A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Beschen, Shane

Long, thick, narrow, finless surfboard, usually built from wiliwili wood, thought to have been used exclusively by pre-20th-century Hawaiian royalty. The largest of the three olo boards in Honolulu's Bishop Museum is 17 feet long, 16.5 inches wide, nearly six inches thick, and weighs 168 pounds. The olo board is convex on both sides. (For comparison, alaia boards, used by royalty and commoners alike, were between seven and 12 feet long, slightly wider than the olo, mostly flat on deck and bottom, and much thinner than the olo.)

Prayers were made to the tree from which an olo board was made; the tree was then cut down and carried to a beachfront canoe shed. Shaping was done using stone adzes and coral heads of varying degrees of roughness. The finished board was stained with mud, and rubbed with kukui-nut oil. After use, it was rinsed in fresh water (salt water is corrosive over time), again treated with oil, wrapped in cloth, and suspended from the rafters of its owners house.

There are no eyewitness accounts of olo surfing, but it seems likely that the boards were used for the sole purpose or riding unbroken waves. "It is a good board for a wave that swells," 19th century Hawaiian scholar John Papa Li said of the olo, "but not for a wave that curls over." Other historians have suggestioned that the olo may have been designed for big surf. Large waves move faster through the ocean and are much harder to catch than small waves, and the olo had a great paddling advantage over the alaia. Even more so in big surf, however, that idea likely would have been to avoid breaking waves. Many Hawaiian surf spots have a deep-water channel adjacent to the break, allowing the surfer to paddle out without meeting any whitewater. Some of these breaks, too, have a shoaling area beyond the surf zone, where open ocean swells first begin to tilt up. This may have been the intended field of play for the olo.

In 1992, big-wave pioneer and former board manufacturer Greg Noll crafted a 15-foot replica olo from a 700-pound slab of redwood that he let dry in the mill yard for two years; he shaped the board with a chainsaw and power planer.

In the 2010s, former pro surfer CJ Kanuha, under the tutelage of Hawaiian surfer-scholar Tom Pohaku Stone, began making koa wood olos on the Big Island of Hawaii. The gorgeous boards caught the eye of wealthy collectors, and by mid-decade Kanuha had sold olo boards—for roughly $25,000 apiece—to Paul Allen, Bill Gates and Kelly Slater.

olo board

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features