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.

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

I have stumbled upon such innovations as using paulownia wood to build boards and new glues for putting surfboards together. I even made a line of hollow paulownia surfboards, from fish to 18 footers.

My life changed in 2004, when I saw the ancient surfboards in the Bishop Museum in Hawaii. I was enormously inspired and in 2005 I started making replicas. A small tribe of us rode the boards, and low and behold, we found that the ancients were surfing far beyond what we had imagined. A flat piece of wood is really fun to surf, but just as important, making your own flat piece of wood surfboard is fantastically fun. I started selling the paulownia alaia blanks with templates and a ‘How To Shape an Alaia’ DVD. I have never known such positive feedback – it was a whole new level of stoke.

Making your own equipment is a HUGE part of surfing. Matt (my team shaper) and I are coming to Europe this summer with little more than a croc-skin bag of tools, templates and a large stack of wood. We just hope to inspire others to get back to the basics – we will be making boards along the way, and everyone’s welcome to try them. We’ll be giving classes to pass on all I have learned in my time building boards.

Along with the Alaia boards, Matt and I will be testing and making the new Tuna boards. They are like an alaia except they paddle super-easily. They’re a whole new style of surfing and they can also be made in your average garage. This is the new paradigm in surfing: making wooden boards, at home, without toxic chemicals. The paulownia wood and new glues have really helped this shift take place. Foam and glass have dominated surfing for two generations and they have become a little boring – it’s time for a change!

The idea for this trip to Europe came when I made the first Tuna board. I had a carton of beer, some off-cuts of wood, and an idea. By the end of the weekend I had the board in the water and it surfed far better than I expected. “My gosh!” I thought. “Here’s another new surfboard that’s just as much fun to surf as any other board I’ve made. Are there other boards out there?! Let’s grab some tools and get on the road to find out.”

Their enthusiasm was a bit overwhelming to be honest, but I love this sort of stuff so we got stuck in. Matt (Williams, my apprentice) really took charge, which is a dream for me because I could basically talk story, drink beer, and take all the credit. It was a real buzz to see the guys take up the tools and charge. I wish I could have done this when I was a kid – I messed up my parents’ garage something awful with foam and resin when I started making boards.

I couldn’t stop myself so I helped (took over) the making of Christian’s board. We started at 11:30am, and at 3:30pm one of the boys asked if we could take the boards out this afternoon. By 4:10pm the boards were finished to a fine surfing standard and we were off to Little Cove.

The surf was perfect – it has been perfect a lot lately – and George and Cameron went out on their new boards. I was so stoked when Christian took out the ‘Tuna 4’ first and got a few waves for me to film. He got some long rides in the pocket and he was so stoked. Then he took out his new alaia and was even more stoked.

I drank another beer and filmed from the rock, then I got a few on the Tuna. Gee, I love that board. Actually, the board isn’t perfect, it’s the addicting glide that’s the rush.