Simmer 2012 Board Line

clearly you either have great technique, or you live where the wind blows constantly.

i don't know any heavy weights that would consider a board 15lt less than their body weight a big board.

anyways suggesting a 94lt board for a 100+ kg sailor to use as their big board is bull****. there i'm calling it.

^ yep crash, that's the same basic way i work it out.

at 107kg my big wave board is 115lt, my big freestyle wave is 125lt and 95lt is my 20kn+ wave board.

here is a vid of the simmer boards. they certainly look fantastic on the wave.

i think market wise it's more a case of the chicken or the egg.

in the past heavy sailors have always gravitated to slalom sailing because there wasn't bigger wave orientated kit available to suit their weight. which really took all of the fun out of going into the surf. i guess it will take some time for the market to catch up (if at all) if the manufacturers start providing large wave boards. not only do the big guys have to buy big wave boards but they also need to buy wave rigs to go with it after either ditching their slalom gear or just dubbling up.

the kona boards have provided the bridge for the heavy guys. if only more kona gear were readily available.

the important thing is that the r&d is done by big sailors and not 85kg sailors. that makes a huge difference.

anyways, 115lt wave boards are more than possible. i've ridden a few even up to 120lt. it;s a pity there isn't more of a surfers mentaility, it's not about board size but gear versus rider/conditions.

as for going on a diet, i guess everyone can go on a diet, but at the end of the day some people are built to play rugby and other are built to ride horses.

on the getting the most out of windsurfing. that's relative. give a big guy a big board and he'll get just as much as a fly weight. a 120+kg mate rides his longboard in light winds, i ride my 125lt freestyle and our 70kg mate rides his kona, we all have a blast no mater how light the wind or what the rider size.

my next board being sorted at the moment is a 9'8"x30or32" fish tail with flyers and widow maker setup.

Hi Folks,

I think much of this comes down to personal preference and the consistency of the wind where you sail. I'm 93 kg and do most of my sailing on the west coast on my 84l Mistral Twinzer. I have the 92l board as well, and am happily to jump on this at Margs when the wind is really light, but mostly I'm sailing the smaller board because it feels more direct in the wave, particularly on the cutback, when the big one can feel a little corky. It's a personal preference thing because I don't like being overpowered on the wave at all. For example, usually Corey is sailing one size larger than me, mostly on his floaty light winder (ca. 105l), but as others have pointed out-it works for him. In the end it's all about what you enjoy the most...

Cheers, Jens

so what size would be a good first wave board for someone who reasonably advanced but new to waves.

I'm 90kg

I've got a 99L freestyle starboard flare but i don't think i'd like to take that out in waves as it has no V whatsover and is quite bumpy over the chop.

A wave board around 90L or so is what i'm thinking at the moment. For conditions up to about 25knots.

Damn, 60cm wide, ....are we talking about a 60cm flattish rockered single fin or a multi finned banana?

My feeling is that most modern waveboards have more range than some riders realise. Getting the right set up (fin/rig combination) can make a big difference but it can take a lot of time on the water to unlock that performance. Beyond that there always seems to be a trade off with speed/acceleration and turning/redirection/grip though this seems more complex and hard to define.....those elements of personal style and skill have such a big influence.....it seems to me that there is still a fair bit of evolution happening. Enough evolution to keep those shaper gurus busy for a few years yet.

Not sure what Evo 100 you tried but the one I owned was neither super loose nor really fast. The fin that came with the board was the single worst fin I have ever used... it even eclipsed the junk they used to ship with the JP FSW.

Yes the board turned ok on a wave but it was ultimately slow and hard to get on the plane.

Can't comment on the Kode as I haven't tried or let alone owned one.

Don't listen to anyone... take the 99 Freestyle and give it ago... when you start out wave sailing you want to get a feeling for what the waves are doing first. Worry about getting a dedicated waveboard later.

Unless ofcourse you are swimming in cash... then just go and plonk down $2K or more on a new board.

Its more a point of bigger boards that work in good waves (relex.. big evo's didnt mate).. There are alot of boards that work in your average conditions but when its cranking..., not so many production boards working well then..

Dug through the bowels of the Simmer Site and found a Distributer preview pdf on the 2012 boards..................a little more info and a look at what these puppies MAY look like shape and graphic wise...check it out:

http://www.simmerstyle.com/2012Board_Preview.pdf



FSW looks like a nice shape with plenty of width between the straps, the 105 MAY be a winner for the big fellas as a wave board, given that Ola has repeatedly said in interviews that the Simmer FSW is at the "wave" end of it's peers in the FSW genre. I would love a 105L one as my light wind ocean blaster, and for slogging around catching waves when the wind is real light, knowing I can float home if the wind drops off, and uphaul too. Would love a 93L Quantum if it gets built as my allround wave board (am 92kg).


Ola, please build the 93L Quantum .........

Build it, and it will SELL!

Hi Stegs, Johan Lindstrom, the marketing fellow for Simmer, has informed me that the boards will be hitting retail shops in Oz in May. Tim Carr at G.Spot Extreme in Gerro is getting a stack in, and Pete Nitschke has a shop in Caloundra (cant remember the name off hand) and he has informed me that he is getting some of the inital boards for the East Coast distribution - I believe Pete is the retailer Gesty was eluding to going in and checking the boards out soon. I will be up on the sunny coast next week and the week after so i am keen on having a closer look.... Not sure if there will be a Sydney distributer or whether all east coast retailers will need to deal through Pete's shop...Cheers, AJE

PS: As a point of interest, I also understand from mag interviews with ola and Kai (Kai Katchadourian), that Kai as a pro rider has chosen to no longer ride Keith Taboul's (Quatro) shapes, he is riding Ola's shapes via the Simmer branding - that's gotta add a truckload of credability to Ola's designs

I second that stehsegler.
I had one for a year or two. got me one the water a lot (i'm 105kg) but it sucked.

I now have a Moo Custom (http://www.moocustom.co.uk/) twinser. about 110 litres, 232cm X 64.6cm with a nose of 44.5cm tail of 38cm.

I've only used on euro wave conditions, not proper dtl, but I love it feels so much small than its volume. and is super versatile, i've used right down to 4.0 weather and been very comfy.

Fun, versatile wave boards over 100 ltrs are totally feasible.

Since you were involved in Starboard and now in Simmer, I always had the impression that mold or prototype was small board arround 75 - 70 L wave. Do you really make testing on 95L wave board? TO be more precise, when you design a new line of board, do you test your concept on 70 - 75 l board and then make bigger board with that concept tested on the smaller board? I'm a middle weight, so I'm usually right in the "good" size wave board the 75L board..so It's always good for me, bigger friends always have better board by ordering custom. I have a feeling that what is working for me doesn't fit for bigger friends...I was wondering if bigger proto was tested by Bjorn or guys who are heavy and than you started a line. I think the Evo back than was a great opportunity to do such a thing, the bigger Evo was really goof for single wave board at that time..I never liked the evo...but my bigger friend yes.. But even that, Big Pro's seems to ride pretty small boards even if they are big. Honnestly, testing are done mostly in good condition, West Oz, Maui..20 to 25 kts winds or stronger, with channels to go out..rarely in side-on, difficult conditions also..who represent a lot of your customers and where a bigger board is crucial, even for a lighter rider. Am I wrong on that?
thanks a lot for your time!

Very good point Nord Roi. They need me to test the boards, I'm on the porky side, sail in crap conditions consistently and need all the help I can get when it comes to Wave Sailing!

I think with EVOs, Scott did most of the developing and I always had the impression that all of them sort of were designed to work for him, even the 70 liter, then being his kind of high wind board, the 75 kind of specialized for more looseness/slower waves, the 80 the standard size, again with more drive like the 70 etc. But with the EVOs I think lots of work definitely went into those sizes, but maybe the 90 and 63 not getting as much attention. The 100 from what I heard was made for Antoine who also liked it a lot.

I don't know how other brands work, but I know for sure that most brands have some sweet boards and some not as sweet in every range. But that is not necessarily a result from to little testing of the not so good one. It may just as well be a bit of "luck" with the super sweet one.

With Simmer, we early on decided not to have that many sizes the first year and one important argument was the time for testing. We didn't want to jut scale something up/down without proper testing. Time limits were tight enough anyway. So we started with the FLy in two sizes for Kai who is around 80 or just below. So both the 75 and 84 are from the start made to cover his need for a light wind and medium wind boards respectively. Then as is happened, both of them ended up with unusually good weight carrying capabilities because of a really low drag rocker (relative to the high amount of total curve). The 69 was a later addition that was specifically designed for smaller people rather then as a high wind board for a medium weight guy. We had sailors from 62 to 72 kilo testing that one (72 being myself...).

Quantum were even more focused on a certain weight range rather, ie the 85 is not really designed as a big board for a small sailor but as an all round board for a medium weight.

So if we're gonna do bigger boards, we will definitely try to make them above all for bigger people and we will certainly involve bigger sailors in the testing process. As I kind of indicated above, I'm not a super fan of people getting (too) big boards but I am a fan of people getting the right sized boards for their weight and skill. And for bigger people that means bigger boards (made with bigger people in mind). One of the main points with the Quantum range are performance wave boards that work in the sort of non ideal conditions you describe but where they are also designed to offer a certain ease and stability even when not oversized too much. So if we make a 95 the number one priority will be to make it as good as possible for sailors between say 90 and 100. A board that as good as possible, even without the extra liters, covers even ****ty/light/difficult conditions for such a sailor.