I came across an article where Tom Wegener was awarded shaper of the year by one of the magazines. Tom builds and surfs traditional Hawaiian surf boards. I remembered seeing footage of him surfing in the film Seaworthy. I did some research and found his website www.tomwegenersurfboards.com/ The long boards he is surfing are up to 18', have a rounded bottom and are designed to catch ocean swells before they break. Here is a video -

SF,i hope your correct and Tom has been honoured with shaper of the year.I met Tom back in 2004 and a nicer guy you would never meet. Tom was avery successful foam and poly glass shaper b4 moving into his new direction of wood boards made from a chinese wood called paulonia. Tom is an exceptional traditional longboarder, so much so, that some of his boards can really only be ridden by truely good surfers . Tom lives just outside Noosa and surfs Tea Tree a lot, if you see him surf you will be amazed.

Rodriguez, Here is the link to the article in the Daily Telegraph www.dailytelegraph.com.au/nocookies?a=A.flavipes I was more interested in the boards themselves and how they were use than the fact he won an award.

As far as I know he hasn't done any SUP's, but it's easy to imagine someone standing on top of one of these paddling into a wave. If you liked the video there is another one on Tom Wegener and several others on surfing by freefilmer on YouTube .

Steve

A few guys in VIC have built hollow wood SUP...there a quite a few sites where you can check out how its done and get some inspiration....I was going to build one but thought I should start with something a bit smaller so am shaping a 6'8 fish instead...a nice 9'6 SUP will be next on the drawing board....

www.swaylocks.com
www.treetosea.org

SF & DJ ,great pick up on the youtube vid's & news article,on Tom Wegener.

rodriguez said...

Banaccas, paulonia wood is chinese in origin but grown here in oz. Nice line though!

And Paul Joske has been quietly building ancient type boards from Paulonia grown on his farm in Valla for many, many years............

Thanks firstpoint and welcome to the Breeze.

I once surfed an old solid wood board at Byron and had to drag it into the water because it was so heavy and I was sure it would sink..but it didn't.

It was amazing to paddle.. Turning it to catch a wave was hard work but once you got it up to speed paddling you could catch any wave.... It was pretty cool.

DJ