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.

My love for Noosa – despite never having actually been there before – is founded on photos and tales of epic point breaks, perfect for longboarding and with the backdrop of the national park and a quaint little town.

Plus I was going to catch up with shaper and Drift’s wooden wander Tom Wegener, who resides here and has been kind enough to offer me a place to crash!

I’d checked the internet last night and there were already images coming through of 3-foot, perfectly peeling, hollow swell and it was expected to last most of the week. I won’t lie – I just wanted to get there asap!

After arriving mid-afternoon (a day earlier than planned, due to the weather) I headed to First Point (after the now routine fight for a parking space!) to catch up with Tom and shoot his finless exhibition on the beach. Strolling along the white sands and mid-way through drooling over the peeling rights that were being carved apart by the surf competitors, I bumped into Tom’s apprentice Matt – I’d last seen him in sunny Cornwall, so he was rather puzzled to find me turning up, like the proverbial bad penny, in his hometown!

Tom soom rustled up his trusty crew of alaia riders for a team shot before they all hit the water for a demo heat, including a 14-foot traditional log!

Shooting from the rocks and watching the sets has made me fall in love with Noosa all over again. It’s everything I expected, and then some.

The now-familiar stoke that Tom showed during his shaping sessions back at Newquay cam over the tannoy during the finless demo. He has so much passion; it’s no wonder he’s managed to (excuse the pun) carve his way into the shaping scene.

Some people shape for money.

Some people shape for fun.

Tom obviously shapes because he loves it.

The various shapes, styles and types of finless board in the water took full advantage of the perfect conditions, sliding and spinning across perfect Noosa faces with Tom’s stoke rippling through the crowd.

After the heat came the festival’s opening ceremony, something I was keen to witness. First off was some traditional didging by a local ripper, then came the mixing of water.

A bowl was produced and in front of the crowd people poured in water from their local breaks. By the end of the ceremony the bowl contained water from all corners of Oz, as well as further afield – Jersey, Japan, Brazil, Canada, the US and Chile.

This was truly an international event. I only wish I’d brought some of North Devon’s finest brine to add to the pot!

Next was the paddle out, and everyone who had access to a board headed for the water and got into the line-up. This was followed by the traditional Hawaiian joining of hands and Ocean Prayer. I opted to photograph it rather than participate, and it looked perfect in the setting evening sun.

As the surfers splashed water over their heads the festival was officially on.

…Roll on the next few days

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.

It’s stupidly early and I am NOT a morning person.

But today I’m running on empty, fuelled by Mars bars and copious amounts of sugar, because the day ahead promises a shoot with surfboard shaper of the year (and Drift’s wooden wanderer) Mr Tom Wegener.

I’m genuinely stoked about meeting Tom; we’d spoken via email about a year back when I was planning some eco-based surf shoots, but due to his escalating status within the surf scene he was snowed under with film shoots and our schedules seemed to be ever conflicting.

I’m heading into Cornwall to the Revolver surf/tattoo emporium in Newquay, where Tom is holding some alaia shaping sessions as part of his European tour (keep up with his progress here). If you’re ever down in the ’quay I’d definitely pop round and say hi – the place is amazing, with pebbled floors and a Tiki garden complete with grass-roofed hut bar and decking. To quote the owner “It’s more like a surf club than a shop… I didn’t even know we sold stuff”. Genius!

It reminds me very much of Skip Fry’s set-up from the Dogtown and Z-boys era, and oozes the laid back vibes and charm that surfing is all about.

…but I digress!

Tom is an incredible person; from the word go you could tell he was genuinely stoked about the day. First lesson – picking the board shape and size. Tom has a range of alaias in his quiver which cater for a variety of sizes and styles, and from stand-up surfing to riding prone, each has their own place in Tom’s mind. And rightly so.

When everyone was prepped and sorted on how their chosen shapes would perform they were handed a semi-shaped blank, proudly stamped with the Wegener surfboards logo.

At this point I chuckled to myself as three grown men looked like kids in a sweet shop, holding onto their new prize stick and running their hands over the grain, no doubt silently praying that they wouldn’t cock it up!

Tom and Matt drew the outline and rails templates onto each blank – guides they would use to shape the rocker and to also tweak the rails, an incredibly important factor in alaia shaping because the rail is effectively the fin. Too tight and it will dig, too loose and it simply won’t perform.

The next two stages demonstrated the perfectly tuned working relationship that Tom and Matt have formed; Tom works the rocker and the base of the shape while Matt does the final tweaks and sands everything down… which is inevitably looked over again by Tom, whose attention to detail is admirable in an industry that seems to be dominated by money over quality.

Then it’s back to Tom for the rails. This man’s hands are some of the finest shaping tools I’ve witnessed at work – he’s constantly running them over the board after every stroke of the planing tools. The reason was perfectly demonstrated when he asked us all to look at the board he’d just shaped. To the eye it looked perfect. But after running our hands over the tail concave we could feel an oh-so-subtle slight rise in the grain. A simple oversight like this can severely affect the performance of an alaia, mainly because the board is a single entity – simple only works right if it’s shaped right!

After slowly guiding everyone through the final part of the shaping – which was taken ever so slowly because no-one wanted to end up with an expensive toothpick – four finely crafted Wegeners lay before us. Tom branded each one with the Wegener logo and signed them with a personal message for each of our super-stoked shapers.

The final stage was to treat the boards with a linseed oil and vinegar mix – this seals the wood and also creates a natural stickiness, reducing the need to wax. The seal also acts like a slight stain, drawing out the grain of the wood and giving it a gorgeous shine, no doubt something that will be gazed upon with a smile every time it’s paddled out.

It was at this point that we all realised the time… The tide was mid push and the swell had been pumping all day. John knew exactly where we were headed: Crantock rivermouth. We packed three cars full of amped surfers, wood, longboards and wetsuits, jumped the headland and parked up.

Everyone was suited and booted in record time, although Tom (obviously used to board shorts and warmer climates) needed a slight hand! Instead of paddling from the beach we opted for the more exciting approach, and weaving our way down the cliff we looked across the bay at the chunky lefts that were peeling into the rivermouth.

Jumping off the rocks, everyone headed straight across out back. The next few hours saw some serious nose time, massive grins, and slipping and sliding on newly crafted wood. Tom emerged more amped than ever, explaining that even if it was breaking you’d never paddle across a rivermouth in Oz to surf, simply because you’d get eaten!

God bless the English climate!

Heading back to Revolver for a beer and more banter, we proudly sat our boards against the wall.

Beautiful to watch. Beautiful to ride.

The future is definitely wood.

I’ve always enjoyed the aesthetic of wood; I guess it conjures up memories of being a kid and building tree houses in the woods surrounding my house. But it’s also the patterns… the natural flow of the grain that’s brought out by varnish is an exceptional example of how intricate and beautiful nature is. I might just hug a tree…

Years back, I was perusing the boards in Tiki when I noticed a dark wood laminate longboard with a lighter inlay, which signified the start of my love affair. It firmly planted the idea that one day I would invest in such a luscious looking stick.

Later, when I was in my last year of university and planning my final exhibition piece, the world of wood and eco surfing popped back into my field of vision. I came up with a plan and spent the next few months emailing shapers and surfers around the world, gathering info, eyeing up flights and creating storyboards. To cut a long story short, I flew to Ecuador (more to come on that in a later blog, promise) and returned home with memory cards rammed to the brim with photos and a tasty 6’6 balsa fish under my arm.

There’s something very relaxing about surfing a wooden board (and I want to point out here that I’m no pro surfer… nor am I exceptionally good. I’m an average Joe who surfs ’cos it gets me stoked). The board sits high in the water, making it easy to paddle. This positioning also means it copes well with our English mist, gracefully cutting through the chop with minimal effect on your balance. It also seems very appropriate to be harnessing the power of nature with a natural product, almost like the ocean rewards you for not filling it with polyurethane. Plus you look pimpingly hot walking down the beach with the board!

Since then I have sold that fish, but replaced it with a 9’2 D-fin longboard courtesy of Vintage Surfboards in Newquay (shaped by Mr Mark Neville at Seabase). And I’m equally intoxicated by the ride.

Bottom line is wood surfs well, looks gorgeous and is better for the environment. Sure it costs more dollar, but it don’t cost the Earth – that’s a good tick in the karma box.

My wooden stoke is hitting an all time high this week as I’m heading down to the ’Quay to meet the ever inspiring (and Drift’s champion wood-crafting wanderer) Mr Tom Wegner at Revolver for a day of alaia, sawdust, banter and hopefully a few good waves. I shall, of course, be providing you all with a host of lovely images that might possibly inspire a few of you to shape your own alaia blanks.

Take it easy.

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

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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!