Alure

The lure of the most simple surfboard.
Ease of making.
Speed of finishing.
Wallet friendly.
Built your own.
Your thought, your sweat, perhaps your blood.
Durable.
Fixable.
Less IS more, more or less.

(woodblock print by charles w bartlett 1921)

a distant school of fish

walk your own way, i say.

its a sweet ride...prone or erect.

there is a different joy to sharing a wave with your mates compared to drawing your lines solo. while you may forgo complete freedom in turns, the stoke remains.

'tom, dane @ harry'

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/