Ben Aipa, Hawaii

By Tom Takao

Ben Aipa "Bowl's" 74'

Long before walking into Ben Aipa's new showroom and shaping room. We could have found a young Ben in a swimming pool at a private club before daybreak, learning to swim on his own. Because it was a private pool, that was the reason Ben was there so early. You had to be a member to use it.

So day after day Ben was there learning to swim. One day a gentleman caught Ben swimming there and asked how long have you been swimming here. Ben’s reply was I will pay for swimming here. The kind man looked at Ben and said we will work something out. Years later Ben would meet the man again at Inter Island Surfboards.

With the utmost respect for the man, Ben never forgot John Kelly Jr. the man who understood a young kid’s desire to learn how swim and his love for the ocean. Ben has kept that inspiration and it is reflected in his views on surfing, and coaching kids.


Ben with Bret Kaneshiro

With that in mind I find Ben talking to Bret Kaneshiro about board design. Hey Ben howzit and Ben looks over and says Oh howzit with a smile. It been awhile says Ben. Yeah about a year or so since Chun's I said.


A round da table left to right:Rafael Miro Quesada, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Luchio Miro Quesada, Michael Holmes, Dennis Gonzales, Hector Velarde, Ruben Miro, Jorge Vega (standing) Clyde Aikau, Jose A. Schinaffino, Eddie Aikau,Ben Aipa, and Butch Van Artsdalen 1969 Peru

We talked about the 1968 World Surf Contest in Puerto Rico and his trip to Peru after the contest. After that Ben puts a couple of his boards on the showroom rack. While looking at his boards I asked.

Ben when did you start doing the stinger, was it 1972 or 73? Ok, ok let me correct this says Ben, the word stinger came from the mainland. It was always sting, thats all it is, I get tired of trying to correct everybody, because it was already label stinger. It came out because what the kid were doing on the face of the wave. It all happened ah, when I did the swallow first. The thing came in and I did it. Went to the mainland to the World Contest in San Diego in 1971 ah 72 its the one that Jimmy Blears won.


Kewalo Pro Contest (Kewalo Basin) 1972 Pro winners L-R Sedlack, Kaikaka, Roberts, Kalakukui, Jimmy Blears, and Ben Aipa

Was he riding one of yours? No Jimmy was on a fish at the time and Nuuhiiwa was in the finals ok and Peter Townend and two kids from Hawaii were in it. Both those kids, I was making their boards at the time. So we were off to the mainland, the US had a surf off for the East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast and Hawaii to make the da kine of US team. They had a surf off at Oceanside, you know by the jetty. They had a contest going for a day to select the final US team. So, every heat that those two kids were in, they would win. Ok what happened is those two kids made the finals. Bertleman and Michael Ho, they were riding my swallow-tail boards at the time.


Ben with Rodney Nakanishi and Pat Kekua

But right after the day they had the contest to select the guys, the next day we went to practice, I couldn’t believe the other guys had chopped their tails, they chopped their tails. Wow, something happened. The design just caught on (snap of the fingers) by just those two kids. They put the icing and the candles on the cake, they both made the finals.

These kids, especially Larry at such a young age, he was beyond what he was doing you know I mean because of skateboard you know. So when we came home we were surfing Diamond Head by the Lighthouse and I was watching him you know and I told someone to take him home and I walked up the cliff and looked back. Larry was doing this roundhouse almost a figure 8 but somehow it was Ok because the board I made him; he threw it so far out, right before he crushed it and straightening it at the outlet (sudden direction change, heavy spray) putting it in a curve and straightening it out so to put the board into a draw, split the tail so deep that the board can make no slide, because the fin was so far up. So I stopped and I watched, and said Oh, kid!!! so I went back to my shop.

I was doing my work there putting down a blank and putting Larry’s dimension down and drew the outline of the nose, I drew the outline of the tail, I was going to draw the outline of the right side, I put the template down and it fell in. Oh the template fell in. I am looking at it there was my combination oh yeah! I see the forward edge and Oh Shit! The Hydro foil, Hydro foil races are on Sunday and it was a Sunday.


L to R 6'9" Epoxy core 18 3/16" X 2 5/16",/ Epoxy core 6'4" 18 1/4" X 2 1/4",/ 6'0" 18 1/4" X 2 1/4"

So I go down to the races and I talked to a guy hey what the reason for that, I talked to another guy, I talked to 8 different guys and get the opinion about the whole different design about the hydro foil was. That about the water and bringing, and dropping the foil half way through the turn you punch it and because of the hydro foil it settled down. So the boat picked up speed yeah, I went back to the shop and I put the template and measured and I shaped the board. When I shaped’em kinda co, I never do the stuff. When I cut the deck, it was square so I flatten and blended it. Then I took it and glassed it. Got Larry and the board and went back to the Lighthouse. What he was doing was even more now. He was going more, he was going farther, he was going higher, he was going faster.


Ben with Captain Rusty Spencer of the Sportfishing Charter Kuuloa Kai out of Haleiwa

And where he was going he was stinging the wave. He was just stinging the wave. What we were up to carried us a lot. We were doing this on the mainland with Surfing New Image with Donald Takayama. So I got with them and worked with 2 shapers up there and made my stings up there.

What happened was I guess, because of the changes in surfboard design other business were getting into it yeah. But looking at it, looking at the ads, they were prostituting the idea. They were making it look ugly. They of course you know, the way they make it, how they were making it, the fin were wrong, the bottom was wrong, They were chopping it you know, they prostituted the design. But it was my design and through Surfing New Image, we did a lot of them, we did it for 4 years on the Mainland.


Ben at Velzyland 1974 photo Leroy Grannis

Then da, that how it went you know, then MR, when I met MR, I met him in the San Diego World contest, he was on the Australian Team. He caught my eye, he was walking like a wounded seagull and he was riding a fish board, yeah. So I met the kid up there, we talked, we had dinner at the same place yeah. So we talked and I said, on his way back he should stop by Hawaii and give me a buzz. So I picked him up you know and go out to the country and surf. That how we got to know each other.

I made some boards for him. That must have had an influence on him? Oh yeah, a couple of months before he became World Champion he started shaping his own boards. But when he came to visit I would show him this and that about shaping. I set him up at Jock Sutherland house. (Regarding the MR fish and his surfing, the rest would become competition and design history)


Ben Aipa

Because I was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time. But the people that was changing surfing the Bertleman, the Ho, the Dane Kealoha, the MR. Just at the time when things were progressing. The guys in Hawaii you know, before I was making their boards, they were trying to do skateboard stuff and they cannot. So one year I went up to Santa Monica after the World Contest at San Diego.

So I met Alan Sarlo and Jeff Ho with Larry (Bertleman) at Malibu and went down to the main street on Lincoln. I was watching these kids being towed behind the back of a car. It was Alan Sarlo and Dog Town guys oh Jay Adams. I stopped and asked where Jeff Ho’s shop, they said around the corner. I went inside to talk with Jeff and I lost Larry, he went skateboarding. It got quiet so I went outside and everybody was watching Larry and what he was doing, laying out sweeps and oh unreal, he was amazing. So I hooked up with Jeff Ho and left some of my boards there for the time.

It just goes on and on, there's no end. Don’t forget the Dog Town Boys, they were the rebels. The Dog Town Boys rocked. When we came home. It was a year after when they came over and Larry took them to Uluwatu by Olakai it was da kine. They all came up there and were watching Larry and in the movie they shut out Jeff Ho, he was the biggest supporter of those guys. He was completely shut out.

Doing the competitive thing, for me it was going to the guys, hey look at the progression of surfing. You’re not progressing man, if don’t watch out the Australians are going to pass us, the California guys are going to pass us. So that was my involvement, getting into coaching. When I got into coaching not knowing that I was coaching Bertleman and those guys. I thought Ok, I coached the Hawaiian Team in the 82 or 83 World Contest.

During the 80’s I got off my label and went to Town and Country. They ventured into the longboard thing and I was the one doing it. Doing about 6,7,8 boards a day. They were all computer cut. I was the first to bring computer blanks into Hawaii. Also during this time I was coaching the Town and Country Surf Team.

Picture this I was working with Brad Gerlack, Sunny Garcia, and Johnny Boy Gomes. I coached Brad for almost 4 years. At that point Bret had leave. Ben says all through the years my hallway was nothing but pictures and stuff like dat. Ben had some pictures lying around on a chair and we talked about them. After that Ben showed me his shaping room.






Ben in his shaping room


Joe Kuala

Ben recalls when he met his good friend Joe Kuala. He was living on Sand Island and had been playing semi-pro football. He got hurt on the job and couldn’t play anymore. So Ben and his cousin would go body surf and borrow a board and learn to surf. During this time Ben was working for a lumber company and was their driver. He would take a truck load of lumber to a termite treatment plant on Sand Island that would coat the lumber. The process would take a few hours, so not a person to waste time.

Ben would leave his board at Sand Island and would surf for those few hours that he had to wait. That board was his first, a Mexican made board called Ten Toes that he bought at Wig Wam Departmnet Store. So he was surfing every day during his job. He would see Joe Kuala surfing Sand Island too. After awhile they got to know each other. Joe was working at Inter Island Surfboards and invites Ben up to the shop. The board Ben was riding didn’t have the right stuff. So Joe made Ben a custom board.

After getting use to it, Ben would enter local contest and became one of the top surfers in the field. In 1968 Ben won most of the contests that he was in and got on the Hawaiian Surf Team that went to the World Surf Contest in Puerto Rico. How Ben got into shaping was through Joe, there was a Wardy shop that was going out of business and Joe bought some blanks for real cheap. He tells Ben to shape a board with one of those blanks. So Ben was still working for the lumber company at the time and calls in sick. He goes down to Inter Island around 7 in the morning, this was back in 1965. He starts shaping the board with the help from Joe and by 7 that night he finished the board. Ben says wow, that’s how I got started in shaping.


The orginal shaping racks from Inter-Island Surfboard days


Joe Kuala with one of his boards that he shaped