ayout 1 - Tomo Surfboards

Daniel Thomson and
TheSpeed
ofPhi
“Everywhere in the ocean we can see spiral energy
—from perfect barreling waves to spinning storms,”
says Thomson. “Wouldn’t it make sense to apply a
constant of phi to the geometry of surfboards?”
IAN OROARTY
By Richard Kenvin
July 31, 1949. A potent mid-summer swell is blasting the
Malibu coast. Sometime in the afternoon a photographer
named Bob Prosser stands on the point and captures an
image of Bob Simmons streaking across a long, dark wall.
Simmons rockets down the line in perfect trim, slouched
in a parallel stance while his self-shaped board leaves a
ruler-straight wake behind him. The curious foam trail does
not look like one left by a surfboard. It looks more like the
vapor trail of a jet or the wake of a speeding powerboat.
This makes sense. Simmons, who referred to his boards
as “machines,” applied some of the same mathematical
formulas that naval architects and aeronautical engineers
used in designing their own crafts. If he was following
anything, it was the language of mathematics—set forth
by Archimedes, Fibonacci, Bernoulli, and Lindsay Lord.
In the foreground of Prosser’s photo, a woman in
’40s bathing attire stands at the shoreline with two young
children, holding an inner tube. In the wide scope of the
image these are the only souls present, preserving a beach
scene one might find at the height of writer Raymond
Chandler’s noir Los Angeles. In Chandler’s LA nothing was
as it appeared on the surface. It was only through looking
beyond the obvious that the story underlying any character,
setting, or plot was revealed.
Like a clue that would lead one of Chandler’s
detectives to his next revelation, Prosser’s photograph is
a little piece of evidence with a story to tell. The clues in
this case connect over decades. In 20 years, Simmons’ key
design features will gain a foothold among a cadre of
shapers. Yet another 12 years pass before his principles are
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BOB PROSSER
(above) Bob Prosser’s 1949 Malibu photograph served as a time capsule across
decades, preserving an early look at the result of surfboard shaping as science.
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grafted into mainstream design. From there, another 20
years follow before Daniel Thomson rides replicas of
Simmons’ planing hulls and studies Lindsay Lord’s Naval
Architecture of Planing Hulls. The experience permanently
alters his perspective on design. As a result he builds a series
of ultra high performance surfboards he calls “modern
planing hulls,” which form the appropriate acronym MPH.
Charles Eames once said in regard to design that
“eventually, everything connects.” Daniel Thomson can
relate to that statement. For most of his 31 years he has been
seeking and absorbing knowledge passed on by a handful
of individuals. In the process he’s gained an understanding
of hydrodynamic principles that makes it impossible for him
to look at board design outside the context of those who
shaped before him. But Daniel doesn’t live in the past. He
takes what he’s learned and uses it like a torch to illuminate
the dim catacomb of trial and error in surfboard design.
Shining a light on half-a-century of concepts enables him to
identify what works and apply it to his craft. Daniel knows
exactly how Simmons fits into the boards he makes today,
from the aspect ratio of their planing surface, to the lack of
curve in their outline, on down to the placement of the fins.
What history suggests is that every design will
eventually reach its limitations. Progression comes from
BILLY WATTS
(right) Before his design breakthroughs in 2009, Thomson’s shaping and surfing
explored the merits and limitations of pre-existing surfboards.
design first and surfing ability second, with the greatest
leaps forward coming not from slow refinement but from
radical departures from the norm. Few modern shapers,
like Thomson, have developed their talent as both surfers
and craftsmen to explore the limits of their own designs.
Perhaps there will never be another Mark Richards or
Simon Anderson—surfers who combined their surfing and
ingenuity to forever alter future design. Whatever the case,
Daniel Thomson is far too humble to pretend to fill the
shoes of MR or Anderson. Similar to the great surfer-shapers
of the past, Daniel’s work is driven by a desire to improve
his surfing. Hardly an alternative tripper or retro dreamer,
it would suit him just fine if his designs gained prominence
at the highest levels of competitive surfing.
April 11, 1981. Daniel Thomson is born in Australia, less
than a fortnight before Simon Anderson’s historic thruster
debut at Bells. It’s a fitting birthdate, as Daniel is truly a child
of the thruster era. It’s also the first of many connections
to key historical figures and events in surfing that result
from the circumstances he was born into. His father, Mark
Thomson, has a simple philosophy regarding board design:
anything that works can always be improved, if not by
design, then by materials. Stagnation is not tolerated.
Progression is mandatory.
The Thomson household in Lennox Head became
an evolutionary crucible from Daniel’s earliest years. All
manner of surfboards were tested but it was strictly survival
of the fittest. Designs that lasted, such as the thruster, were
continually enhanced with flex-tails, blade fins, and carbon
fiber construction.
Daniel’s world was peopled with an intimidating
roster of highly talented and influential surfers. Bob
McTavish taught his father how to shape boards, while Tom
Curren, Brad Gerlach, and Donavon Frankenreiter often
visited to test boards and talk design. These guys were a
part of Daniel’s day-to-day upbringing. Yet to avoid being
overshadowed by his father, for the past eight years he’s
traveled the world, supporting himself by shaping boards
and landing the odd sponsorship for his surfing ability.
After seeing the world and spending a year in Japan, he’s
settled in California, occasionally returning to his home
at Lennox.
RYAN FIELD
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HILTON DAWE
(above, l-to-r) Shapes by Matt Kivlin, Joe Quigg, and Bob Simmons. From a design
perspective, the much debated question of whom first developed the precursor to
the contemporary shortboard is irrelevant to Thomson. He places each one on trial
and combines their virtuous characteristics as needed.
In 2004 Daniel crossed paths with a small fleet of
San Diego fish boards brought to Australia by the Hydrodynamica Project. The boards were shaped by Steve Lis,
Skip Frye, Larry Mabile, and Rich Pavel, and offered a good
cross-section of designs that evolved from Lis’ original 1967
kneeboards. Daniel settled in on a 5'7" Pavel with swept
back Gephart keels. On May 9, with the surf pumping down
the point at Lennox, Daniel took out the little Pavel fish
and put on a searing exhibition of pure Australian power
surfing. Here, he decided, was a high performance design
worthy of further investigation and possible enhancement.
Mark and Daniel began building and riding racy, futuristic,
blade-keeled, carbon fiber fishes—a series of boards they
dubbed the Drongos. They were seeking ways to blend
thruster precision with the planing speed of the fish, and
they succeeded up to a point. Eventually they hit a
performance plateau where the application of modern
shortboard curves and rockers couldn’t be further combined
with a fish. Soon after, Daniel traveled to San Diego for the
first time, where he would be introduced to the planing
hull boards of Bob Simmons, an experience that would later
lead him off the Drongo plateau onto an even higher level
of performance.
Later that year Daniel met 72-year-old John Elwell.
Elwell had known Simmons in 1949; Simmons had handed
him a dated print of Prosser’s photo. Almost single-handedly,
Elwell preserved and researched Simmons’ work on hydrodynamic planing hulls after his death in 1954. From Elwell’s
perspective, the Lis fish design was closely related to
Simmons’ planing hull, more so than any other surfboard
of the post-Simmons era. John took a keen interest in
Thomson’s fish surfing, and explained the workings of the
fish in the context of Simmons’ hydrodynamic theory. “I had
never heard of or seen such an intricate, scientific design
formula applied to a surfboard before,” says Thomson of his
early visits with Elwell. “I thought: if we can know now what
Simmons knew then, there is a pretty good chance we can
apply that understanding to a modern, high performance
board and really achieve something special.” Pulling his 1950
Simmons dual-fin down from the rafters, Elwell showed
Thomson the fundamental characteristics it shared with
the fish. “It really inspired me to understand the functional
(left) The craftsman at one with his craft. “Through applying phi to the designs they
become synchronized with nature,” says Thomson. “It’s an amazing feeling.”
dynamics of fluid and how it interacted with objects and
hulls specific to surfing.”
Under Elwell’s guidance, Daniel became one of the
first surfers to ride a Simmons planing hull in the 21st
century. At Windansea in December of 2005, during a
massive winter swell, Daniel paddled a 30-pound balsa
replica of Elwell’s 9'0" planing hull to an outer-reef in
triple-overhead-plus conditions. He made some steep,
dramatic drops and streaked across some big walls. The
experience left him with a deep respect for Simmons and
his concepts. “The board performed so well, and those were
the waves he designed it for,” said Thomson, years later.
In April of 2007, Thomson rode Casper, the first of
the mini Simmons boards, on some clean pointbreak walls
DAWE
(above) Mark and Daniel Thomson have access to a fleet of test pilots for their
crafts, including Chris Del Moro (center).
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in southern Baja. At 6'0" x 23" x 3", it provided more than
ample flotation, but he was still able to go through a series
of modern turns on his first ride. “The fact that we can ride
that thing in a relatively modern way, hitting the lip and
getting barreled on a board that was designed so long ago
is a testament to how functional Simmons’ concepts are.”
Afterward he mused on the potential of trimming it down
and scaling it into a “super short, parallel-railed little board
—a little ollie machine.”
Instead of getting swept up in the mini Simmons
craze (short versions of Simmons’ boards with roughly the
same width, rocker, and keels as the originals), Daniel
went back to Australia and began experimenting with
planing hull-inspired shapes that combined modern
shortboards with his own unique innovations. His mission
was to design the highest performing surfboards ever made,
using Simmons as the foundation, and World Tour level
surfing as the performance criteria. During this time he
also began looking at wakeboards. He saw them as highly
effective designs that worked at high speeds under the same
principles as the Simmons boards. With everything scaled
down to minimal size, they were exactly what he was after.
“I was running errands on the Gold Coast and I spotted a
wakeboard shop near where I was buying some materials.
DAVE FRANKEL
(right) The most precise feedback for Daniel is still provided underfoot. Cutting a
decidedly futuristic silhouette is mere icing.
I stopped in and eyed some of these minimalistic volume
4'6" parallel hulls. I thought, why the fuck wouldn’t that
work insane?”
Daniel got to work. He designed futuristic “raptor”
split fish tails, space age channel and concave configurations,
and blade keel fin combinations. Then, in one final burst
of inspiration, he dialed in his modern planing hull concept
with four boards shaped back-to-back in less than two
weeks. “The month of June 2009 in Australia was a huge
moment for my board designs,” Daniel says. “The whole
parallel-outline, mini-planing hull board concept gelled in
my mind. I got in the garage of my rental in Lennox Head
and started redesigning my templates with more parallel
lines.” First, Thomson shaped the MPH, a 5'2"x 17 ½" x 2"
thruster. The following day he shaped the Vector, a 5'4" x
18 ¼" x 2¼" quad that was more radical in its design: a wide,
multi bat-tail—designed to be controlled with extreme
concave. With the MPH formula solidified in his mind and
the newly applied principles of wakeboard designs, he
shaped the Deathstar, a twin-tipped 4'11", which measured
just 17" wide. At that point, says Thomson, “traditional
volume measurements had become irrelevant.” He phoned
his father, who agreed with the design breakthroughs in
theory but wanted to see the boards ridden first. The
following day Daniel shaped a 4'7" x 17 ½” x 2 ¼”, Vader,
a compliment to the Deathstar but with softer features.
That summer he returned to California with the Nano
and Vector but left the Deathstar and Vader behind. “At the
last minute I kind of freaked out about how people would
react to the Deathstar and the Vader,” he recalls. “I wondered,
are people really ready for this? So I stashed them in my
closet in Lennox and didn’t bring them to the states.”
On the way he stopped in Japan and entered a 4-star
WQS event, placing 5th riding a 5'6" Nano dual-fin. Fresh
off the plane in California he took a 5'2" x 17¼" Nano
dual-fin out at Windansea, doing airs and sliding on the
lip like he was toying with a snake run in a skate park. In
September, he exhibited his new boards at the Sacred Craft
surfboard exposition in Del Mar and won Best of Show with
the Nano tri-fin. The event, which has been running in
California since 2007, draws some of the biggest names in
the surfboard industry.
DAWE
(above) Logging more empirical evidence off the bottom, the mad scientist at his
Lennox laboratory.
PIERRE TOSTEE
(left) Stu Kennedy—Durban, South Africa. “I’ve known Stu since he was about 11
years old,” says Daniel, who enjoyed no shortage of surfing and shaping mentorship
in his younger years. “I kind of took him under my wing and trained him on all things
surf related.”
In 2011, Daniel pulled the Deathstar and Vader from
his closet and returned to California. Again he proceeded
to win Best of Show at Sacred Craft, this time with the
Deathstar design. “I have a crew of distinguished surfboard
veterans scour the Sacred Craft floor each year to determine
Best of Show,” remarked the show’s founder and director,
Scott Bass. “We know Daniel has won before, but we cannot
overlook his stuff. It’s far ahead of everything else in here.”
Wrapped in black carbon fiber cloth and tipped with
sinister bat wings on the nose and tail, the Deathstar looked
more like a futuristic military stealth drone than a surfboard.
The outline was extremely parallel relative to the curves of
a conventional board. More than any design Daniel had
previously built, the Deathstar was born of theory. He had
carefully studied the chapter on planing and aspect ratio
in Lindsay Lord’s Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls—
the same book Simmons had used. He recognized Lord’s
principles at work on a large scale in the original Simmons
boards of the ’40s and ’50s, and down-sized on wakeboards.
The concepts in Lord’s planing hull studies rekindled
Daniel’s interest in phi, also known as “the golden ratio,”
which helped refine the proportions of his boards. For
instance, the dimensions of the Deathstar were determined
through a series of phi divisions. “For a long time me and
my dad have been totally fascinated by sacred geometry
and how it relates not only to forms in nature but also the
structure of design,” says Daniel. “Ocean waves are an everchanging medium full of variables, hence the incredibly wide
scope of design possibilities. I wanted to find a constant
in those unpredictable variables, so I could formulate a
specific design direction for surfing.”
Daniel found that constant in the spiral geometry of
phi—1.618. “I applied phi to the aspect ratio and curves of
my board and found that the results are not only positive
but downright mind-blowing. The boards become perfect
energy deflectors that let the rider tap maximum wave
energy with minimal energy output.” Thomson also took
another look at the measurements of Elwell’s 1950 Simmons
planing hull and made the same phi divisions he had used
on the Deathstar. The measurements of the aspect ratio, the
widths of the wetted planing surface from the wide point to
the entry in the bow, and the exit in the stern were almost
identical. The Deathstar was essentially a scaled version of
the Simmons planing hull, and vice versa. “When I matched
my newfound phi aspect ratio formula to the original 9'0"
balsa Simmons board it matched perfectly—with less than
one-percent margin of error. Through direct knowledge or
incredible intuition he had the blueprint in 1950 for the
ultimate performance board. Having this revealed to me
was the most profound discovery of my surfing life.”
Daniel had found what he was looking for, a formula
that would allow him to engineer maximum performance,
with minimal volume, into every square inch of his designs.
The result is an extremely efficient board whose length and
width are limited to the constraints of a specific formula.
The Simmons-phi method gave Daniel a constant—a
reference point that never changes. All manner of fin
combinations worked on the designs—from zero to five fins
—with little or no modification needed to accommodate
them. Rocker and curve could be added or subtracted by
degrees, using the constants as a starting point.
On the heels of the Deathstar, in quick succession,
Daniel developed three more models from his work with
phi measurements and the original Simmons board. While
testing his boards along the California coast, surfers begin
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The 5’8’’ Golden Machine makes the influence of early hulls evident.
PHOTOS: FIELD
8’ Simmons dual keel slotted planing hull.
The Fractal, a second generation refinement of the
Deathstar—based entirely on descending phi divisions.
BRIAN BIELMANN
TODD GLASER
A few decades and a few defining sessions by surf stars usually sway the conservative
tendencies of surfers toward more functional equipment. Tom Curren at Backdoor
(above) and Rob Machado at Seaside, San Diego (left) campaign against popular
opinion in late-2012.
to take notice. At Lowers, Kolohe sees the boards and orders
one custom. Later in the winter, on a west swell at Rincon,
old family friend Tom Curren sees Thomson on a Deathstar
and, intrigued, orders a 5'1" thruster. Then, in February 2012,
Curren rides it in the Rincon Classic, a semi-local benefit
event. He draws Dane Reynolds in an early round heat.
The 5'1" is almost perfectly symmetrical, with a diamondshaped nose and tail of the same width, and minimal curve.
It does not look like an ordinary surfboard. Spectators on
the beach are heard murmuring about its similarity to a
wakeboard or kiteboard. But under Curren’s feet it draws
much fuller lines than a 5’1” should, blazing around
whitewater sections and whipping effortlessly through
super tight carves and snaps. Meanwhile, Reynolds does his
thing on a thruster—tail-high air-reverses into the flats
and breaking his fins free at will. It’s a formidable display
of state-of-the-art surfing. But he seems to be working a
little harder than Curren at gaining speed and flow between
turns—even with a longer board. Curren wins the heat,
though Reynolds eventually wins the contest.
Given what’s known about Curren it’s not difficult
to load this little showdown against Reynolds with portent
and meaning. It wouldn’t be the first time that Curren
made a statement with his surfing, the significance of
which would not be realized until years down the road. At
any rate, through Daniel, Curren has joined the ranks of
the “Simmons test pilots,” a term coined by his father,
Pat, decades prior.
March, 2012. Daniel returns to Australia and shapes two
modern planing hulls for Stuart Kennedy, a young pro from
Lennox. Daniel, 10 years older than Kennedy, has become
something of a mentor to him. The boards Daniel makes
for Kennedy are tiny, parallel-railed boards—similar to the
one he made for Curren. Kennedy’s powerful, lightning
quick style shows just how fast and responsive the designs
are. The tiny board planes and skates with laser-sharp
precision as he drives it through his new school repertoire.
The absurdly tight radius of his carves and the speed of his
rotations in the air are almost cartoonish. Without hesitation
Kennedy decides to ride the boards in competition.
On July 31, 2012, exactly 63 years to the day that
Prosser photographed Simmons at Malibu in 1949, the
U.S. Open of Surfing is under way in Huntington Beach.
Daniel Thomson and Stuart Kennedy are getting ready for
the next heat, where Stu will face Kelly Slater. After beating
Matt Wilkinson in the previous round, Wilkinson said,
“I put [Kennedy’s board] under my arm this morning and it
feels like nothing that I’ve ever ridden. The rails are different,
the tail is different, the nose is different. Everything is just
really weird on it. But he beat me.” The comments and
reactions to Kennedy’s boards begin to form a compelling
narrative on design conformity in professional surfing. It
becomes clear just how risky it is to ride something different,
as Stu’s scores tend to be lower.
The coincidence of Kennedy surfing against Slater
on the 63rd anniversary of Prosser’s photo makes for a
clean reference point along the design evolution timeline.
If Simmons were still around he’d likely wonder why
everyone found it necessary to have pointed noses on their
5'10"s. Kennedy’s board strikes nearly everyone at the event
as highly unusual, with the conspicuous exception of
Kelly Slater, who has taken interest of his own in volume
redistribution. In a beach interview he states, “I really like
the direction Stu’s going with those Tomo designs. I think
that’s kind of the future, to be honest.”
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GLASER
(above) With the golden ratio as a guide, Tomo’s crafts are stripped down to the
essentials of form and function.
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Seeing Stu fight his way through three rounds to a
man-on-man match-up against Slater is a reward in itself for
Daniel—no matter what the outcome. It’s the culmination
of years of effort. But Daniel keeps his cool. He knows that
in the big picture of pro surfing—where winning is everything—this is just a routine and insignificant heat, a round
for the big boys to get through on their way to the finals.
In the end, Slater wins it with a fairly conventional series
of backside hacks on the best waves. Kennedy settles for
17th and heads for Europe, where he battles his way to a
9th place finish in the next event.
After the contest, Daniel drives back to his home and
shaping room in San Diego. He’s nursing a torn ligament
and can’t board-surf, so he gets back into riding his air mat,
blowing minds with flat-out cannonball speed runs. The
simple thrill of planing on the mat puts him in a good head
space for board design. He delves deeper into merging the
hard science of Lindsay Lord with trial and error, seasoning
it all with musings on the role of sacred geometry and phi
ratio. He aspires to customize boards around an individual’s
body mechanics—to flow them into the dimensions of
their boards. If the universe and waves themselves contain
the forms of the golden ratio, then why shouldn’t his
surfboards?
DAWE
(right) The combination of surfing talent and shaping know-how in Simon Anderson and
Mark Richards has always been uncommon—even more so as performance standards
elevate. Without claiming to fill that rank, Thomson’s body of work is accumulating
in undeniable ways.
In the midst of these esoteric meditations, Daniel
is courted by a large manufacturer that wants to massproduce his designs. If he signs a deal it will mean some
financial security, and, more importantly, the freedom to
focus on his passions: designing, building, and riding his
own surfboards. “There’s nothing like that feeling I get,”
he says. “When I make a new board and ride it, I get
giddy at how good it goes.”
On a grey afternoon in Southern California, Daniel
sets about drawing a golden spiral from scratch on a piece of
graph paper. He pencils out a golden rectangle by combining
squares on the graph in the order of the Fibonacci sequence:
one, two, three, five, eight. The rectangles grow proportionately larger while maintaining a ratio of phi—1.618. He then
takes a compass and draws curves from corner to corner,
starting with the small rectangles and flowing outward to
larger ones. A golden spiral is formed. He takes a piece of
tracing paper and traces the spiral, flips it over and lays
the reverse image over the first spiral. At the point where
opposite curves overlap, a template is formed. Even at
this small, hand-drawn scale, the shape formed by the
intersecting curves looks like a perfect single-fin pintail
surfboard. Daniel then measures the width of the pintail
and divides it by phi. He takes the sum from the division
and draws lines on the nose and tail of the outline—at the
point where the opposite curves are exactly same distance
apart as the quotient of the phi division. A new doubleended template is formed. It’s a perfect, miniature sketch
of the 4'11" Deathstar leaning against the wall beside him.
Enlarged even farther it would fit almost perfectly over the
1950 Simmons planing hull in the rafters above.
It’s been said that Simmons wrapped a theory
around everything he did and that this backfired on him
in the end. It’s even been said that ultimately this led to
his death: struck in the head by a board born of his own
theories. It’s been said that his boards didn’t turn, that he
became irrelevant long ago, that the modern surfboard is
entirely the result of trial and error. While this may have
been true for many years, it isn’t anymore. Ask Daniel
Thomson. ◊
Go Deeper with Daniel Thomson at www.surfersjournal.com