Legendary Shaper Ben Aipa Crafted the Swallow Tail, Here's what Inspired Him

Squash tails. Pin tails. Swallow tails. Rounded tails. Asymmetric tails. Diamond tails.

So many options when it comes to surfboard tail choices.

The invention of the squash tails seems simple enough. It's flat, after all. But what about the rest? There might be more behind them than the concept of basic shapes.

Enter the swallow tail.

According to surfboard shaper and son of late legendary shaper and surfer Ben Aipa, the swallow tail has a story behind it.

Duke posted the history lesson above yesterday and captioned it:

"History of the Swallow Tail: Over half a decade ago… Ben Aipa observed a swallow tail bird flying around and was in awe of how the bird could change direction so suddenly.. This inspired him to incorporate the theory of the swallows tail into his boards thinking that it would provide the same reaction.

"Introduced in 1971, it was mocked as a design fad… by 1972 Michael Ho and Larry Bertlemann while surfing for Ben under the Surfboards Hawaii label made the design popular based off their performances at the World Surfing Championships.

"It is storied that some mainlanders after seeing the boards, cut swallow tails into their own boards the next day and taped them shut! This design element would be come all the rage by 1973 and is one of the dominant tail types to this day used by just about every board builder on the planet.. and is still a defining trait of AIPA boards.

"A Swallow tail is described as a straight angular cut into the tail. Not to be confused with a dove tail or fish tail that have convex curves cut into the tail. 'You have to be where surfing is going, before it gets there'-Ben Aipa'"

Big wave surfer Darrick Doerner shared an anecdote in the comments:

"From my early years of surfing going on now for 60 years I’ve always had swallow and bat tails on my windboards and surfboards ! I believe 90% of my sticks still are swallows and Ben always smiled at me because he knew I knew."

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