rodndtube.com's (OLD) MyPaipoBoards Forums. Reading but no posting on the OLD forums.

[tumak]

Dang, this is one sluggish forum! I guess it makes sense... my friends, we are a precious few, we riders of paipo. We all know that our way is supreme, yes? And just look at the world of surfing; folks, is it pathetic? Speaking solely for myself, I am just so happy - and feel so lucky - to be tuned in to paipo!

I also want to mention how blown away I am by the fact that Tom Wegener has entered the paipo world with his little oiled antiquish beauties... is that cool, or what?

I want to complain a little, too: where I live, in Brevard County, Florida, there is virtually NO SUCH THING as original or independent thinking among surfers. The media, aging longboarders, and high school & juvenile cliques have this place totally sewn up. Ha ha, they are the BORG. Everyone around here is completely brainwashed one way or another. When I show up at a beach, paipo in hand, I feel like a total rebel. It's kinda cool because lately I've been thinking of it in terms of the noteworthy Zen rebels. Zen has a long history of rebels. Paipo riding, with its umbilical connection to the waves, is total Zen. I love the way The Way is so obvious, though so few can see it. It really is an interesting study.

[kage]

too true. it is one lonley deal. good thing we don't like to talk too much.

[tumak]

I think that if I had ONE friend follow my lead and show real interest in paipo, I'd probably have a heart attack. After we made the Mysterious Turtle, my solid balsa paipo, one guy did get Robinson to make a foam knockoff... which was too floaty... and I've never even seen him with it!

This weekend over here we have the sacred Easter Contest. I just looked at posted photos of the event on 2ndlight.com. As I have also been a respected elder longboarder on this coast, some of the contestants are my friends... and I look at the photos and they're all stuck in a circus. Look a certain way, get on the tip, stay there as long as you can, stick one foot up in the air to be really cool... in short, achieve cookie-cutter holy grail appearance, and see if the judges liked you best. How empty.

That very day I was ALL BY MYSELF 18 miles south entering tubes and doing multiple off-the-lips and S-turns in total contemplative bliss on my 5-foot balsa soul machine, complete with red 9.5 Velzy fin. SO cool and SO fun... all alone. Where is the world?

The world is rallying to the media-driven battle cry of the longBORG and the shortBORG. And then... there is us... the rebels. Yes, kage, let's try to keep quiet. Even though, even if we did start shouting from the mountaintops, I suspect they'd still be unable to hear or see.

[Poobah]

Pride? I can see some folks having pride in keeping a tradition alive, or pride in riding a board they made. Perhaps it's more important to have very little shame. Especially if you have to walk down a beach on the North Shore carrying something that looks like your mama's ironing board.

[Kneeridin]

We play with handboards, warped marine ply, cubits, and spoons. We rejoice our craftiness in the search to connect the soul to mother ocean. We seek the power of the wave, riding lunch trays and Leprechauns. We choose the steep drop of reason and carve towards the high knife-edge of sanity.

I will not be assimilated.

[eef]

[bgreen]

I have a bit of a different take on this. I ride a shortboard and have two quite different paipo boards (a HPD and one, soon to be 2 of John Galera's boards). Each board is ideally suited to quite different conditions/types of waves, though I have been known to surf all 3 in a session (one after the other of course, which can make for a long surf).

With one exception where two guys ended their comments with "you gotta be kidding" when I took the HPD out at a solid sized rock point, all sorts of people take an interest in the paipos ranging from 13 year olds whose boards are no longer than the paipo to older guys who comment on the boards being a blast from the past and to the intruigued.

Paipo boards have given me a lot of fun and a whole new perspective, being closer to the water as well as a greater appreciation of all surf craft and their merits.

I'll be heading off for a trip in a few weeks and stuffed in the board bag will be my shortboard (a 7') and a paipo.

Bob

[eef]

Hi Bob!

I did get some interesting reactions when i took my frankenstein-style (made from the tail and fin of a windsurf board) Jaws paipo out:



some shortboarders couldn't believe their eyes at first but although strange it "seemed to work"

A few other surfers i met thought i just broke my board, and i even had some stand-ups try it!

Like you mentioned, i too got hooked on the experience of being low to the watersurface and the fact that even small waves look huge and hollow




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[dksnap]

I like what someone said about pride vs. no shame. Riding waves is such a personal experience. We all have our own reasons for what and how we ride. Maybe the 18 year old aggro shortboarder will see things differently once they experience a little more of life and get knocked around a bit. Look past all the stereotypes, paddle out and have fun. That said, I need to get myself on a paipo sometime soon!

[kage]

I think it's only a choice between floaty toys in the pool after all.

[tumak]

For sure, I'm not talking seriously about being prideful... only about how cool paipo riding is, and how lucky we are. "The few, the proud..." ... just a play on that Marine slogan.

I often feel a little self-conscious, just because of how different a paipo is. In the water, I just feel connected to something kind of primal. My solid balsa board is, to me, a blend of ancient and modern: it is a small wooden board which is somewhat reminiscient of ancient Hawaiian boards, while at the same time having characteristics of what Greenough was riding (on his knees, of course) in about 1960. I think that if Greenough hadn't come up with Velo, his late-60's surfcraft might've looked a lot like what I have here. Mine, though, has a flat bottom with a concave deck, with pretty much 60/40 rails all around.

[Nels]