Simmer, New Windsurfing Boards,
We've been working a while on the approaching 2012 Simmer board line. Last summer I teamed up with Kai [Katchadourian] and discussed some custom boards for him. I was still with Starboard then, but designing customs was "allowed" before any formal commitment to Simmer from my side. Anyway, we looked a bit at some recent Quad shapes of mine and discussed what he liked and didn't like about the Quatro boards he’d been using.
After we made massive progress together and came across some major discoveries, we decided to go official and offer these to Simmer customers. We developed three shapes. A ‘groundswell’ no-compromise pintail Quad board called the FlyWave, the Quantam Quad ‘windswell’, squashtail shape, and a Freestyle Wave (FSW) with multifin configuration for the wavier end of the Freewave spectrum.
After we made massive progress together and came across some major discoveries, we decided to go official and offer these to Simmer customers. We developed three shapes. A ‘groundswell’ no-compromise pintail Quad board called the FlyWave, the Quantam Quad ‘windswell’, squashtail shape, and a Freestyle Wave (FSW) with multifin configuration for the wavier end of the Freewave spectrum.
Ola Helenius Bio I'm 40 year old from Sweden and I've been windsurfing since the age of ten. Primarily, I'm into wave sailing, but I do some slalom and freeride sailing as well as a bit of GPS speed sailing for fun too. Understanding how a wave board works has been a quest of mine for many years. I designed my first boards in the early 90s - some short and stubby Thruster boards that wouldn't look too dated by today's standards. Since then I spent a lot of time riding as many boards as possible while analyzing the fine details of shapes to help me find connections on how shape relates to feel on water. I have a PhD in mathematics that gives me a logical understanding of the way curves and surfaces work.
I've developed my own computer software to help me "see" the shape of a board in a way that's helpful to me, and that's what I use when designing the boards. I'd venture to say that this way of working is more advanced then what other shapers use and it allows me to distinguish really subtle but important aspects of the curves that make up a board. This way of understanding the geometry of a board also opens up your senses when it comes to test riding. Before moving to Simmer, I worked with Starboard and shaped one of the Quad boards in their 2011 line-up and prototype/custom work for some of their international team riders.
for those who want to test and live in Holland goes to Gearfreak,
De Tolve 5 8713 LK Hindeloopen FRIESLAND / NEDERLAND
T=+31 514 524040 / F=+31 514 524049
M=office@gearfreak.nl
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