Almost a year and a half has passed since Tom thrust an Alaia my way. A little one for bellyboarding to try and see.

It had wings.

Now there are many in my house, but one has my complete and ongoing affection. The others I think of as 'work in progress', and since I made them all, they are all boards I have learnt something from, and am still learning from.

See their form isnt set in stone, its a homogenous fibre just begging to be refined, reshaped. Ah, wood. Some have forgotten its virtues.

Does the painter ever know when the artwork is finished...

“Any action done with beauty and purity, and in complete harmony of body , mind and soul is art” BKS IYENGAR

Challenge template, challenge rocker, challenge rails, challenge thickness, challenge bottom contours, challenge fins.

Fun hides in many more places than we know.

Inspiration comes in many forms, and from it many conquests have been conquered.

This is inspiration enough for me today.

Probably the most impressive form of ancient finless surfboard is the olo. The olo was the surfboard reserved for Hawaiian royalty, and to be able to ride one by all accounts must have taken extraordinary skill. Typically the deck and bottom curvature of the olo was similar and convex in nature with knifey rounded rails, and very heavy indeed.

These boards were designed for riding the large green unbroken waves on the far outer reefs of places like Waikiki.

Tom recreated an olo from Pawlonia to experience what surfing one would have been like and was incredibly challenged by it. He said the tasks of simply paddling the board and catching waves were substantial. The following pic is a fitting tribute to Toms skill as a surfer and craftman. His first wave on the olo.

Frame grab by Nathan Oldfield. http://www.freefilms.com.au/

Without doubt, one of the most impressive displays of surfing I have ever seen was when Tom convincingly rode his 16foot, olo on the waves of King Island (in the Bass Strait) off the mainland of Australia.

Framegrab from MusicaSurfica.

http://safetosea.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

All hail the KING.

http://www.tomwegenersurfboards.com/

There is minimal documentation regarding surfing pre 1900. From a couple of etchings and descriptive journal entries from passing Europeans to the sandwich islands, their assumptions might be that the ancient surfers had primitive pieces of wood for waveriding and their method was to ride straight toward the beach.

Hawaiian records and folk lore provide a much more impressive insight into the incredible fitness and bravery of the Hawaiian Kings as surfers. Stories indicate that the ancient Hawaiians rode huge waves on the Olo and villagers rode the Alaia board designs with excellent skill.

Excellent accounts of these stories are to be found in Tom Blakes 'Hawaiian Surfriders 1935'.

Tom blake even went as far as to restore some of the ancient surf boards and ride them to gain an appreciation for the board designs and the skill required to successfully ride them. He used his learnings from those experiences to develop large boards for surf and long distance paddling.

At this point in time, it might be possible to suggest the evolution of the modern surfboard has reached a plateau. We are clearly in a period where the modern thruster for high performance (and competitive) surfing is evolving minimally (in comparison to the early 80's for example). Advances in fin design has been an element in the thrusters evolution as well.

There is also a now well established movement of experimenting with boards from the mid 60's to late 70's. And the stand up paddle board movement is a niche artform that appears to be blossoming.

Where to from here (or what else can we try), you may ask. One suggestion being held up simultaneously is to further experiment with boards that are 'fin free'.

Sage Joske - King Island 2007, film grab from Derek Hynds 'fin free' surf trip and subsequent documentation 'Musica Surfica'