Ben Aipa was watching a boat race at Ke‘ehi Lagoon in 1974 when one particular hydroplane caught his attention. While the other boats slowed down and made wide, sweeping turns around the buoy, the hydroplane pivoted sharply, released a burst of water, and accelerated through the turn. For Aipa, the connection was undeniable. He began thinking about how that same principle might be applied to surfboard design, how breaking the outline could allow a board to maintain speed and surface area while suddenly releasing and pivoting through a turn. SURFER magazine archives From Hydroplane to Surfboard In the mid ’70s, the Shortboard Revolution was still underway, and boards were largely living in the single-fin era. Aipa saw an opportunity. He took a shaped blank with a swallowtail, dropped a template inside the outline to pull the tail in without sacrificing width farther forward, then carved a sharp interruption, a wing, into the foam with his fingernail.…