Interesting bit of surf history

[oldmansurfer]

I was just listening to Surf Stories which is a radio talk show about surfing that is on every Wednesday at 5:00 pm HST online at http://kkcr.org/ . They had Ben Aipa and Larry Bertleman talking and it turns out that the guy who made all my surfboards back when I used to surf long ago Joe Kuala was the guy who stimulated Ben Aipa to learn to surf really well and also to shape surfboards. I never heard of him back then and just met him by accident because I gave his wife and daughter a ride home when they were hitchhiking home because their car broke down. I was headed to the south side because there was no surf on the east side and I saw them on the side of the road and I had a van with lots of room so I gave them a ride and decided to take them to their home because I wasn't in a hurry just cruising looking for surf. She asked me if I surfed and I told her I did and she told me her husband made surfboards. I just happened to be looking for a board at the moment an told her and she agreed to get her husband to make me one. I really didn't want to impose on him but he was nice and talked to me about surfing and what size waves I was surfing and what I liked to do and made me an awesome board. It was a yellow tinted 7 foot diamond tail and it flew like a magic carpet. That board was so awesome, it was a step up from the board I learned on a 6'10" diamond tail. He made me about 5 or 6 other boards over the years and I loved every one of them. He also made the 9'6" longboard I used when I relearned how to surf. He would still be my shaper but he passed away. Anyway it's funny how things work out in life. I was so lucky to meet him. He charged me $90 for that first board partly because it was missing a small chunk of foam. Surfing has been the best thing for me. Still is but if not for him things might have been different.

[oldmansurfer]

I was also lucky to meet my current shaper.

[billie_morini]

that's pretty cool!
thanks, O' Man!

[dtc]

great stuff

[oldmansurfer]

The rest of the story is apprently Ben Aipa and Joe Kuala were on the same wave at Sand Island on Oahu and they colided and Ben got really angry at Joe who he didn't know but he was just off of football training and all agro so he had to swim in for his board and saw joes baord coming in too (a rocky shoreline so he got his board off the rocks and grabbed Joes board and was dragging it up and down over the rocks while he waited for Joe. Anyway long story but he was so angry he decided to surf every day till he was a better surfer than Joe. But it turns out that Joe was a really good surfer and after a year of attempting to be better than him he realized what he was doing and what he did was wrong and the next time they met he appologized to Joe. They talked a bit and Joe invited him to his shop and then on another visit Joe asked Ben to shape a board. He spent 10 or 11 hours and shaped his first board.

[oldmansurfer]

Here is a recording of it. https://soundcloud.com/surf-stories/ben-aipa-and-larry-bertlemann-on-surf-stories