Pocket Rocket Pae Po’o

Description

This Board like all our Pae Po’os, is designed in homage to Harry Akisada, Master Pae po’o builder, champion and legend.

This board is designed to perform in all conditions. This board excels in longer,  lined up waves  with steep and flatter  sections where you need to draw longer and higher lines to increase speed down the line. The larger size allows more glide to connect sections and more rail means more speed with options to maximize forward trim and lift the fins out of the water.  This board is still smaller and more maneuverable than the traditional Pae Po’os built by Harry Akisada and  Paul Lindberg’s Fiberglas Hawaiian Paipo Designs.  The idea behind the design is to emulate the advanced hydrodynamics  and directional tracking of the slight triple conconcave  in a compact format that offers more responsive feeling than the longer, wider and usually heavier traditional Pae Po’o board.

As with all Pae Po’o, the ride begins with a bodysurfing style take off with arms extended in front.  As you begin to slide down the face of the wave, and angle across, the hydrodynamic principles of the pocket rocket come into play, allowing you to pull the board underneath your chest and hips and rise up on your arms and especially your inside elbow as leverage. As more of your body comes out of the water your speed increases and you can match the speed of the wave, riding the high line for speed, stalling for the barrel, cutting back for the next section.

This mid-size board makes longer arcs,  flowing turns and allows for the  forward trim that maximizes speed.  Mid-size makes it easy to turn and hang onto and limited buoyancy allows easy duck dives under waves and good control pulling through the back on closeout sections. In my opinion these boards are much faster than handplanes with less chatter and arm and shoulder tension required. See our design page for theoretical musings.

These boards are handmade, one at a time in Santa Cruz California. They are hand shaped and laminated with either 5 or 6 layers of of material and vacuum bagged to create a pre tensioned shape with a slight upward bend in the front  and  a slight triple concave tail that resists bending front to back to limit flex and put more energy from the wave into directional flow under the board.  They are very strong, flexible, repairable and will give a lifetime of service.

Wood and cork epoxy sandwich construction, slight triple concave, hand formed rails, light-on-dark racing stripe stain on the bottom, thumb grips and soft touch, comfortable cork top.  Option is an extra layer of cork for buoyancy and stiffness. Also available with a 1/4’/20 threaded socket built into the deck to attach a camera or leash (which we do not recommend, but respect your decisions)