Surfboard Design is Cyclical
Surfboard design—like fashion—is cyclical.
In the early days of Almond (2007 to 2010), fishes were all the rage, then they went out of vogue for a while. There was probably a 7 year period where we hardly did any twin fin, swallow tail fishes. (I am estimating this was from like 2012 to 2019)
During that period, the interest in fishes kinda swung over toward the more Mini Simmons inspired shapes. (Hydrodynamica and Tyler Warren popularizing the wide tails and rounded twin fins tremendously)
Our Secret Menu was our own interpretation of a wide-tailed, smaller board that would sit higher in the water and provide the drive that surfers were looking for, with the responsiveness of a quad. (A better fit for our shorter beach break waves than the true Simmons-inspired boards that did better in longer waves)
And then around 2019, interest in the Simmons style tails started to wane and we saw a big resurgence in interest in twin fin fishes again. And for good reason, every well-rounded quiver should have an awesome twin fin fish in it.
I did a count earlier in the year and the Special Recipe Fish was our most popular model for custom orders.
Now, the reason that I am bringing all of this up is because I've seen 2 or 3 different shapers showing off new Simmons inspired shapes in recent weeks.
Are we already cycling back to wide, square mini simmons inspired tails?
The tea leaves would suggest "yes".
It's inevitable that trends cycle and it only really takes a few great surfing clips of a unique board to capture the attention of surfers everywhere.
I'm as big of a fan of well-rounded quivers as anybody. Try a bunch of different shapes in a bunch of different conditions and find the board that gets you most excited to be out in the water.
...whether that's a swallow-tail, a square-tail, or a 10' singlefin log.
But if mini simmons inspired boards start showing up in your local lineup soon, don't say I didn't warn you.
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