Can You Hard-Launch A Twinzer in 2025?
The Panda ‘Noz Model’ is a fruity Swiss army knife.
Panda Surfboards is a quiet achiever in the hardware space, with a knack for identifying the cult surfer — one who might not win a world title but will most certainly inspire a board order.
Professional surfer turned fashion designer Noah Collins fits that mold, and he’s got a new model that he and Panda founder/shaper Blake Peters have been working on for three years — the Noz Model.
Noah came of age in the southern Californian school of high performance contest surfing, but in the five or six years he’s been riding Pandas, he’s opened his mind to ‘alternate’ shapes, so long as they allow him to surf progressively.
“When he came to me, he was pretty much riding shortboards full time. I think he had one twin fin in his quiver,” Blake says from the Panda shaping bay in Costa Mesa. “The first alternate model that he rode a lot was my Rocketfish — he had one of those that he just couldn’t get off; I’ve got it here somewhere, it’s so brown and filthy. That was the shape that he clicked with, and then I guess he got to a point where he just pretty much stopped riding shortboards.”
Interestingly, this period of drifting away from more traditional surf craft also saw Noah re-locate to Bali, where he now spends the majority of his time, in between visits home and chasing swells. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the smaller, slopier waves of California are the place to experiment with ‘alt’ equipment, whereas Indonesia’s for straight shooters. However, Noah’s gone in a different direction with his surfing and equipment.
“He still has that high performance approach, but he’s trying to force himself to surf differently and to not surf like everyone else,” Blake explains. “That’s kind of where we’ve ended up with this new board.”
What Panda and Noah have come up with is a 80s shortboard outline with big hips, a wide squash and a twinzer set up under the back foot. Noah’s surfing in the accompanying edit is flowey, vibrant with moments of lead-footed power precision. In waves from two foot, playful Canggu (Noah’s backyard) to draining Desert Point tubes.
“It has a beveled down rail which keeps the rails nice and responsive, so when you’re surfing it you feel like you’re up on top of the water, but when you go over on rail, it still feels sensitive,” Blake explains. “We’re running it as a twinzer specifically, which makes it super fast and squirty, but thickening the board throughout creates leverage and something to push against. If you’ve watched Noah and how he surfs, he’s really powerful on rail.”
After watching Noah surf his new model, one thing that’s obvious is that he’s not in the business of cruising down the line and neatly re-directing when the opportunity arises. He wants to jam the living daylights out of the face at any given opportunity.
“He’s short and stocky, so he utilizes his rail a lot and really pushes hard,” Blake explains. “The Noz Model’s got a really pronounced hips, so it has really good pivot, turns on a dime, and it feels really different and refreshing compared to my other twinzers that are a bit more drawn out. The hip’s right in front of your front foot, and Noah likes to shift his front foot up over that hip and it just creates a lot of pivot and it translates to his surfing: short, stocky, powerful on rail.”
I ask Blake whether having someone like Noah, who lives in Indonesia for the entirety of its surf season, testing his wares in quality waves has led to any shaping breakthroughs that translate to his operation in California. He pauses for a moment.
“It’s good for testing, like when I’ll give him a full quiver of boards and he wants to get a feel for them,” Blake says. “We know he’s going to get waves, whereas in California, you might have a new shape and not be able to ride it for three or four months until you get the right conditions for it. So it is good for feedback, it just usually takes me a while to get that feedback.”
Blake explains that their relationship exists in fits and bursts where he’ll send Noah off for an Indo stint with a fresh quiver, not hear much for six months, then receive feedback, footage and a quiver of thrashed, brown crafts back from Noah when he’s back in town.
“It might be six months before I hear anything, but he’s been able to ride the boards in all kinds of waves by then,” Blake continues. “Even out the front of his house in Canggu is a pretty good testing ground for smaller wave boards as he’s getting three/four foot beachbreaks regularly. Then when there’s actual swell, he’ll do a trip somewhere and get to test the other stuff. He gets a pretty good range of waves to test boards he knows there, so it is pretty good for feedback.”
Said R&D process has led to Noah’s racks being currently filled with a set of ‘Noz Models’, from his everyday 5’10 up to the 6’3 he uses when things get serious.
“His 5’10 is what the base model became, then the step up and more of a mid-length version will become new models on their own further down the track,” Blake explains. “The base model’s his high-performance version and the one that translates the best to most to guys in Southern California that want an alternate performance board.”
The term “alternate performance board” used to be an oxymoron, but thanks to shapers like Blake and surfers like Noah, it is no longer.
If you’re looking to tap into the highly refined produce of an excellent shaper/surfer combo chasing a feeling, then order yourself a Noz Model and enjoy the feeling of easy paddle, easy flow and the ability to jam it in the pocket as hard as you can muster.
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