Alaia

Today’s word of the day is alaia, a fin-less, long, old-fashioned Hawaiian surfboard. As one tweeter wrote, “the comeback of the alaia is official when the NYTimes covers it.”

George Marvin’s 1914 article from Outing has pictures and stories about the alaia’s former glory days and this apt line: “Stripped to a blue breech clout, with his light ‘alaia’ like a dark mahogany ironing-board under his arm.”

From “Riding the Surf at Waikiki,” Outing, vol. LXIV, April 1914-September 1914
old-timer-surfer.sm

 

Modern video of a surfers on the alaia.