear, I was stopped by a couple who were most intrigued that I had been out there riding a mat. They were even more so when I showed them the limp bit of fabric I was carrying as the woman exclaimed to her kneeboarding partner and I how different it was to the Hodgman she used to ride. I encouraged them to Google Turbo Time II if they wanted to view state of the art current day mat riding.
Yesterday however, I chose the MT5 which I have not done before when conditions are like this but I wanted to see how it would perform. One of the things I love about this mat is those big square corners at the back provide a very secure feeling under the thighs in comparison to a round tail mat so it actually feels like a bigger mat than what it actually is. I tend to ride the MT5 at a firm 90 degrees because of the thin deck and, being a series I model, it needs a little wax on the deck especially in these rowdy sort of conditions. Anyway, I was  pretty impressed with how it went as the conditions were particularly fractious initially and it was hard to get out to the wildly moving peak as there was so much current moving around. Michelle could not even negotiate her way out there at all giving up and moving further round the bay. Considering the conditions, the MT5 did a good job of getting me on to the waves. Because it is so fast with plenty of holding ability I got a couple of very reasonable rights that I may not have been able to enjoy on another mat. Anyway, I still reckon it likes a nice clean wave best as I cannot get it to glide that well in the whitewater but that could be because it is a touch small for me at my weight and height. So I will be considering it in similar crazy onshore conditions again but also looking forward to MT releasing a slightly bigger mat one day!