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LONGBOARDING
the classic art
the concept of surfing across the face
of the wave on a smaller board (still at
least 9-10 ft). Copeland and Stoner also
helped locals to make copies of their
boards, introducing modern surfing and
surfboards to New Zealand. These new
surfing techniques put more emphasis
on the surf conditions, causing surfers
to go in search of better locations and
conditions to hunt for breaking waves
that peeled off rather than crashed
straight to the beach. Basically, this was
the birth of surfing, but it was all still
longboarding
Sure the shortboard era came and
stayed, but in the background,
Longboarding still managed to tick
along. There came a full resurgence in
early 1990 as surfers saw the value and
appeal of the longboard.
The art of Longboarding is timeless, it is
an art. They say that longboard surfing
is a state of mind. An idealized stage of
mindfulness.
In the 1960’s surfing arrived in New
Zealand not surfing as we know it but
Longboarding. A few clubies were playing
with hollow surf skis but not until 1959
did two Americans come in New Zealand
and kicked alive a revolution and a
culture.
However, surfing has always been a part
of Māori culture, the practice was called
whakahekeheke. It was carried out using
a variety of craft, including boards, or
kopapa, and even bags of kelp, but the
Christian missionary ‘killjoys’ put a quick
stop to that.
Surfing came back into focus following
a tour of New Zealand by the Hawai'ian
surfer Duke Kahanamoku in 1915 at Lyall
Bay Surf Life Saving Club, in Wellington.
Where he gave demonstrations to locals
on how to surf and by the 1920s and
1930s, New Zealanders were surfing
using solid wooden boards or hollow
ones mainly for surf lifesaving.
Surfing was utilized in the Surf Lifesaving
movement, which used heavy hollow
longboards to paddle through the surf
and rescue people.
Up until this point, surfing consisted
of riding the wave in a straight line
directly to the beach. In 1958, two
American lifeguards, Bing Copeland
and Rick Stoner, came to stay at Piha
Surf Lifesaving Club and introduced
There are more longboarders in the
world than you might think. Some of them
are not full-time ‘loggers’; they own a
respectable ‘quiver’ of boards, and when
the surf is smaller, and other surfers are
sitting on the beach the longboarders can
enjoy the smaller waves as much as, the
more powerful ones.
The 1990s kicked off the nostalgia
period, and the classic longboard
shapers started getting back to the old
designs. Shapers like Roger Hall from
Surfline in Ruakaka who had never left
his roots in Longboarding began a new
era in longboarding New Zealand and
started to come up with some innovation.
Currently, he is designing board with a
wing keel that does not require a fin!
.
There is less rip and tear on a longboard
than a shortboard, but there is still a
range of moves to be made and refine.
Nose riding, tip riding, helicopters,
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