Joe's Mini Simmons – Since 2006

I love surfboards, it is my weakness in life. For some people it is shoes, for some cars, but for me it’s pieces of fibre-glass that are shaped in a certain way. I tell myself, it’s not so bad because unlike some people I am aware of my adiction and I can control it, after all how many surfboards do I need?

The answer is five and out of those five there has to be one that you would sell if needs be, because the day will come when you will see another one that you NEED. This day has happened time and time again for me. The last time it happened however, I was in the company of someone that I like to think understood and recognised my illness.

We have spoken a lot about Nico, the man behind the Wavegliders Surfboards (Ericeira, Portugal) in previous articles and with good reason as Nico is a student of the big game. He is someone who has made it his life to know and find out the answers to questions previously left un-answered in surfboard design and history.

Nico had kindly agreed to lend a hand with some category design aspects of our website. Specifically the part that would catagorize different types and surfboards and their consrtuction. So, armed with a notepad, two open ears and a bunch of questions, I set off to have my mind filled with knowledge.

I met Nico and went to grab a coffee at the garden shop over the road and talk fibre glass and shapes. I learnt about Displacement Hulls, the Lis Fish, Transitional period surfboards, New Surfboards, the Importance of of Greenough’s Spoon, and many other things that have since sent me on my own private and personal quest for answers and knowledge. There was however one fact that stunned and stopped me.

Nico said in passing that the first Mini Simmons was not shaped until 2006 by a guy named Joe Baugess. At first I thought he might have got his numbers wrong as English is not his first language but on further questioning it was confirmed that I had heard right. I was confident that Bob Simmons died in 1954 and could not see how he could make a board from the grave. This is where my journey into surfboard history began and is still going.

Here is a short video outlining how the Mini Simmons surfboard came into the world, it stars Joe Buguass, the shaper of the first of these industry changing boards.

I am someone that previously thought he knew something about surfboards because I rode different types of surfboards and maybe a lot of my ‘knowledge’ came from drunk conversations in the pub or with people who knew less than me. Now I feel like, for want of a better word, a bell-end, thinking I knew what a concave did or a how a spiral vee worked, without knowing the history or how and why these features came about. I know it might seem like semantics but this small thing explains a lot.

There is a reason that the shaping world is shrouded in mystery and that's it difficult to get a straight answer out of a shaper, (not all but some). The shaper knows a lot of stuff, he/she is a student of the art, of a different world, where history is measured in different ages and by different means. It is a parallel world with different benchmarks and the outstanding shapers are usually the ones that are immersed and a little harder to talk to. We Digress, back to the Mini Simmons.

The mini simmons was the continuation of the work that Bob was doing and now with a thing called the Hydrodynamica project that was founded by John Elwell ,a great friend of Simmons, his work is being recognised, adapted and expanded by modern day master shapers. Two of the names you may have heard of that are involved in this extraordinary project are Ryan Burch and Daniel 'Tomo' Thompson. Together, these two are at the forefront of surfboard innovation today  albeit in different faucets of the industry.

If you are interested in why your surfboard does what it does, what your next board should be or simply understanding and having a proper conversation with your shaper then keep an eye on this space, I will be recounting more info as I stumble across more 'interesting stuff'.

Next mission: Bonzers and Twin Pins and why they have not enjoyed as much success as perhaps they should.