After a record number of entries, the 2011 Presentation Ceremony took place on Friday, 22nd of July in Melbourne. 2011 also marked the inaugural year of the AIDA under the custodianship of Good Design Australia.

Hawaiians have been riding “alaias” – traditional finless craft – for centuries. Bringing his experience to GSI is alaia enthusiast and 2009 Surfer Magazine board shaper of the year Tom Wegener. Tom first shocked the surfing community in 2005 with claims that the ancients, with their thin, finless wooden boards, were far more advanced than we ever thought possible. The “Tuna” is an extension of ancient surfing, designed with the perfect blend of flex, rail and bottom contours, and combined with modern materials to increase flotation.

Surfing on traditional wooden finless boards is something only highly skilled surfers can become proficient at. The award winning collaboration with GSI opens the door for everyone to enjoy the unique experience, which is one of very little drag or surface tension, and freedom with the ride.

“The alaia works off a different set of principles than our modern surfboards, and The Seaglass Project is about taking the ancient’s knowledge and applying it to modern materials,” said Tom.

“I’d like to hope I can share this fantastic Australian International Design Award with those generations of great surfboard shapers from the distant past.”

The Design Award™ award and trademark is a highly respected symbol that gives consumers added buying confidence. The AIDA are one of the longest standing and most prestigious design awards in the world, representing excellence in form, function, quality, safety, sustainability and innovation – the cornerstones of great design.

The 2011 AIDA achievement marks the second year of success for GSI, with the acclaimed Meyerhoffer surfboard taking out a 2010 accolade. For GSI’s Managing Director Mark Kelly, it reaffirms the choices made on some of their less than traditional shapers.

“I am extremely proud of achieving AIDA recognition two years running. This feat has rarely occurred and is an extremely prestigious honor. Our goal to be the best surfboard company in the world is being recognized here by these awards,” said Mark Kelly.

“The surf and active lifestyle industry that GSI works in is quite niche, so to be honoured with these awards by a wider audience is fantastic. We get to do what we love every day, which is work with great people like Tom Wegener and design cool stuff for people to use, enjoy and enhance their surfing experience.”

The award winning Seaglass Project Tuna is available now from Global Surf Industries, RRP $695.00. To find your local store or purchase globally online, visit surfindustries.com.

Guidance if you’re holding a finless event anywhere.

One big reason I turned to wood – years ago now – was I that love longboards, and foam has a limit of about 12 feet. After that it bends too much, loses drive and breaks easily. Soon I developed three totally different 16-foot shapes: the finned pintail, the Olo and the toothpick. Each is magic in its own way and great to surf.

When making the big boards, one thought kept crossing my mind. How come I have three totally different 16-footers based on opposing aqua dynamics, while all 6- to 8-footers are really the same? I figured that the shortboards in production were the best result we could expect from the ubiquitous foam/fibreglass construction technique.

[Caption: This board brings back the grace of planks at Waikiki, has the speed of the toothpick and la la of the alaia, and is light like a foam board. It makes riding small waves an exhilarating experience.]

Then along came the alaia and completely disrupted the machine, and it became popular largely on the discovery of paulownia as a wood for surfboards. The alaia has one drawback – it’s very hard to paddle and catch waves. I struggled to make a board that floats and rides like an alaia (which turned out to be the tuna) without the alaia’s weight. I tried surfboard foam, but it doesn’t have good memory when it comes to flex. I thought that a hollow wood construction might work, but it’s very complex to build. Twenty years ago I had experimented extensively with EPS, and I knew it was the answer to these problems.

Now my quiver is home to three distinct 6- to 8-foot boards: the finned foam board, the alaia and the tuna. My brother Jon has developed a fourth board, half-way between the tuna and the finned board called the Bluegill, and Sage Joske has his Vector.

Surfboard shapers have much wider range of materials to use nowadays, and their customers are hungry for new boards. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of fantastic stuff coming in the very near future, but the shapers that will stay in this business will really have to up their game.

I am the most stoked I have been now. I am making all sorts of boards and I can definitely understand them better – like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, I feel as if I am exploring a whole world outside what we once thought we knew. I’m asking my customers “Where do you want to go? What waves do you want to ride?” We can go places that we have overlooked for years.

Photos courtesy of Keith Hamlyn.

For Wegener Surfboards, the Festival was great fun and gave us lots of publicity. We caught up with hundreds of our best friends in our shack at surf city and revelled in the success of the finless surfing movement.

The Wegener week kicked off prior to the Festival, when we made a custom Olo for Dave Rastovich. We started with huge slabs of paulownia and spent two weeks milling, gluing, and shaping the wood into a fine 16-foot, 160-pound, solid surfboard. In the surf shack we oiled the board and Dave surfed at Granite Bay. Tears welled up in the eyes of the onlookers as Rasta skilfully steered the board across the walls of water just as the Hawaiian royalty had done in the distant past, demonstrating as he did so how surfing is truly the sport of kings.

The contest started with a free finless surfing exhibition, mainly on alaias and my new foam version of the alaia. The surf was absolutely perfect and the likes of Harrison Roach, Christian Wach and Taylor Jenson were happy to surf first point with no competition from other surfers. The viewers were very enthusiastic and the comment I heard most often was that the boards were much faster than anything they had seen before. Also, they couldn’t believe that a finless board could hold into a tube so well.

I was pleased to see that my new mini-tuna foam boards were surfing at a very high level alongside the alaias. I have been working on the foam tuna hulls recently, mixing them with flex from an EPS blank. I cannot believe how much water is displaced by the ‘Tuna’ tail – do check out the previous entry in this blog and how we learned about lift. The big rooster tail that Isaac Blyth is throwing out in this picture is formed because of the water rushing through the concave. Also, check out the line of spay thrown by Jacob Stuth as he does a bottom turn on his peanut. Jacob is still the master alaia rider.

During the week there was a shapers forum on surfboard design. There was the largest group of shapers I had ever seen and I was absolutely beside myself to share a stage with heroes like Bill Wallace, Bob McTavish, Mark Richards, Simon Anderson, and Peter Townsend. We each gave a bit of a talk on our contribution to surfboard design, and I spoke about how the surfer in the Diamond Head photo showed me about how the ancients had used concaves and parabolic rails.

[L to R] Simon Anderson, Mark Richards, Thomas Meyerhoffer, Phil Jarratt, PT holding the photo, Micky Munoz, Mike Henson, Bob McTavish, Bing, Joe Larkin, Bill Rice, Gordon Woods, Bill Wallace. And me talking.

There was plenty going on in the evenings, too. Richard Tognetti, the great Australian violinist, played live to surf clips including Derek Hynd riding finless at Jeffreys Bay. Jack McCoy hosted a night of short, living-room-style surf movies including Denny Auberg’s (he was there) Super-8 footage behind-the-scenes of ‘Big Wednesday’, and George Greenough’s new narration for the tuberiding sequences in ‘Innermost Limits’. One night, the real Gidget, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman, hosted a girls’ night out featuring fashion, stories, and music… The fun never ends during the Festival.

During the week the surf was pumping off its head all day long and surfers were soon weary from the hours paddling. After surfs, we relaxed in our Wegener shack in surf city and talked story. We had lots of time to contemplate where surfing is going and what surfers would like. It seemed to me that shapers have been focusing on fins on boards for a very long time and not looking at flex and twist in surfboards. The alaia is based on flex and the new foam tuna/alaias I am making are held into the wave by flex more than edges or concaves. I think I will be focusing on taking what we know about fins and the boards based around them and mixing them with the advantages of flex in the future.

One thing I have noticed is that almost all surfers want a light surfboard that is easy to transport yet can still catch waves. The alaia is the smallest and easiest board to travel with, as well as the best board in the world when on the wave, but it is very difficult to paddle. For the vast majority of surfers, the EPS foam tuna board will be a very good surfboard. It is very small and light, easy to paddle, extremely fast – which suits good surfers – and easy to belly board – which suits beginners. And, very important for today’s more crowded surf conditions, it is VERY SAFE to ride. There are no fins or sharp points and the foam is softer than regular boards.

My life as a surfboard maker has taken many twists and turns as I try new ways to ride waves. Nothing has been more surprising than the success of the alaia! Now I am taking a new direction to help more surfers enjoy the waves. I have been wrestling with the fact that I am experimenting with boards that are not green, and that I do not enjoy making – nothing is as good as wood in my book. But there is a place for these boards. I think surfing is a bit stuck with the domination of the tri-fin surfboard. Don’t get me wrong, these are good, but they’re a little one-dimensional. I think that this foam finless board will open up a wide range of surfing to the majority of surfers who are not interested in wood.

In my previous article here on Drift, I was talking about the Tuna and wondering why it is so much faster than any other surfboard.

The speed of a board as a huge influence on its performance, and is a really important quality of the Tuna. We want speed on a wave, and the Tuna tail is the fastest tail I’ve experienced by a long shot. When you’re going fast in trim you have really reached the ultimate goal of surfing – the fast, effortless slide. And manoeuvres like bottom turns and cutbacks come easier too.

The Tuna seems to be opening a door to a new type of board design.

My brother Jon has been experiencing the same speed with the Tuna over in California as we have here in Australia. He’s been exploring this new wave of board design, and has made a small foam alaia/Tuna and called it the Bluegill (after a very pleasant little fish). Although the board has the same bottom contours as a Tuna, because it’s shorter and made from a (secret) foam blank and glassed, we didn’t think we could call it a Tuna, hence the name. I was intrigued by this new incarnation, so I made one too, and I was surprised to discover that the foam has the same feeling of speed as the wood.

I’ve been studying this footage of the Bluegill in action, and I have worked out why the bottom of that board is so fast. Over and over, I watched my apprentice Matt Williams riding the Bluegill and eventually I spotted what’s best described as a ‘rooster tail’ of water coming out from behind the board. It’s as if the water is being pushed out from the back of the board. You can see this most clearly on the very last wave in this film, where Matt is riding prone. I think that the rooster tail holds the answer to why the shape is so fast.

In fact, the answer is so obvious that it hurts to think that it took me so long to see it! Maybe it’s something that other shapers have known about all along, but I’ve never read or heard about it.

Skip Fry told me many years ago that all surfboard design can be explained by putting a spoon under running water – you see how water attaches to curves and releases from an edge.

The explanation for the Tuna’s speed is that simple: water attaches to the two convex curves on the bottom of the board and is pulled to the centre. There, the two bodies of water coming to the centre from the two sides crash into each other in the concave and create turbulence and high pressure. This high-pressure water pushes the board up and shoots water out of the tail. This is lift.

[Harrison Biden on the 7' Tuna. The speed on the finless board is breathtaking. With the Bluegill we have put flex through the board so it will hold in a tight turn. Photo by Dane Peterson]

Back to foam
So, the Tuna project has made an unexpected return to foam. Although this was a genuinely unexpected change of direction, I have, for a while, been thinking that there had to be another board out there. I made several 7’ wood Tuna and they rode pretty well, but the Bluegill rides better. I definitely prefer to work in wood and I’m confident that I will find a way to make a wood Bluegill eventually. But I’ve got to say, one thing foam has got over wood is that it’s cheap and easy to work.

The reason I went back to foam in the first place for the shorter boards (foam will never replace a wood board over 8’ long) is because a shorter board must have flex. They just won’t work unless the flex is there. Without a fin, a rigid board will slide sideways towards shore. In order to grab into a wave and keep trim, the bottom curves of a board need to be able to suck the board to the water – when the board flexes into the shape of a wave the curve realises more surface area in the wave’s face, resulting in more grip.

My biggest breakthrough with the alaia was when I discovered that thin alaias flex into the wave and hold far better than the inflexible thicker alaias. Getting the flex is easy with an alaia because it just means making the board thinner, but it’s impossible with hollow wood boards because the rails and internal framework are rigid: if they flexed they would crack.

Surfboards for crowds
There is one other very important reason I have looked into the foam finless board – I genuinely believe that they’re a better board for crowded surfing situations.

This summer I saw thousands of beginners in surf schools around Europe. The first thing they learn is to stand up and ride straight to shore. This is fine for those folk who aren’t really going to take their surfing much further than these few lessons, but those who catch the surfing bug and really want to ride waves have to unlearn these early lessons. It would be much better for them to learn to angle themselves across a wave and get a feel for how the wave catches the board, THEN stand up.

For a young beginner, a 7’ finless board would be perfect. First they would master the art of riding prone really well. Then they would learn about catching waves and angling themselves correctly. Finally, when they stand up they’ll already be at the right angle to catch the wave. If they choose to carry on surfing outside of the lessons, they’ll have a much better understanding of how to move with the waves and surf a crowded break.

In addition to its benefits for learners, the finless Bluegill is the safest board in a crowd because you can just go right over the top of other surfers. I was inspired by this video clip of Rob Machado and Ryan Birch riding foam blanks and having a ball. About a minute in, Rob goes right over the top of his friend – how many times do you want to do that during a crowded session?!

Last in its list of plus points, the Bluegill is light with a round nose, so you can play bumper boards and still be safe. I know that this summer when First Point gets perfect and crowded, I’m still going to get good rides. The tube gets really perfect but there’s always someone in the way, but this summer on the Bluegill I’m just going to go right over the top and not really worry about them!

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the Bluegill is better than a finned board in small waves. It’s faster and can do far more manoeuvres. And it’s safer. I’m pretty convinced that the Bluegill will have a big place in modern surfing very soon – you heard it here first.

I just surfed Tea Tree today and the local crew were trading my two Bluegills around. They were so stoked. It can get really crowded here, but there are also really shallow rocks on the inside. Many waves here are only surfable on finless boards, which usually means they’re reserved for the alaia crew. But the Bluegill was insane – we were coming off the bottom and doing 360, sliding off the lips over the dry parts of the reef. I can’t wait until tomorrow!

Thank you very much.
Tom Wegener

As the trip started, I was thinking, “What the ****?! Is there really a market for surf tourism in Ireland?” But my perceptions of surfing here changed with my first look at the beach. It was early morning and a stiff, cold, offshore wind was at our backs, pelting us with occasional raindrops. The coast was empty except for a small sea of beginners in a surf school. There must have been 50 learners whooping it up in the clean little surf. They were clearly stoked and were probably off to get their own equipment soon. Europe, including northwest Ireland, has a huge population of beginner surfers. There are thousands and thousands of them every summer and the tourist communities are tapping into this new phenomenon.

Seeing the learners having so much fun, we grabbed our boards and paddled out. I took the 8-foot Tuna that I made at the Revolver Surf Shop in Newquay, UK, out for its maiden voyage, and – again – I was surprised how much fun a smaller wave can be. I am still learning the Tuna in many ways, and I felt more like one of the learners down the beach than a crusty old shaper.

I love the feel of the Tuna! It’s like an alaia but it paddles very easily and can catch anything. It feels faster than a finned board – as you catch a wave the tail slides a little as the rail grabs the wave; you’re a bit more parallel to the wave, which gives you more speed. I felt the same sensation at the airport on one of those long travelators that take you down the long halls – walking down the hall is like a normal board, then stepping on the travelator and walking is like being on a Tuna. I have been trading my Tunas with other surfers’ regular boards for weeks, going back and forth and really trying to figure out why I like the Tuna so much. It’s that extra speed: it’s addictive.

There’s actually a lot of surf in Ireland. The trade winds are offshore and the water wasn’t as cold as we feared, because it’s heated by the Gulf Stream current. It felt like summer in San Francisco! There are good reef set-ups all around Donegal, which reminded me of the Sunset Cliffs in San Diego.

We were a substantial crew travelling around (most of us are in the photo above. The trip was called a ‘sponsored trip’, but actually in this case, we were our own sponsors – I think Jimbo was the only ‘real’ sponsored surfer.) But, because of the abundance of breaks, we didn’t seem to ruffle any feathers. One night we showed Cyrus Sutton’s new film, ‘Tom’s Creation Plantation’, to the locals and stayed up very late, talking story. (There I am below, in mid-flow in the bar of the Atlantic Apartotel, where we stayed, which is perfectly placed because the best breaks are right across the street.) Everyone we met was very warm and inviting and surfing seems to be still new and exciting.

The surf has been small and clean, which is perfect for the Tunas and the Alaias. One morning we went to a small right-hand point break and the crew had every type of board in the water. The wave was very fast with a sideways offshore wind blowing into your face as you took off. I thought that with the chop these conditions may prove too difficult for the alaia, but Matt got some great waves and, again, the finless equipment was the fastest board on the day.

The trip was mainly sponsored by Tourism Ireland, but Finisterre, Howies and Sally Parkin’s Original Surfboard Company also pitched in.

One really nice thing about travelling around Europe is that it’s meant I have met many of the customers that I have sold surfboards to in the years past. Pictured above is John Beezly, who owns a wood model A and an alaia. He came out for a surf and then showed us around Donegal.

The highlight of the Ireland adventure was watching Sally Parkin get her first tube ride on a wood bellyboard. We were jumping into these tiny little lefts that were going square over a little corner in the reef. She might be 45 years old, but she dug her shoulder into the face and held on for dear life! The wave did its thing and she came sliding out into the deep water. She giggled and laughed for the rest of the day. It was heart-warming to see someone that stoked!

Before coming to Ireland we spent 10 days in Basque Spain and France. In Bilbao I finished the 12-foot Tuna with my good friend and distributor Salvador Arteza. This was a particularly difficult Tuna to make because it required a lot of bending of wood and pressure; I only had six clamps, which made the task more difficult. In the end, I used a large stack of bricks to hold the joins in position, pushing the envelope on the backyard board-builder thing. But it worked!

I had a dream day at Guethary on the 12-foot Tuna. It was a glassy, sunny Sunday and the surf was way overhead. Lots of people were on the right and I wanted to surf that wave as well, but it was a bit too crowded for me to feel comfortable tearing through the line-up on a big, wooden, finless board. So I surfed the left instead. Few people surf the left because you have to paddle up-current to get back to the peak, and I had it to myself. With the paddling power of the Tuna, I hardly noticed the current. Twice, a set wave swept to my side of the reef and I could make the right. I took off on one side of the reef and bombed it all the way across to the other side on a very long wall: that’s when the rockerless tuna kicks into gear! The speed is phenomenal; on each of these waves my heart was in my throat and I felt like I was back at Puerto Escondido. The wave wasn’t actually all that big, and on a shortboard it would have been quite ordinary, but the Tuna gives this wave a whole new sense of challenge and excitement.

I have one major conclusion from my travels this summer: surfing is growing at a very fast rate. There are surf schools everywhere and they are absolutely full of beginners. Some of them will stick with it, and the crowds will swell dramatically in the next few years. Soon, the concept of getting an uncrowded session at a popular break will be lost. Many surfers are angry about this, but I look to Herman Melville’s quote, “The tide of emigration, let it roll as it will, never overwhelms the backwoodsman unto itself; he rides upon the advance, as the Polynesian upon the comb of the surf.” We may as well focus on enjoying surfing and not worry about all the other folk enjoying it too.

I think that looking at different types of boards is the way to out-run the crowds. Big boards open up breaks that are too soft for regular boards. Wood bellyboards make small surf or even reforms super fun. Alaias opens up yet more waves…

There are still an abundance of good waves right under our noses. Surfing is becoming more about adapting our craft to suit the waves rather than finding the right waves for our boards.

Thank you for joining me, my family, and all my friends on my Euro-adventure.

Tom Wegener

It’s Tuesday morning and I am still in shock from the weekend’s series of events. Fortunately I am relaxing in the Brea Vean Surf House and have time to decompress.

I have been promoting wood surfboards for many years and for the most part it has been a long, uphill battle and, overall, the alaia has actually been the hardest board to sell. So imagine my excitement when I arrived at the beach to find more wood bellyboards than I could shake a stick at, and almost all of them far older than me. It was a like a dream!

The wood bodyboard was enormously popular in Cornwall and Devon for the first half of the 20th century. Many hardcore surfers would pack up the family and head to the beach for the summer to get as many waves as they could. The wood bodyboard was in its heyday.

Oral tradition says that the boards started out literally as coffin lids that stoked surfers would wade out into the surf and ride in on their belly. Then the boards evolved into the modern wood bodyboard, about 14in wide, thin enough to flex in the wave, with a slightly turned up nose.

Although foam surfboards and boogie boards became far more popular than the wooden ones, the core old guard never faded away completely. They kept the fire of their stoke burning, loving the surf every summer. Six years ago, some called for a gathering of the last few as a memorial surf for an old friend. Since then, the gathering has grown every year to become a fantastic contest with 200 competitors

It is most impressive celebration of surfing I have every experienced. It seems that it’s first about the respect for the elders that have been surfing for so very long – it’s a party for them. Second it’s a great day for the local surfers to let their hair down and enjoy the primal stoke of beach culture. Third, it’s an introduction to the world of wood bellyboarding for the curious. There is an elegance to the surfing; there’s a style not only to riding the wave, but to the dress, the attitude, the camaraderie on the beach. It is old school, and it hasn’t changed for well over two generations.

I was sooooo impressed with the old fashioned bathers that were coming out. My wife looked hot in a new cozzie made from the old patterns and fabrics. Many people have caught the concept and have been running with the stoke, and nobody has done so more than Sally Parkin. She has ordered numerous alaia from an original bodyboard maker, and is selling them under her own label, The Original Surfboard Company. I think we be hearing a lot more from Sally. (Thank you for setting Margie up with that bathing suit…)

Here’s me posing with John Isaac from Revolver. Some of the crew went a bit hard with the dress ups, but it really added to the atmosphere. It’s all about fun.

The contest started with 20-minute expression sessions. One for the men and one for the women, and the number of surfers in the water were about the same for each. The water is very cold, so that is a very long heat. Did I mention that there are no wetsuits allowed? Only wool bathers if you have them. Then the heats are five minutes and you try to get three waves. Again, the water is so cold that you kind of freak out when you step in, that is unless you are over 70 – they don’t seem to mind. There were a lot of long-time bellyboarders there; they just seem to keep coming out of the woodwork (ha ha!). The age divisions are under 16, 17 to 60, and over 60.

Entry to the contest is free, and you get a free cup of tea as well as endless Skinners Ale for a token donation to the local life savers. There are numerous competitions on the day including awards for the most stylish wave, best dressed, and a cake-baking contest.  My family and I won the furthest travelled, and Finley won the boys under-16 division. This is a big deal to Finley, and now he has a world title and I don’t, which he reminds of more often than I care to mention.

There is something really nice about the pulled-up nose on these wood bodyboards, because you can hold on to it and steer the board as you zip towards shore. I surfed one and really enjoyed it! Most of the riders waded out into waist-deep water and turned towards shore, pushing themselves into waves. They were having a blast, and this style of surfing is really quite enough to keep a hardcore surfer stoked up for a lifetime. There were plenty of examples of people that proved the point. I was most impressed with Charmian – she was in great form in the water and I was shocked to find she was celebrating her 86th birthday on the day of the contest. I kept taking photos of her and she asked my why. I said, “I think you are the most inspirational surfer I have ever met.”

At the end of this blog is a photo of John Heath and his old surfing mate. The coffin lid on the left rode great – I saw him do a great cutback. John told me he used to crawl through barbed wire and brave the mines on the beach to grab a surf during World War II.  He was recently most surprised to read in the mainstream press that surfing was celebrating 50 years in the UK. He and his friends have been surfing for far longer than that!

I now have a few UK bodyboards, and I can’t wait to go to the beach with my non-surfer friends and show them this way of riding waves. It’s really easy and super fun! The thin wood gives you such a good feeling when riding the wave; it is far better than a foam boogieboard in small waves and it is super easy to do. This day influenced me a lot – I’m now looking forward to having a cup of tea on the beach, looking stylish, and then riding a few waves from waist-deep and trimming to shore.

Thanks for checking this out.

Tom Wegener has long been heralded as the man who sparked a resurgence of interest in that ancient Hawaiian craft, the alaia board. While modern shapers have adapted, enhanced and modified this original surf board almost beyond recognition, Tom has gone back to basics to explore a whole new way of riding waves, revelling in the simple pleasures of surfing pared-back to the bare essentials.

The man’s a genius, and he’s been refining his alaia design for years now. If you’ve seen ‘Musica Surfica’ by Mick Sowry or Thomas Campbell’s ‘The Present’ (and if you haven’t, please do – they’re both uplifting and inspiring) you’ll already be familiar with the grace and beauty of Tom’s boards, and may have been surprised by the moves you can pull when riding one of these beauties.

At home in Noosa Tom’s living the good life, using the sawdust from his alaias to fertilise his pumpkin patch, but this summer he’s dragging himself out of paradise and around Europe, making it to Cornwall in August 2009. He’ll be hosting three alaia day workshops at Revolver in Newquay (01637 875730 info@revolversurf.co.uk). Details as follows:

Dates: 21, 22 & 28 August, 10am start.
Cost: £325 per person (£100 deposit on booking). Places are limited to 8 people per workshop.
Includes: partially shaped alaia blank; the tools and guidance (provided by Tom and apprentice Matt) you’ll need to shape your blank; lunch (Tom’s legendary chilli, if you’re lucky); alaia DVD; private screening of Tom’s favourite alaia moments on film, plus Q&A session.

You might even get to catch a wave with Tom if the conditions are looking good.

Come along and share the stoke.

www.tomwegenersurfboards.com
Revolver Surfing Emporium

LIMITED PLACES LEFT, SO PLEASE ACT TODAY TO SECURE YOURS!

When I was in high school, many of my friends made their own boards. It was pretty easy then in California. I would go to ET and get helped out by Bert or Therisa and get the blank, resin… Then people realized how toxic it is and it went out of fashion. Or maybe people became too sensitive. I don’t know, but I suspect that I will be concerned when my son starts glassing his boards (which is kind of inevitable), partly because I am now allergic to polyester resin.

The surfing manufacturing establishment usually looks down at the “backyarder”; why, I’m not sure, because it’s where so much of surfing has come from. ‘Morning of the Earth’ isn’t about surfboard factories. I was once a big part of the Surfboard Industry Association in California. I asked my good friend and sponsor, Donald Takayama, to join. He said, “No Tom. It will become a witch hunt for the backyarders and they are the soul of surfing.” This startled me at the time. But wow, how insightful he was. Donald deserves all the accolades he has received and more.

Over the years I have seen so many great shapes come out of the backyard. Most have been forgotten, if they were noticed by the public at all. There have been many distinct styles of surfing that have been based around the boards. The biggest example now is the resurgence of the Hull. Greg Little stuck with his awesome boards and eventually they got the respect they deserved. So there is hope for all you out there making great boards but not getting a lot of recognition.

Of course, I have my example of a style of surfing and board that never made it out of my own backyard – the Wegener Crusader. Thanks to youtube I have documented the board for everyone to see and to be tortured by my lousy film work. This board is about tight turning radius and tubes.

I am so happy that I have been a part of the wood surfboard revival and getting surfboard manufacturing back in the garage with less toxic materials. After years of contemplation, I have to agree with Donald and say that there is a big place for making boards in the garage. And I’ve got to give a shout out to Paul Jensen who is the godfather of the movement. Yaaaa Paul. What up! Cha!!!!

The alaia is best starting point for making your own board for sure. Just get a chunk of paulownia and start hacking away. It is best if there are kids around and a few beers. Then, if you like the feeling of riding your own boards, you’ll discover an ever-expanding universe of boards that you can make in your own garage, backyard, kitchen… wherever.

Here Matt and I are shaping in the very basic conditions of Salvador Artaza’s garage. Check the natural lighting! We are making a tuna as well as alaias. The tuna is yet another example of a board that is way outside of the mainstream and probably won’t ever be popular.

There’s plenty on the world wide web to keep me interested – please check out the Jack McCoy/alaia footage on Surfline. And there is a bit on the excellent korduroy.tv about my brother Jon’s shaping show at Patagonia in Cardiff-on-Sea, CA.

I can say one thing for people who want to learn to shape surfboards: you really learn fast when working in front of a crowd of people! Your senses are are totally one and focussed – I don’t mind shaping in horrid light conditions, because I shape by feel more than sight. I feel the curves and how the water will flow over them. Then, in the end, I measure up the curves to make sure they are even, though a wave really doesn’t care if your board is symmetric.

Will shape for beer – at the Salinas Surf Festival in Spain. Matt is meeting the locals.

In Zarautz we shaped a board off to the side of the Quiksilver “king of the groms” final contest. The 16-year-old finalists were hashing it out on one peak and the a crew of kids trying the alaias for the first time were on the other. I was so stoked to see the difference. I couldn’t say the finned boards worked any better – the competitors had specific manoeuvres they used to get the points, while the alaia riders were doing everything and riding the waves all the way to shore. Unlike trifins, the alaia doesn’t slow down in the white wash, so every wave takes you to the beach at full speed. I shaped a board and then Matt paddled out on it and caught a wave. The crowd cheered!

The next day we shaped a board for the cameras in the hills of Zarautz.

After a few more days Matt is a bit tired. Here we are off to do it all again at the Wallako Surf Shop in France. During the day many people came around including my alaia hero, Fred Compagnon. Here he is on youtube, taking off on his SUP board and then hopping off on his alaia (which he is strapped to). It is amazing surfing. Fred is the man.

We’re off to the UK soon, hope to run into some of you there!