Surfer and shaper, Bob Benes, has seen plenty of changes since his early days at Stone Steps in the early-sixties. Back then Bob bare backed and knee paddled his high performance 9’6”. Since then he has had his fair share of twin fins, longboards, thrusters, eggs, and fishes. Born and raised in North County San Diego, Bob has time to figure out what works when.
If you ask him what his favorite board to ride is, his answer varies depending on the day of the week. One day his favorite may be his 6’4” fish, the next day it might be his 8’ single fin mini-longboard, another day it could be “The Caviar”, but lately it’s been the “Secret Weapon”.

At 54, Bob has seen plenty of phases of the modern surfboard and 10 years ago when he started shaping again after his 20 year hiatus, Bob committed his designs to function.
He is not afraid to bend the rules of surfboard design by mixing shapes together to create new functions.

Two great ideas are “Caviar” and “Heart and Soul”. Caviar, which has a Fish head (nose) and a tail like an Egg, came out of a need for turning versatility and paddling ease. Heart and Soul is better than a short longboard, at 7’0” long and 3” thick with its single fin, this board glides like butter on a hot skillet.

The Fish is the most popular of the hybrids on the market these days. With a wider shorter outline than a normal shortboard, the Fish is extremely functional in small to average days, which seems like almost every day. With sizes up to 6’10” and 7’0” the Fish gives a 200+ pound grown man the ability to surf like a kid again.

No, Bob isn’t going to quit his day job to just shape surfboards, but he sure gets stoked to see people having fun surfing his creations.