Surfers love quivers. A groveler for weak summer slop. A daily driver. A step-up for when things get serious. Maybe a twin fin for when you want to loosen things up a bit. And before long, the collection starts looking like a used surfboard garage sale.
But what if you could ride one board? One board for all conditions?
That’s the idea behind the Mini Piper, a shape from Los Angeles surfer-turned-shaper Matt Pagan. The former professional surfer has spent the past several years building boards around the fickle, often imperfect waves of Southern California, and the Mini Piper may be his closest attempt yet at a one-board quiver.
“I felt like the missing component was, how do I find a board that works in everyday conditions?” Pagan said. “And can that everyday board actually work when the waves get good?”
The Mini Piper is a twin fin with a small trailer, derived from Pagan’s Sandpiper but compressed into a shorter, wider outline. According to Pagan USA, it features a continuous rocker, single-to-subtle-double concave, swallow tail and twin fins pushed slightly forward.
Stock sizes run from 5’4” to 6’0”, with volumes from 25.2 to 36.1 liters. Pagan positions it for waist- to head-high surf, blending speed, control and forgiveness.
The design grew from a problem Pagan and Los Angeles surfer Hunter Jones kept running into while riding twins.
“Hunter and I were both riding a ton of twin fins, and they worked really well,” Pagan said. “But we hit a threshold. Certain things backside wouldn’t work, or we’d get too steep and it would wash out.”
Related: How to Surf Better with Matt Pagan and…MrBeast?
So they kept tweaking.
“Once you start opening that door of refinement, it’s a really fun world,” Pagan explained. “You can change little subtleties and it just blossoms.”
Pagan admits he wasn’t initially sure Jones would like the resulting board. Then, he says, Jones “throws down maybe one of the best sessions I’ve ever seen him surf.”
That may be the Mini Piper’s biggest selling point. It isn’t trying to be some exotic, hyper-specialized craft. Pagan says he wanted “something simple,” that floats well and is “user friendly and easy to ride.”
One board for everything? That’s a lofty claim in surfing.
But if your quiver is getting crowded, the Mini Piper makes a compelling argument.
Interested in the Mini Piper? Order one here.
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