The collision was the equivalent of a surfboard design Big Bang—an expanded hydrodynamic universe whose effects are still being felt, scrutinized, and elaborated upon today.
Bob Simmons’ influence on surfboard design is so vast, so cosmic, that virtually every surfboard shaped in the last sixty years contains within it, somewhere, a molecule or two of Simmons DNA. If you’ve ridden a board with rocker, convexes, concaves, a tuned-in tail shape, round rails, a precise foil, domed deck, or sandwich construction, you’ve bumped uglies with the master.
His spoon design, which featured a scooped nose, parallel rails, concave/convex bottom, and wide tailblock with a single low-aspect fin on each rail, has enjoyed considerable attention these last few years.
Two Girls, Two Spoons
Recent tributes include Greg Noll’s incredible balsa Simmons Spoon reproductions and The Swift Movement’s mini-Simmons series, including shrunken-down Simmons spoons in various sizes, some featuring impossibly wide swallow tails.
The boards were revived, in part, by fish enthusiast/Hydrodynamica stoker Richard Kenvin (“RK” to those who know him so, clearly, “Richard Kenvin” to me), shaped by Joe Bauguess for The Swift Movement, and researched by John Elwell, a San Diego surf pioneer, Simmons biographer, surf historian, 1950s North County lifeguard, and witness to Simmons drowning death in 1954. Their flagship design, a scaled down styro version of Elwell’s original 9 foot, twin-finned balsa, was dubbed ‘Casper.’
It is rumored to rip.
I am a man—weak, suggestible, easily influenced by curvy things. When I first saw a picture of Kenvin’s Casper, I was smitten.
I was also thrown off—it didn’t look right, and like all forms contrary to expectation (extra toes, extra nipples), I was drawn to it. Because North of the Bridge is somewhat of a design-trend hinterland, I took to the phones, talked to some unsuspecting folks, chased down rumors that a nearby shop actually had one on the rack.
I got nada, or, as my people would say, bupkis.
Necessity breeds surfboards, so I got to work shaping my own based on rumor, innuendo, extrapolation, the occasional blurry online photo or video grab, and a few lengthy consultations with my friend, The Mendocino Brewing Company’s Red Tail Ale.
My partner, a grumpy old stringerless Walker blank, gladly swapped out its original nebulous form for the Simmons-inspired one.
It was a joy to shape, to think carefully about every step, every planer pass, each curve and flat.
And to keep in mind that Simmons contemplated all the same choices--except that he had no reference points for his ideas. He turned curves where there had previously been flats. He thinned tails that had previously been thick. Added a fin where before there had always been just the flat bottom of a wooden surfboard.
During the shaping session, I felt I was standing on the shoulders of a giant. Until I realized it was Simmons who could see farthest, standing on the carcasses of the surfboards of his era, staring down the future, challenging it to go on without him.
So far, it hasn't.
