BEN SKINNER OVA   Ben “Skindog” Skinner has been at the center of the UK’s longboard scene for decades. A proven competitor who put on a dominant performance at the Malibu Pro this past season, he is also a widely respected board builder who has proven the validity of his shapes by surfing them to competitive success. Skindog is an adept noserider and knows his way around a traditional log, but is also a fan of modern, high-performance longboarding, surfing with power and authority, particularly when the waves get juicy. His ability on a longboard is unquestioned, but what many people don’t realize is that he also rips on shorter boards. The Ova is Skindog’s mid-length design for days when the waves are pumping—or when you simply feel like taking a break from your longboard. It is also a great option for those looking to step up from a shortboard and ride something with a bit more flow and glide. Combining a wide-point-forward outline with a unique foil, relaxed rocker, and 50/50 rails up front, The Ova paddles fast and flies down the line faster, finding speed even when the wave fattens up. At the same time, the round tail...

Jason Stevenson has been a global leader in surfboard design for 20 years, ever since he left DH Surfboards and started his own label. At the beginning, a lot of people said that he might not make it as an independent surfboard shaper, but he had confident in his shapes and abilities, and was friends with a lot of top surfers, and knew that if he stayed true to his designs and talents he could make a go at it. When he started JS surfboards, Stevenson didn’t want to use his name on the brand. A lot of other big shapers used their names, but Stevenson was a pretty private guy, so he wanted to do something different, that deflected the focus away from him. His father had worked with heavy machinery and Jason had grown up around industry, and as he was looking for a logo, he and his wife bought a bunch of Caterpillar tractor toys from a toy store and took a bunch of photos, and ended up really liking one. That “Traktor” became the logo for his brand. Early on, Stevenson knew that he would need some big-name athletes to give his brand credibility. At the time, Luke...

Akila Aipa Biography   When it comes to surfing and surfboard shaping, one of the biggest advantages a person can have is a knowledgeable parent. Akila Aipa’s father Ben Aipa has been a legend of Hawaiian surfing for decades—both for his performances in the water and in the shaping bay. His boards have been sought after for years, and are considered some of the best ever made—particularly the Aipa Stinger, which was a fast, straight-railed, winged swallowtail that revolutionized the fish shape in the 1970s. Ben Aipa’s influence rubbed off on Akila, who was a pro surfer in the 1990s and has now become a respected shaper in his own right. Akila eventually started shaping out of the Waialua Sugar Mill—ground zero for North Shore board design—where his primary focus was on creating custom boards for customers on a one-on-one basis—basically the antithesis of production shaping. But lately his designs have started to gain traction amongst some of the world’s top surfers, and his boards have become very much in demand. In a short series of blog posts, we will be looking at the increasing popularity of Akila Aipa’s boards, and exploring one of his newest and most exciting shapes.

Who is TOMO? Push the envelope. Watch it bend. Two sentences describing Tomo’s approach to surfboard design, seen clearly in every shape he’s made since the Vanguard in 2012. Backed up by high-level surfing talent and mentoring from some of the surfing’s most legendary surfers and designers, Tomo has developed a ‘sixth sense” for developing some of the most radical and unique performance surfboards ever, for example, the Cymatic for Slater Designs.  In 2018 he released his first dedicated step-up, the Hydronaut, a round nose, ultra-refined approach to getting barrelled in six to sixteen-foot waves. It’s been ridden and tested everywhere from Black’s to Sunset to Fiji and more, and it excels in a variety of sizes for any single surfer.     More To Read... How To Choose The Right Fin Size For Longboards? The Difference Between Firewire’s LFT and Helium With Rob Machado Who and What is Thunderbolt Technologies?