Torren Martyn, "I can confidently say it totally changed surfing."

It's crazy to think that it's been nearly 10 years since Torren Martyn blew up on the scene in a way no one would have previously thought possible. He wasn't punting huge airs, or towing into 60-foot waves, he kept it simple, pure, and smooth on a midlength surfboard that went on to change how countless people looked at surfing. While most of the world was looking left, he went right, so to speak, on a 7'9 channel-bottom, keel twin.

The board became known as the "Massive" and it's impact on surfing was exactly that, absolutely massive. In the latest film from needessentials we get a inside look as to what it was like for Torren back then and again recently when he rediscovered his old friend and took her for another go.

Torren isn't exactly someone who speaks needlessly, he's more subtle than he is boastful, so to hear him say, "I can confidently say it totally changed surfing. It changed my experience of surfing for me at the time and ever since", should give you a sense of just how important it was.

Not only did it change his experience of surfing, it changed the trajectory of his career--he became a household name and interpretations of that design infiltrated lineups everywhere. What he was doing clearly resonated with a wide range of surfers across the globe as videos like "Thank You Mother", featuring the original Massive in perfect surf at Jeffreys Bay, racked up over 366k views on YouTube. Later on, the first episode of his "Lost Track Atlantic" series, made with best mate Ishka Folkwell, hit 956k views. For reference, Nathan Florence's videos most popular videos hit around 1.5m views.

All that is to say that the combination of Simon's handiwork, Torren's footwork, and the support of needessentials and the mates who came along to capture the rides, legitmately changed the surfing world. It's easy to understand how crazy slabs, giant waves, and nonstop vlogging from a charismatic and incredibly talented surfer like Nathan Florence. On the flip side, no one would have thought it was possible to capture the minds of hundreds of thousands of surfers with a simpler and slower approach, but once you see it, it's impossible to deny. It's like honey for the eyes and syrup for the soul.

My favorite part of the video is hearing Simon recount Torren's phone call to him the day after he rode the board for the first time. He says, "You were tripping over your words trying to say what a great feeling you had gotten back from that board...one of the things you said was, 'this thing changed my life!' I was like, oh really, in a day?"

The catalyst for the design was the need to design a surfboard that could handle everything, a simple idea that sparked true innovation.

Simon Jones says, "It became a design problem worth solving. Working with Torren Martyn, we began exploring what that might look like, a board that could do it all, but do it well. The result was something we hadn’t quite seen before: a mid-length, channel-bottom, keel twin. A meeting point between the glide and flow of a single-board quiver and the high-performance twin designs we’d been refining."

We'll be back with an interview with Torren in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Related: Torren Martyn Digs Into Peak Moments From the Surf Adventure Epic "Calypte"