There is a project to document the history of history of bellyboarding/paipo boards. I am working on the Australian section, Rod Rodgers is the mastermind/coordinator and John Clark has offered to fill in some of the Hawaii history. Volunteers for other parts of the world are open. We are also working on some interviews with people - John’s interview with Jim Growney can be found at: http://www.rodndtube.com/paipo/interviews/JimGrowney/Jim_Growney_2009-0810.shtml
I’d like to hear from anyone with ideas on who should be acknowledged in a timeline or people you think should be interviewed. They don’t need to be luminaries - there is an Aussie guy riding the same board he made in 1958, who briefly made board in the late 60s that will be included.
Regarding Australia I have seen photos of Bennet & Wallace boards from Sydney, Leigh Tingle made his Barracuda boards in the late 60s, Mick Carey made some from Currmbin, Jamie Farfor made ply boards in Victoria and I have seen a radical board from WA made by Don Vidler & Nev Kenyon. Scott Dillon may have made some as well. Some of these boards I have only seen as photos on the surfreseach site but there is now a surf museum at Currumbin, which has a neat collection. Shaoers, when they were made, how many, where they were sold - all are topics of interest.
If you’d prefer e-mail me : bgreen [substitute at symbol] dyson.brisnet.org.au
would like to hear from anyone with thoughts or information on the topic.
not sure if you check out the realsurf.com forum but there is a guy there called "puurri" who i recall talking about being or knowing the first to body surf a few spots in sydney and i think he rode/rides paipos as well. my memory is a bit vague but he might be good to talk to.
Thanks all. Regarding Rod’s site I know a few Aussie’s who tell me that they can’t access his site - I’ll pass on the feedback. Conversely, I tried to register for Realsurf because their weather forum looked interesting, but despite automatic replies, I haven’t heard anything back about registering. Will keep trying.
Idler - you’re not BJ are you? I may be down your way for a few days in November.
I might need more feedback to troubleshoot this. The home page has a couple of Google advertisements, Google search code for searching the paipo pages, and has some SHTML features. And too many graphics for now, but not a killer quantity.
Hey if you’re down this way in Nov, you should come along to the Bellyboard Champs? I’m still in the process of organising it all, but it’s mainly gonna be a fun day of floundering on bits of wood!
I’ll be in Lorne Nov. 9-12th - guess the bellyboard event is on a week-end. Do you know anyone at Surfworld at Torquay - I’m trying to find out the background to the lamaroo board which is on loan from a guy who used to ride it?
I’ll pass on your feedback to Rod. Can you access the forum site?
Need more information to troubleshoot this issue. For starters, please contact your internet service provider and ask why the site can’t be
accessed. Provide both the URL: http://rodndtube.com and the DNS IP 70.182.180.130
Also, what operating system version and web browser version are you using? You may reply directly to me at: rodndtube at gmail dot com. After I obtain this information it will be passed on to my hosting service provider if your ISP can’t solve it. Thanks.
Looking forward to everyone’s participation on this project that Bob Green plays a major role!
Follow-up: My hosting service provider says the following for them to troubleshoot on their end:
Need the user’s first three octets of their ip address (http://www.myipaddress.com/) its the first 3 sets (###.###.###.xxx) to determine the issue.
In other words, provide the three initial strings of your numeric IP by clicking ont he above link and copying the address and emailing to me rodndtube at gmail dot com replacing the “at” and “dot” and deleting the empty spaces.
IMO belly board history probably began thousands of years ago, but there's little to document it because Europeans didn't see it. No telling how long the Polynesian (and other warm-water coastal society) kids had been riding waves.
In addition to documenting the first recorded accounts from westerners to Oceania & elsewhere there is a story that is largely untold. Names like John Waidelich & Jim Growney, Sean Ross, John Galera in Hawaii. John has told of his instruction by Steamboat & Moses Mokuahi, Leigh Tingle who made a board in 1958 affter seeing a surf movie, Jamie Farfor who home made a potentially lethal boiler to bend ply, the Wedge riders, Dot from the UK who first started in 1948, Wally Froiseth & Val Ching riding stand-up, the cross over to the development of kneeboading. This is the tip of a fascinating iceberg of stories worth telling.
I'm sure there are a lot of great stories, I love history. I hope that the project includes a nod to the peoples pre-European ''discovery''. That part of history is largely ignored by many.
I am aware of records regarding Hawaii, Tahiti and NZ. Rod sent me some material about Peru and no doubt knows more, as does Surfresearch’s Geoff G. The limitation is what is documented and known about, so we are open to details regarding other info.
The ocean around Senegal can also be added to the list. Watching the wave riding segment on Endless Summer last week made me chuckle a little bit but such was the knowledge state of surfing at the time. It doesn’t surprise we that the area ocean people were surfing since they made canoes for fishing and because that area of Africa is a wave magnet from south hemi swells.
Sounds like you guys have good intentions to cover the ''roots''. Kudos for that.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that riding waves may have been more widespread in pre-Columbian times than the ''documentation'' would indicate. For example, the native peoples of the east coast of Florida were accomplished watermen: they harvested pelagic species and travelled to the Bahamas, they could free dive very well, and the beach was a convenient footpath for travel. These things are documented. They were beach-launching vessels through the surf all the time, it's hard to imagine they didn't ride a wave or two.
I make and sell paipos. Here’s my site, Xylemsurfboards.com. I know a older local guy Named Al here on the Big Island that rips on his. He grew up on the North shore and has been helping me test boards and refine my shapes.
