The Kimbo, season two

The Kimbo Twin — named after Jeff's English Mastiff — came out of the bay in March 2025 as an 8'0 step-up gun, a board for the kind of session that earns a phone call. After a year of riding the original and a few of its cousins between 7'0 and 7'8, three things were obviously asking to be changed.

§What we changed

First: the entry rocker was too aggressive in the front foot. The original 8'0 needed it for size; the 7'0 derivative did not. The board pearled in late take-offs more than it should have for that length. We softened the nose entry by 4mm over the front 18 inches. Same outline, different curve.

Second: the double concave through the tail was too deep. It made the board fast in trim but unreliable in turns — the back foot couldn't break the board free without a lot of input. We pulled the concave depth back from 4mm to 2.5mm. More speed comes from the rail line now, less from the bottom alone.

Third: the tail block was 1/8" too narrow. We shaped the original looking at narrow-template guns from the late 70s, and the result was a tail that disappeared under the back foot in steep drops. The 2026 version is 1/16" wider at the tip and 1/8" wider at the wide point. The fin cluster sits in more foam.

§What we kept

The pulled outline, the down-rail through the back, the controlled tail rocker, the twin-with-trailer fin layout. Those were right the first time. The Kimbo is still recognizably itself; it just stops doing the two things we kept apologizing for.

Available now in the configurator from 6'10 to 8'0. The original 8'0 spec still exists in the archive — message the bay if you want the gun-leaning version for the kind of swell that wants it.