Just came across some old photos of my trusty old 7 ft 10" Deep Minion and wondered where have all those little Minions gone to. There was a time back in 2016/17 when just about every third post was about them.
Out if interest this afternoon checked out the Deep website and Simons brainchild has morphed into the MV2, swallow tail, rounded nose, looks a great fun Board anyone riding one ?
I guess the early "Tomo" shapes of a lot of SUP shapers were too extreme, and were pushing water when paddling and too stiff in turns.
Most shapers still producing them have rounded, pulled-in or "diamonded" a bit the nose for more efficient paddling, and pulled in a bit the tail and maybe added some hips / wings for a pivot point. The Deep MV2 seems a good example of this evolution.
I know that the Gong one (The "Mob", aka moped in French) is still one of the best sellers. These kind of shapes are very stable, and a lot of riders in France do not go in waves big enough to begin to have trouble handling them.
My personal opinion is that it is hard to size them for good SUPers: too big and their widths make the rail to rail cumbersome, and too small and you lose the stability that was the asset of this design. Beginners / intermediates are fine with big ones however, enjoying the stability and possibility to have fun in crappy weak waves.
I suspect that for a lot of the conditions that the Tomo shapes excelled in people are now foiling. I loved my 7'4 Hypernut that I bought to surf and to learn to foil but sold it when I downsized to a dedicated 6'0 foilboard and never looked back.
My 8 footer is up on the wall. I could never sell it, too unique, and also covered in family artwork. I crack it out every now and then, just for fun, 'cause that's what they were made for - fun.
