AOR Surfboards

I’ve been playing around with finless wooden boards for about a year now since I first read about Alaias. It’s been a pretty interesting journey so far, it really has been like learning to surf all over again, in the best possible way.

Here’s an alaia I’m working on for a customer, it’s solid cedar and doesn’t needed to be glassed. You just need to treat the wood every so often with linseed oil.

Although it might not look like much this board has some very subtle design elements and has to be seen first hand to be truly appreciated. This particular customer was a long-time bodyboarder who hasn’t ridden a bodyboard since he got his first alaia. The speed you get from these boards is incredible.

I’m looking to source some Paulownia wood pretty soon to build a few more stand-up alaias. If you’re interested in trying out one of these boards, just gimme a shout!

This is one of the latest boards I’ve done, it’s a 6′6 x 20″ x 2 1/2″ perimeter stringer thruster. The outline is based on a beefed-up Al Merrick/Taylor Knox board with a rounded pin tail. The idea behind the perimeter stringer is that the rail acts like a bow when performing turns, so as you compress you’re storing energy in the rail which is released as you uncompress and come out of your turn. I’m hoping to do up some videos quite soon to demonstrate the difference between a center-stringered board and a perimiter-stringer board.

I used Cedar for the rails on this board because of it’s good weight to strength ratio. Cedar also looks fantastic when it’s glassed. It really does “pop”. I used Future Fins on my shortboards and highly recommend the Black Stix range. Since I’ve shaped this board her new owner has taken her out a few times and the initial feedback is very positive, in fact I’m itching for a go on it myself!