The North Shore of Oahu has always been a hot spot for surfing. When Winter comes in to cool things down for some reason the waves get larger and Winter 2018/2019 was no different. From mid to late January, northwest swells from Japanese storms mixed with light southeast winds to create some Godzilla sized surfing conditions all around Pipeline.
To up the ante, O’Neill, the original American surf brand created a little contest about nine years ago. According to the Official Wave of the Winter Rules, from November 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019, a surfer and a videographer must visit the North Shore of Hawaii. A successful ride at the surfers own risk with no jet ski assist must be captured on video and submitted to Surfline.
A panel of judges – Gerry Lopez, Pancho Sullivan, Shane Dorian, and Shawn Briley judged over 70 submissions based on Wave Size, Degree of Difficulty of Maneuvers, Style, and Overall “Heaviness” Factor.
That’s the good news. Here comes the awesome news. The contest is over. The judging has been completed. Now all you have to do is join us around the fire pit at Mudhen Brewing Company, check out the footage on the big screen and hang out with O’Neill team rider Brett Barley. O’Neill rep Gary Clayton is bringing over all the entries and maybe some other good stuff. Kona is going to hook it up and play the videos for you. We are raffling stuff off. We have mystery grab bags. It’s going to be a party. The work is done. All you have to do is show up and drink beer, and maybe decide which surfer you think had the Overall “Heaviness” Factor.
Here's a little teaser.
So check it out. Get over to the Mudhen Brewing Company. Friday, May 3rd. the fun starts at 7:00 pm at 127 W Rio Grande Ave in Wildwood, New Jersey!
Anyone who’s ever surfed more than once knows that the chase for the perfect wave is never ending. The next part of that statement is once you’ve found the wave, the quest for the perfect surfboard shape is also never ending. That’s why Kona Surf Company is here. Surfers surfing in the surf are three variables constantly changing. Kona is shaping the boards to keep up with the changes. The Lemon Head is a product of an exploration that started as something then became something totally different yet stands alone as it’s own entirely unique surfboard.
We call this the Lemon Head because the wide, round nose creates a large sweet spot. This shape started as a Fish surfboard. Fish boards are traditionally fast and loose in small waves. We thought what do you have to do to give this shape more stability and control? First, we took the Fish and gave it a full, round nose. This definitely made the board more stable but the fish tail was still very loose so we thought what do we have to do to get some more bite out of this tail? Keeping the width of the tail – a big feature of the Fish – we inverted the channel of the split tail and gave it a bat tail! The Lemon Head is born. The wide platform nose is nice and stable and the center point on that bat tail gives you some great hold on the wave. That’s the first part but there’s quite a bit more that went into creating this shape. We are pretty proud of it and we think it’s worthwhile to break it down so you can get excited about it also.
Steve Lis' original Fish surfboard
The Lemon Head is great for smaller breaks. You want to surf this in two to six foot waves. If you don’t want to lug your longboard around yet still want to get out there and have some fun on a small day, this shortboard is a perfect alternative. This is a really cool looking shape. It’s an excellent introduction to shortboards that can be ridden by entry level or intermediate surfers.
The Lemon Head (with Josh for scale)
I mentioned that wide, round nose that provides added stability but it also has a nice amount of kick to it which is going to give you some nice lift on drop ins. The nose rocker is low, not as low as a nose rider but low enough to make paddling really easy. Also, traditional Fish surfboards have a pretty flat entry on the bottom. There’s a honking single concave running under the front of this that is going to push a lot of water fast.
The nose rocker curves quickly into a wide point pushed forward. This again adds stability to the front of the board. It’s great for shifting your weight to your front foot. Additional volume is packed into the dome there under your front foot. That volume tapers off into the rails. With this technique, the 60/40 rails are sensitive all the way through the board. You don’t get that hard edge and it helps dig the rails into the face of the wave and turn smoothly. Meanwhile that heavy concave under the nose transforms into a deep double concave under your feet creating a lot of drive forward.
Dimensions
Length
Width
Thickness
Volume
5ft 6in
20.65in
2.45in
32.31L
5ft 8in
20.84in
2.45in
33.59L
5ft 10in
20.98in
2.50in
35.49L
6ft
21.06in
2.58in
37.86L
That taper on the profile from the center of the board to the tip of the tail is probably the only line left that is close to the Fish. The bat tail keeps additional width on the rear of the board for stability. A little tail rocker, endless options for fins, the center point of that bat tail and a big vee waterflow that is pushing water from the double concave through the fins has got some fangs biting the face of that wave. Based on our research from our surf team, there seems to be two preferred fin set-ups. The combination of the single fin and the bat tail gives you that balance of stability and control. The waterflow blasting out of the double concave through a quad fin set-up also gives you a great balance of stability and control. Single fin is better for smaller surf. Quad fin is better for medium days.
The five finned bat tail.
So there is it, the Lemon Head. You’re going to want this under your feet on weak days where the surf is maybe knee to head high. That low rocker is going to get you into a lot of waves and make it real easy to paddle. The additional width and volume give this board plenty of stability. The waterflow and the fin set up balance that stability with a nice push forward down the line. This board is a lot of fun for all skill levels and we know once you pick this one off the tree, it’ll be your favorite.
Surfing is the only sport where the greatest innovations have been made by the love from it’s enthusiasts. These innovations have shaped surfing into what it is today. Board shapers are constantly making improvements to surfboards for more performance or stability. Whether it’s the smallest tweaks to one of the dimensions, or a new combination of materials to create the board, surfing is a sport where the tools you need to play the game are constantly evolving.
It was not all that long ago when everybody surfed on a longboard; the only reason for that was because that was the only surfboard available. A longboard is a wide, long surfboard that is about 10 feet long constructed with a single fin. Enter a teenage Mike Sciarra living in Wildwood, New Jersey enjoying the surf with his longboard, faced with a choice of masonry work with his dad or attending college. Young Mike chooses education. His two possibilities are Ohio (no surfing) or Florida (surfing hot spot). Mike takes off for Cocoa Beach to attend University and enrolls in Oceanographer classes at Florida Tech in 1967. A lot of big names are surfing around here and a few go to Florida Tech including Mike Tabeling. Mike surfed often with Tabeling and they remained friends until his death last year. Oceanside O’Hare, and Surfboards Hawaii had shops in Cocoa Beach and sponsored some heavy hitters like Gary Propper, Claude Codgins, Jeff Crawford and Greg Loehr. In between classes, you could find Mike surfing the Canaveral Jetties, Indialantic or Shark Pit.
A surfing revolution had been brewing for a couple years. In 1964, two Australians George Greenough and Bob McTavish, a crazy knee boarder from Santa Barbara, California and an amateur shaper from Australia start experimenting with surfboard shapes. Maybe they realized the surfing industry was a little stagnant. Maybe they were crazy and thought it would be fun to try something new. Greenough and McTavish experimented for a couple years and came up with “Sam”. Armed with and longboard as their only template available, they make a thinner, shorter, sleeker surfboard with different bottom configurations named Sam. In 1966, Robert “Nat” Young takes Sam to the World Surfing Contest in San Diego and crushes it. The surfing world is stunned, but Sam is not quite ready for prime-time yet. Of course we know today, surfboards shapes perform differently in different surf conditions. The North Shore of Hawaii is the take it, make it, break it, remake it grounds for surfboard designs where Sam was unpredictable. The missing puzzle piece was Dick Brewer who has been shaping boards in Oahu since 1960. Brewer has a secret surfing weapon: a short tear drop pin tail called the mini-gun he has been perfecting.
Nat Young and "Sam" in 1966.
In 1967, a wave that started in California and Hawaii breaks straight towards the East Coast and shakes the foundation of the surfing world. The longboarding dynasty was over and suddenly the pintail, concave, pointy nosed shortboards were the choice of the new generation.
Back in Florida, Mike has a bit of a revelation and looks for a place where he can transfer his college credits and tailor a degree that suits his needs better. Where else better for a stoked, young surfer in an industry in the midst of a major overhaul than Oahu? Mike transfers to the University of Hawaii in 1968 to study business and economics and act a scientist at the heart of surfing’s experimental laboratory on the North Shore.
Among the legendary and, dare I say godlike, surfers and shapers, we encounter Dick Brewer, Owl Chapman, Reno Abellira, Barry Kanaiaupuni, and Gerry Lopez, along with a whole host of no name surf worshippers who make boards to ride them in back yards all over Hawaii. Mike Sciarra and a bunch of buddies who all happened to take the long, strange trip from Florida to Hawaii start shaping shortboards at the start of the shortboard revolution among the prolific, prodigious, and prestigious.
After graduation and business degree in hand, Mike brought his board shaping skills back to his hometown of Wildwood, New Jersey and started Kona. Since Mike’s Hawaii days, a lot of surfboard shapes have been invented and perfected, but a lot of those friendships remain the same. Stay tuned for Part Two coming soon.
Steve Lis' original Fish surfboard
The Lemon Head (with Josh for scale)
The five finned bat tail.
