Upcycled Alaia

That one was a fun project. I made an alaia, which is an ancient Hawaiian surfboard. Those boards were used before the now more classic shapes, with more modern materials, and became popular again in the recent years. This one was for a contest which consisted in up-cycling waste into a object usable in the ocean. So I just took random scrap wood that were lying around the workshop, glued them together, and then shaped everything with a handplane.

I decided to go with an asymmetrical shape because that board was not meant for a specific purpose except being an entry for that contest, so I thought I might as well go a bit crazy on the outline. And also because I read the interview of a shaper a while ago (don't remember who, sorry..), who said that he didn't understand why a surfboard had to be symmetrical while we use each side of the board with a different part of our body. So each side of the board should actually be adapted to the way we surf them. And you obviously don't surf the same way on your heals than your toes. The theory then says that because you have less power on your heals, the board should be easier to turn on the heal side than it is on the toe side. So making the heal side shorter accomplishes just that. I thought that made a lot of sense, and since then I have been quite intrigued by asymmetrical surfboards. That was my opportunity to make one!

I'd tell you how it surfs but I never actually put it in the water! I'll update that section if I do one day!

You can see a short video of the process below!

A post shared by Romain Pitz (@harpyphoto) on Sep 9, 2015 at 9:29am PDT