There are limitless board designs out in any given lineup around the world. While a majority of today’s boards fit a handful of basic design components the variability lies in some of the most minute details, from something as simple as fin placement to volume distribution or bottom contours — all producing a range of different results for different surfers.
One thing all those different design elements have in common is that at one point or another, a shaper or surfer saw something in the real world — a bird flying, a speed boat racing over water — and started daydreaming about how that feature could be applied to a surfboard. Ben Aipa, for example, came up with his Stinger watching a hydroplane boat in Hawaii. He was fascinated by how the boat accelerated through turns with a massive release of water coming from the cutout section of its stern so he raced home to grab a blank and didn’t stop toying with it until the first Aipa Sting was complete.
Oahu’s Koa Smith has a story of an experimental design that turned into an instant collaboration with Album’s Matt Parker. And while looking at speed boats for inspiration makes sense, Smith’s creative inspiration was truly random.
“I was having dinner one night (and) I was cutting into a steak with a serrated knife. I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s happening so easily,'” he told Hawaii News Now.
Smith says his mind instantly went to surfing, visualizing the hydrodynamics at play between a board’s rails and the face of the wave.
“My brain at the time was thinking about when surfing, doing a bottom turn, and how can I make the rail cut into the water easier.”
The logic behind it isn’t all that outlandish. Smith says he is pretty front-footed on his bottom turns. It makes steeper/sharper bottom turns tougher than for surfers who are better at controlling those movements off their back foot. So Koa called Parker, who immediately got to work on the idea and they tested the board out soon after.
Revolutionary? Who knows? But Koa Smith thinks he’s onto something “like a hot knife through butter.”
