Will a twinzer setup work on a Mini Simmons?
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What About a Twinzer Mini Simmons?

Twinzer, I know it seems like we are talking a lot about fins these days but your fin setup can make a huge difference in how your board rides. The other day we talked about installing a small trailer fin on a Mini Simmons but today I wanted to explore the possibility of using the twinzer fin system on a MSS.

First of all you’ll have to forget using keel fins if you want to use the twinzer system on your MSS—it just won’t work. The twinzer setup is for a more performance oriented Mini Simmons and should go on a board with a bit smaller tail and less volume throughout. The twinzer is essentially as early quad and performs much like a quad—more drive, more speed, and you can hold longer lines. I like what user lawless said about the twinzer on the swaylock shaping forums when he described the twinzer, “more like a twin with superchargers in front.”

I was watching the Quicksilver Pro in France this week (watch the final heat with Slater & Dan online here) and was impressed to see Kelly Slater paddle out into thumping barrelling beachbreak on a 5’10 quad—the idea being that he wanted more stability and bite in the barrell as he was moving through critical sections. So a Mini Simmons twinzer is going to be your board for more vertical waves where you need to draw a line and it will also give you more bite on the face as you move through turns or in and out of barrells—getting barrelled on a MSS is so fun.

The inventor of the twinzer, Will Jobson, did his original twinzer designs with a deep single concave when he first made them in 1988. The concave was actually curved so that it was deepest close to the fins on the side and more shallow in the center. Jobson was looking for a way to get ride of what Surfing Encyclopedia calls the ‘terminally skittish’ syndrome and with the twinzer Jobson made design improvements that allowed a ‘fix’ for many for the twin-fin problems. Surfing Encyclopedia goes on to talk about Jodson’s twinzer design:

The board’s tail area was narrower than that found on the twin-fins, while the fins were pushed back a few inches and moved closer to the center of the board, behind a second set of smaller fins that were positioned closer to the rail. A shallow six-inch-wide channel was cut into the back few inches of the tail area.”

The more fins you put on a board, the harder it is to get it dialed in—less is more with fins on a Mini Simmons and if you read this blog often enough you know that is my opinion. But opinions are like farts, they come and go and sometimes they stink. I’ll be shaping a Mini Simmons this winter with a twinzer setup, I look forward to reporting back to the MSS community and letting everyone know how it rides.

Shaper | Lover of the Sea

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  • Hey Jeff, that really is a beautiful board and got me thinking a lot about the twinzer setup for the MSS. One of my all-time favorite boards was a twinzer fish that I picked up in Costa Rica about eight years ago by LSD Surfboards.

    Thanks for the link to the shaper Rob Lyon (will check out for sure).

    ~Derek, MSS

  • Awesome, can you send me a pic? I’d love to see it. I still got a twinzer you made several years ago, by far one of my all time favorite boards. Maybe it’s time to get another!

  • thanks for sharing some stoke about twinzers, and mini sims!

    They are a great combo, full of speed, and fun!

  • I put hand made twinzers on my keel fin stub nose (its the blue/yellow/white one in the photos) and it works unreal. So I wouldn’t say that twinzers don’t work on keel fins… twinzers will enhance the performance of any fin when they are placed in the proper location.

  • If you want a high performance Mini, Bob Mitsven, San Diego, CA Moon-tail Quad. It will change your perspective on board design and make your fun factor go through the roof!

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