SoulSurfer
The Evolution of the Surfboard...
Surfboards have come a long way since their original development in Ancient Hawaiian culture. The enormous wooden boards used back then would crush the thin fibreglass boards ridden by modern-day surfers. It was in Hawaii that surfing originated as a practice that was intricately related to daily spiritual life, part of which was the construction of surfboards. Using the woods from the WiliWili and Koa Tress, the chiefs and noblemen rode boards called ‘Olo’, while the common people road a board called the ‘Alaia’. This differentiation according to status was related to size: for example, 0-12 feet for commoners and 14-16 feet for the noblemen and chiefs. The oldest surfboard still in existence can be seen in Hawaii’s Bishop Museum and dates back to 1778.
​Surfing in Hawaii went through a period of decline due to colonisation, but it later emerged during the start of the 20th century. This revival of surfing saw the beginning of surf board development as we know it today, most notably when George Freeth experimented with board design by cutting his 16-foot Hawaiian board in half. The diminishing in size was followed by developments in rail and tail size in the 1930’s. These changes saw more manoeuvrability while riding, most specifically by allowing the rider to line up with the ‘curl’ of the wave.
Then, a momentous moment in the history of surfboards: the introduction of the fin in 1945 by Tom Blake. The fin provided increased stability, stopping the board from sliding sideways on the wave, and allowing surfers to manoeuvre the board better. These changes were accompanied by the use of different materials. Firstly, Balsa wood was increasingly used, and then after World War II fiberglass became the norm. Fiberglass meant that surfboards could weigh a lot less, and be waterproof.
In the 1960’s the size of surfboards began to decrease, from 9 foot plus down to the six foot mark. This was a time when surfing was becoming more and more commercialised with sponsorship and competition. This created a binary between surfers: those of whom entered the competitive arena, and those who didn’t, otherwise known as a soul surfer.
Boards were changing fast at this point. Everything from the nose, tail, shape, curve, rails and weight were altered to meet the progression of surfing, both in terms of technicality and for surfing bigger waves. In 1981 Simon Anderson designed the three-fin system called the thruster and this was a huge advancement in paving the way for modern surfing. Soon enough boards were being designed with the aid of computer technology, creating thinner and lighter boards which, in effect, gave surfers the ability to execute manoeuvres that before one could only have imagined.
Nowadays there is a wide range of boards to chose from. One can ride surfboards with four fins, known as quads, or one can ride what is known as a ‘fish’, wider and thicker boards which hark back to the sixties and seventies. Even fiberglass is being replaced by epoxy boards. However, despite all these rapid changes, what remains eternal is the soul surfer and the ocean: a connection mediated by the board that the surfer chooses to ride.
