In his 1994 essay on Simmon's influence and contribution on surfboard building John Elwell, wrote these interesting lines on the definition of the "new" concept board:
"Width was favored for the least resistance. Width plays a key role in delivering kinetic energy to the airfoil rail, the leading edge, that gives deflection. All planing hulls are deflectors. The airfoil is a special shape that is calculated. Width divided into length, is aspect ratio, giving a magic number related to lift. Width also allows the hull to leave a clean wake. "

Altough the shape of simmons' model is pretty unusual also for nowdays, I suppose some of the same concepts could be easily adopted in a more conventional mid lenght board (7.5 to 8.2) to empower speed reaching in small surf.