‘Glide’ the Alaia
Meet ‘Glide’.
Glide is an Alaia surfboard.
She takes pride of place in our living room – a work of art leaning against the wall, a talking point to just about everyone who comes in; ‘What is that?’, ‘Where did you get it?’, ‘Can you actually ride it?’.
‘Glide’ (lovingly) came to life in my brother Yani’s hands – his first time shaping, out of a sustainably harvested slab of Paulownia wood supplied by our eco building wizard friends from@xylosinuous and @wooden_anchor_andy . There had been lots of shark activity and as the beach was closed, a bunch of boys got the tools out and got to work!
Gilde is very, very difficult to ride!
On those small days when you want to remind yourself to stay right in the pocket and compress deeply to stay balanced – and spin around everywhere… Glide is your perfect companion! Those days when most other people say; ‘awww the surf is crap’, that’s the time to bring her along – especially as we can’t bear to put a hole in her for a leg rope, and you don’t want her to bump into anyone.
Glide was designed asymmetrically to work better on the right hand breaks we have here on the Gold Coast and she has a little concave bottom aiming to get a little more projection along the wave.
There are so many, many ways to love surfing – to love playing the ocean. We started riding on dinged up old boards from garage sales and they were as much fun as the latest, modern, high tech, competition ‘blades’. It just depends on your goals and your mood at the time!
‘Glide’ is our constant reminder of where surfing all began – riding simple slabs of wood on those big Pacific waves…
Here’s how she was made!
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