Infinity Surfboards began business in 1970 where Steve Boehne and his wife Barrie open their first shop in an old gas station in Huntington Beach. Since then, their shaping business has grown considerably with over 30,000 Infinity surfboards shaped and the shaping crew currently features Steve and Dan Boehne, Larry Cobb, and Ryan Engle. As Infinity’s founder and main shaper, Steve has shown all their shapers his techniques and views on shaping water craft. Steve began surfing in 1959 and years later moved towards making surfboards. He had shaped a hundred boards as a back yard shaper when he began work at Gordie Surfboards. Steve learned a lot from Gordie (known for fancy stringers & tail blocks in his classic longboards) who helped Steve develop his philosophy and shaping style. He currently still shapes over 250 surfboards every year. He and his wife have also had great success as tandem surfers winning six USA Championships, six Makaha International meets, two World Titles, and other tandem contests.

Infinity Surfboard Models

Cluster – Three fin design featuring V bottom and the biggest finds on the rail and with clustered fins.
Secret Weapon – Cluster model that works great in beach breaks. Short and thick with shortboard maneuvering.
Rad NoseRider – This model is a fast trimming and levitating nose rider.
Competitor – High performance longboard designed for competition. Light 4 oz glass, thin, responsive, and a double concave bottom.
Classic – 60/40 raisl provides a natural feeling ride along with smooth and flowing turns.
Stylemaster – Classic design with improved performance features.
Rich Chew Models – Competition model but with more floatation.
Floater – Designed for big or matured guys to give you enough float.

Infinity Shortboards

The Blurr
Geoff Brack Pro Model
The Automatic
The Silverback
5F
Ariifa Gun
Rawson Guns
Authentic Retros
Summer of ’83

Stand up paddle boards are in high demand right now and the supply of quality stand up boards is still playing catch up. Here in Hawaii, stand up paddle (SUP) board shapers who have been shaping boards from traditional fiberglass materials have become so overwhelmed with demand that the average wait time for a SUP has ballooned to six months. The SUP demand has been so high that surf shops specializing in stand up paddle boards have popped up, most notably Wet Feet in the Aina Haina Shopping Center. The company claims to be the world’s first SUP surf shop and offers a variety of stand up epoxy surfboards, stand up paddles, and other SUP accessories.

Wet Feet Surf Shop – Aina Haina – Specializing in Stand up Paddle Boards & Accessories

So why has stand up paddle surfing generated so much attention in such a short time span? The sport of SUP surfing has been around since the early days of Duke Kahanamoku and the Waikiki Beachboys. It saw a recent surge in popularity after many of the big wave surfers began using SUP as a way to train in the off season. Stand up paddle surfing requires a heightened sense of balance and a strong core which helps stabilize the board and maneuver it. You’ll often see a number of surfers on the North Shore paddling their SUPs in the summer time when the waves are small as a way to stay fit and in shape before the North Pacific re-awakens. Many SUP surfers have noted fat loss and tone bodies as a result of consistent stand up paddling and surfing and there are even SUP surfers in the Midwest paddling their boards in lakes! Stand up paddle surfing has shown the most explosive growth rate since wind surfing and has caught on in Hawaii, California, East Coast, Australia, and Europe.

A key to having fun stand up paddle surfing is choosing the proper board. Stand up paddle boards usually start from 10′ depending on the size of the surfer with typical width being 26″+ wide and 4″+ inches thick. The typical stand up paddle boards I’ve seen on the South Shore of Oahu are around 11’0 x 28″ x 4.75″. While I’m not the biggest fan of epoxy surfboards, I feel that stand up paddle boards actually benefit from epoxy technology making the SUPs much lighter and more ding resistant. Can you imagine carrying an 11′ fiberglass paddle board over your head every time you surf?

Every surfer should at least try stand up paddle surfing at least once and see how much core strength they develop and how much fat you start burning. You’ll also notice that your surfing will begin to improve. I’m a constant fan of experimenting, learning, and riding a variety of different surfboards.

Stand Up Paddle Shapers and Shops – Oahu

Wet Feet Surf Shop Hawaii

Kimo Greene Surfboards

Tropical Blends Surf Shop

SurfCo Hawaii, the Oahu based surf company that produces nose guards, diamond tips, quick fix ding repair, and Proteck fins has created an interesting traction pad. Launched earlier this year, Surfco’s Hawaiian Hot Grip traction pads are the first ever clear molded traction pads which feature a CAD-designed one piece clear traction pad. The CAD design helps with streamlining the traction pad and the ergonomically designed air cushions provide a unique and comfortable fit for surfers.

The interesting aspect to this particular traction is the pad is manufactured out of the same material as Surfco’s noseguards, which provides a non-abrasive surface. If there’s one gripe I have about all the surfboard traction pads out there (Dakine traction pads, OAM, Xtrak, etc) is that those things rip my knees up pretty good when I surf every day. Last time I checked the pads had ripped all the hair off my knees so now I have bald spots!

The Hawaiian Hot Grip pad also directs water toward the back of the board due to the channels in the grip pad yet still provides an area for comfortable foot placement. The heavy duty peel and stick adhesive combined with noseguard primer (included) makes the application of the pad quick and simple. Don’t you hate it when your traction pad has 6 pieces and when you finally try putting it on your new board the pieces don’t fit and aren’t aligned properly? What a waste of time.

I’ll be getting a new custom surfboard soon and I’ll let you all know what I think of the Hawaiian Hot Grip traction pad. Stay tuned for a full review.

I’m sure all of you have seen various ads in Surf magazines claiming that the funky looking fin called Turbo Tunnel provides longer noserides and smooth powerful turns. I was curious as ever and tested the company’s 9.5″ fin as a single on my 9’0 Kimo Greene Honolulu model. I tested the Turbo Tunnel fin at one of Oahu’s popular town spots, Queens in Waikiki, which produces perfect slow and rolling waves that sets up perfectly for noseriding. Conditions were clean and the waves were in the waist to occasional head high range. I was pretty excited to see how much of a difference this fin would make in my noseriding ability and on the first few waves I got to the nose without much problem on my Kimo Greene. The Honolulu model in itself is quite easy to noseride but after testing the Turbo Tunnel throughout that session, it appeared that the fin didn’t feel any different than the standard 9″ Proteck Superflex fin I have been using.

The Turbo Tunnel website claims that the fin basically improves all aspects of performance in your current longboard providing longer noserides, quicker turns, and extra speed. There are also numerous testimonials on the site with customer claims of more noseriding stability and overall improvement of the surfer’s performance. In my opinion, the Turbo Tunnel felt like any other fin and the results weren’t as significant as the company has claimed on their website and various magazine ads. While I don’t doubt that their customers are stoked on the Turbo Tunnel, perhaps the actual measurable difference is minute and is more of a mental state where the surfer thinks that the fin is really pushing their performance to a new level.

I will test this fin again a few more times to find a definite conclusion on the Turbo Tunnel fin.

Wave Weapons, based in Oceanside, CA is a Christian surfboard company run by Louis David Lytle, a relatively well known big wave charger. He surfed and learned the art of shaping from Dick Brewer in Hawaii. During the 70’s and 80’s, Lytle learned a lot about board design by surfing Hawaii’s powerful waves at places like Pipeline and Sunset Beach. He took what he learned from Dick Brewer and made his own modifications based on his own surfing experiences.

Lytle has also shown his appreciation to our military by offering a blowout sale on brand new surfboards with proceeds going to their military surfing project. Their project was a success. 180 new surfboards were sold and nine U.S. Marines were given brand new surfboards. Military personnel always get a 50% discount on all in-stock surfboards. What a great offer!
Wave Weapons offers a variety of surfboards including the following shapes:

Modern/Hybrid Fishes
Twin Fin Fishes
Standard Shortboards
Guns
Mini Tankers
Longboards

Feugo Surfboards, based in Redondo Beach, CA features surfboards shaped by Roland Chocarro and Jennifer Holbrook. Chocarro has been shaping surfboards in Southern California for more than 20 years and besides shaping under the Feugo label, owns Secret Spot Surf Shop and the Surfworks factory. His Surfworks factory has worked with such labels as Stewart, Rhyn Noll, Harbour, and Irwin. He has shaped every type of board from fishes to kite boards and his philosophy is to provide a high quality surfboard at a reasonable price.

Jennifer Holbrook, who hails from Florida, has been developing her shaping skills while working at Chocarro’s Surfworks factory. She credits her surf instructing experience with influencing her shaping philosophy and has specialized in shaping boards specifically for women.

Feugo Surfboards offers the following custom surfboards & shapes:

Firestate Longboards – Offering both traditional and mini malibu longboards which feature a classic style nose  for hanging ten and a progressive last half of the board for high performance surfing.

Inferno Fun/Hybrid – These boards offer a full nose and wide outline for easy paddling and wave catching ability. The pointier nose offers better maneuvering than mini tankers with similar paddling ability.

Pyrotechnic Shortboard – These shortboards offering the paddling similar to that of a funboard with extra thickness and a wider than normal outline provides surfers with easy wave entry.

Hand Shaped Customs – Feugo also offers guns, fishes, and every other shape in between.

Shaper Gary Swanson of Hammer Surf believes that a great surfboard is designed off solid fundamentals; outline, rocker, thickness, vee, concave, and rail shape. He also believes in a fluid and clean outline where transitions are smooth from the nose to the tail. In sticking with solid shaping fundamentals, Swanson cautiously avoids fads and gimmicks typical in today’s overly hyped and marketed surfboards.

Gary Swanson has been in the surfing industry long enough to see the longboard/shortboard transition, single fin ear of the 70’s, thruster revolution of the 80’s, and the performance longboard exodus in the 90’s. He believes that each of these critical eras has brought new ideas and views on classic fundamental surfboard design and plans to keep Hammer Surf board designs state of the art yet deep in tradition.

Ted Kearns first started shaping in 1986 under the supervision of Outer Banks hero Murray Ross. He started out cutting fin patches and sanding rails for Ross and a year later both moved to Mickey McCarthy’s Sun Surfboards shop. Ted polished and glassed boards with Rascoe Hunt and the two started Gale Force Glassing in 1992 and soon their shop became a surfboard label with growing demand of Ted’s shapes. Kearns has been influence by Murray Ross, Lynn Shell, Mickey Mcarthy, Scott Busbey, Matt Kinoshita , Donald Takayama, and Greg Loehr.

Ted’s shaping philosophy is in understanding what the customer needs in his or her surfboard(s) as every surfer is unique with their own style, ability, grace, and athleticism. He also believes that every shaper should know how to shape all styles of boards in demand and shaping only one style board is boring. TK Performance Shapes offers custom surfboards from 5’2″ grom blades to 10’0″+ tankers and everything in between and is based on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

While we’re still talking on the topic of safety, I feel the need to recommend Surfco noseguards. The great thing about this product is that it does not affect performance in any way, yet can greatly reduce the risk of losing an eye. The pointy tip on shortboards creates an extremely dangerous hazard especially when getting rolled around in turbulent whitewash or when the leash causes the board to spring back toward the unsuspecting surfer.

Surfers have shared their horror stories with Surfco and all of them explain that if only they had used noseguards, they would have avoided major injury. If you visit the Surfco shop in Pearl City, Hawaii, there’s a book with testimonials complete with uncensored photos of surfboard doing plenty of damage. A California surfing rep pulled into a closeout barrel one day and as he was getting rag dolled, the surfboard snapped back towards him and the tip punctured through the side of his jaw all the way through his tongue! You could see all the stitches required to sew his jaw closed and the sickening image of a tongue resembling a shredded doughnut.

I wish more people used noseguards for the safety of themselves but more importantly for the safety of others. I recall one incident when a shortboarder snaked a wave from me by dropping in behind me and as he was flying down the uncontrollably and ended up colliding with me full speed. The tip of his shortboard stabbed my butt but miraculously I didn’t surfer any gashes. A few inches to the left and we would have been talking about a slightly different version of Gerry Lopez’s colon bag story. If that guy who collided with me had a noseguard it would have substantially decreased the risk of serious injury…kamikaze surfers like that should be required to use noseguards in all of their boards.

If you’re one of the macho types and don’t like people knowing that you use noseguards, Surfco offers noseguards in white or clear colors to help match your board and they also come in a Super Slick formula which doesn’t stick in your surf bag. Noseguards are available for the following types of boards:

Shortboards (Flip nose boards)
All other Shortboards (Retro/Older style boards)
Longboards
Funboards

This week we tried Surfco’s Proteck X-Foil regular flex fins. The Hawaii based company offers high performance fins which feature urethane edges providing surfers with fluid flow and more importantly, reduce fin-related injuries. These are not cheapo fins for beginners and while the trailing edges are flexible, they provide a loose and forgiving ride for advanced surfers.

Proteck fins thruster fins come in both 4.25″ and the standard 4.5″ templates. Surfco also offers fins in a variety of colors and fin systems including FCS, Future, Lok Box, O’Fishl, and NSP. The fins also come in three flexes: regular, stiff, and carbon flex.

We tried both the 4.25″ and 4.5″ templates with great results. What we found was that the 4.25″ fins work well with a smaller board (we tested it with a 5’9 TORE Rocket Fish). These smaller templated fins can help loosen your board up in smaller weaker surf (head high and under). Just remember, it wouldn’t make sense to use 4.25″ fins in your 7’6 funboard. On the other hand, the 4.5″ Protecks worked great in a standard 6’2 shortboard and felt just as good if not better than stock FCS fins. The Protecks provided a lot more confidence in hitting the lip without worrying about putting a gash in your head with a mis-timed lip smack.

The stiff flex fins work best in overhead and larger surf and also work well for the larger/heavier surfer. The Proteck Carbon Fins are extremely stiff and provide the least amount of forgiveness but work well in larger surf (overhead plus) and are designed for the better surfer.

Overall, we highly recommend Proteck fins. They provide surprisingly great performance and even more importantly, reduce the risk of fin-related injuries. With an unprecedented number of surfers crowding line-ups these days, we wish that every surfer would use these fins and improve their surfing and make it safer for everyone else.