This week, Torren Martyn and needessentials released a short film, 'Rediscovering an old friend'. The film is built upon a straight-forward premise as Torren is reunited with a board he rode in 2016.

Simple, yeah, but that board forms a key element in surfboard design over the last decade.

In 2016, Torren was a fringe player in the surf scene, having just been picked up by needessentials as an ambassador, while surfing twitchy, ultra short boards made by Simon Jones. When Simon sent a 7'9" mid-length Torren's way his first thought was that it'd be great for two-foot peelers at The Pass.

Instead, he clicked with it in a wholly unexpected way. Torren took the board to J'Bay and unlocked new levels in his surfing which began a "whole new journey". Meanwhile, Torren was filmed by good mate Ishka Folkwell, who released it with help from needeessentials, the great unwashed loved this new take on wave-riding, and canny shapers quickly included a twin fin mid-length in their range.

It wasn't as sudden and complete as the thundebolt that was the Thruster, but Simon and Torren "sent a spark around the world" that influenced board design. What was strictly an alternative design, the mid-length twin is now a staple in every label's range.

Simon Jones recently had a chat with Swellnet about the modern mid-length.

I’m curious, what was your knowledge of mid-lengths at the time you gave that first one to Torren? Were you coming in cold or did you already have some experience?
Well, I had a lot of experience with what were called mini-mals back in the day. They were kind of bigger shortboards. They were set up as Thrusters and were anywhere between seven and eight feet. 

I don't know how many of those we sold. It was prior to everything going offshore. Australia was still producing pretty much all of its own surfboards, and we used to make oodles of those under the Bear label.

Also there was the whole Takayama influence that hit Australia as well - there were quite a few mid-lengths in his range. 

So I had experience being around the construction of a lot of those. 

Whenever I think of mini-mals, I think of longboard riders who were shrinking their boards towards shortboard length.
Yeah, I guess they were like the soft top of that era. A lot of real novice surfers rode them, but the fact of the matter was they actually went really well. Paul Hutchinson shaped so many of those and they all went very well. They were a really functional board.

When you say, "went well," do you mean in a performance criteria?
Yeah, they could be a surprisingly agile craft, and they had a lot of flow as well. So you weren't struggling for speed.

If this photo was seen prior to 2016, the viewer would identify a middle-age shaper handling an unrefined mini-mal, but in the ten years that have elapsed, surfers now understand the mid-length twin to be a "highly evolved" design. Simon Jones and the design that's given him time in the sun. (Ishka Folkwell)

Nevertheless, you felt you could improve upon them. So, around 2016 when Torren rode his first mid-length, what were you doing to make them better?
Primarily it was adding a lower nose entry, more even distribution of foam - so pushing foam nose to tail and rail to rail a bit more than what was commonplace - plus dropping out the tail fin, but upping the size of the twin fins. 

That’s purely because I knew that twins went faster, especially when they were gliding. Also, twin fins have really extreme acceleration when you have them on rail and you’re pushing them.

Lastly, the channels: I'd had a lot of experience with my own channels as far as how secure they felt underfoot in more powerful waves. When the board is going quicker, they just seem to sit in the wave a bit more than skimming on top of the water. 

Like a single concave will skim on the water and a channel bottom will sit slightly lower within it. I knew I could get some extra hold, some extra control, with channels.

Look, all these things are debatable, but they were my feelings at the time. Go for lower nose entry, spread the foam out, drop out the tail fin, and add the channels.

And it was a winning combination. In Torren’s recent film, it’s mentioned the original twin fin mid-length was inspired by a guy you met who was travelling with one board. That got you thinking about the one board quiver and how that might work with Torren. It sounds like you set yourself a challenge.
Not really. Like, I didn't wake up and say, ‘Today I'm going to build this breakthrough board.’ I actually didn't have Torren in mind because everything I was building him at the time was sub six foot.

The starting point wasn’t the surfer but the board - I wanted to shape a longer board. When you're surfing, especially the points around here, paddle power is paramount when there's a strong current.

I wanted to sort of separate myself from the crowd a bit. So my first thoughts were, essentially, moving into longer boards because I was getting older yet I still wanted to ride those waves, which meant not being right amongst the masses. 

So the ability to catch a wave, paddle back out and still feel fresh - maybe sit a little further out and a little wider than everyone else - all felt right at the time.

Also, when you're riding a bigger board, you maintain a fresher state of mind for longer because you're just not paddling as hard. So when a wave presents itself, you have a clearer mind because you’re not exhausted from paddling. You're in a better frame of mind to go, "Here's my chance, let’s spin and drop into it."

As Ethan Ewing paddles back out, Torren swivels an 8'0" during Victoria's recent run of great surf. Though Torren rides them in all types of surf, there are few waves more suited to the mid-length's glide and bite than clean, head-high Winkipop. (Andy Smyth)

What was your reaction when you first saw Torren riding the board? Was it beyond what you thought was possible on the board?
I didn't see him ride it in the first day or two of having it, but I did see him relatively soon after and I was like, "Wow, there you go." He adapted really quickly, which is the fantastic thing about Torren; he’s unafraid to just be himself. Some people take longer to adapt to a different approach, to get different feelings. 

A new approach doesn't mean you lose your old abilities or anything. I see it as a sort of maturing.

You get to an age where you want to feel different sensations.
Yeah, and it's also a really great sense of achievement to wrap your head around a bigger board. It's no longer like that period I spoke about in the nineties when it was mainly novices riding mini mals. 

I think they're quite highly evolved surf craft. They're not just crude Wave Storms or anything. There's a lot going on there.

I've got a few old mini mals in the shed and they're bulbous things - very generous dimensions and rail profiles - but if I look at a modern mid-length, they're anything but.
Oh, yeah. In the ten years since that 2015 period, so many people have done great work in the space. It's been pretty wild to watch it all.

I recently picked one up, a classic twin fin middy, yet it had very refined rails and even a good amount of tail rocker. I assume that’s to mix the boards inherent glide with more curve for turns.
I’d say so. The one thing with twins is you can turn them from further forward. So you're not locked into that kind of sweet spot scenario where you've got to be in the sweet spot to make it happen. The sweet spot is a lot larger, and when you throw a bit more tail rocker - especially in a board that’s, say, eight foot long - you can turn them from quite far forward. 

They're very compliant when you do that. They sort of come to you rather than you having to go to them, which is a real thrill to ride. You can feel it all sort of happening, especially on a larger wave when you've got a bigger face to work with.

Torren Martyn, a surfer of uncommon grace, who ripped on ultra short boards, but who stepped onto a higher plane when the original twin mid fell into his posession. (Ishka Folkwell)

Stepping away from the actual specifics, how do you feel when you look around and see all these mid-length twins that you helped make popular?
Yeah, well, nobody's ever the first to do anything. I first got fascinated by Greg Clough when he had Aloha and he would make rounded pin twins for Barton Lynch when he was younger. They just looked right to me. In my mind's eye, I was like, "It just looks right." 

But then getting back to your question: I certainly wasn't the first person to do it, but if you look at what we did and see that, all of a sudden, a spark flew around the world…well, it does make me feel good.

I sometimes think to myself, "I had a hand in that," but it certainly wasn't just me. There's a lot of people that helped me spin my wheel.

When I recall twins from the MR era, they were almost all swallow tails. That's what I remember. Yet every now and again I'll see an old twin pin, or an old twin round tail on Marketplace or Vintage Surfboards and realise that, hey, they did exist back then. I just didn't notice them.
Yeah, they were there. I remember because Greg used to do really pretty ones that, in my mind, just seemed right. 

You know how you have little snippets of memory that you never lose? I'll always remember Barton walking up the beach with a Greg Clough Aloha, that had a yellow bottom. The bottom must have delaminated - remember when boards used to delaminate and then they'd leak water? - so Barton was walking up the beach with like five litres of water sloshing around.

I don't know whether it was five litres, but as for the board’s design, it just looked right to me. That image has stuck with me. I think I’ve built upon it.

Despite a wide search for Cloughy's early round tail twin, we came up empty handed. We did, however, find this rounded-pin twin shaped by Rodney 'Weasel' Bedford from the same era.

Many shapers have built their theories upon past experiences, but not everyone's theories are right. They don't have the big breakthrough, or their design isn't popularly accepted.
Yes, that's the thing. I was watching an art show last night and thinking about this. You really expose yourself when you do something with your hands because it’s an expression of yourself. You’re giving something of yourself to the public and if it doesn't get accepted it can be quite bruising. 

To do that sort of thing…like really reach out beyond what’s acceptable, and I'm thinking of Greg Webber here, that's a really brave space to be in.

I love that Greg puts the time and the energy into some really fantastical things.

Are you talking about Greg's modern experiments?
Yeah, the ones that I’ve seen on Instagram lately; they're the most creative, mind-bending things. I imagine he lays in bed visualising this stuff as he's drifting off to sleep, and then he gets up in the morning and starts working his magic.

Most shapers are creative but then most of them would let those crazy dreams remain just that. Greg, however, just can't. He has to find out if it’s a design worth pursuing. And he's had past successes, so why not?
Exactly. Everyone goes to bed with a dream, but not everyone, like you say, makes it reality and we need more of that. 

But anyway, yeah, it feels like every time I go to the beach, it doesn't matter where I am, I’ll see a twin, probably with channels in it, and it just makes me smile. It's unreal.

Greg Webber and his "mind-bending" experiments. These photos are just from the last month.

A decade down the track, you'd have to think that most people would have one in their quiver, or at least ridden one. The mid-length twin is part of the design vernacular now.
Yeah. I feel really grateful that I had a part in that. Yeah, it makes me smile.

Well seeing as we’re talking about ideas and creativity, is there anything that you're working on at the moment?
Yeah, but it’s moving unexpectedly. That’s the nature of creativity. You can plan things and work away at them, and then out of left field, other elements jump in. At the moment I've got a strong interest in a board called the Remote Location. 

I need to get my thoughts straight here…(long pause)...I've been working with a lot of highly skilled, high-performance shortboarders and I wanted a board that felt fantastic under their feet in really good waves. So I'm sort of in that space at the moment.

So it's more a Formula One than a daily driver?
That's where it all started. There's one in Stab’s Electric Acid Test at the moment. That's where the whole thing started, but as it's developed people wanted them in more everyday dimensions as well. 

So I'm now ending up with two lots of the same board, but different widths and thicknesses. So I've got this high performance version and then an everyday version that's developing in the background of the high performance version.

Same board but with everything softened up..?
Not softened, just given more volume essentially. And thinking of Greg Webber, the chassis of them is built on a single concave because I wanted shortboard surfers to have that familiarity.

The whole process has been a lot of fun, and it came out of left-field. One day, Dash, my son, and I were in the Mentawais, and it was at the time Mikala Jones passed away from getting speared in the leg.

My fatherly instincts took over and I was like, "Yeah, you need a board for remote locations that's not as pointy and gnarly, but is still a very capable board." That was the starting point.

Also, I should add that the name Remote Location was taken from Camel because he used to cut his noses off round, and he called them ‘remote location noses’. So that's where that name comes from.

I don't know him at all, but I owe him a direct thank you because I've pinched his name. It's such a great name; it evokes this feeling of travel and distance.

[A Word From Camel: "It's nice that he remembered. It was a long time ago and no-one else really picked up on round noses so it's good that Simon's doing it."]

Has your board been ridden in Stab’s EAST yet?
Yeah, he rode one of them. Like I said earlier, going in things like Electric Acid Test you're really exposing yourself. Anyway, Episode One is out, and we'll see how we go moving forward.

Simon Jones Design