Body surfing instruments come by a trifecta of names; hand boards, hand planes, and the more recent addition – hand foils. The differences are subtle, but as with an analysis of the belly board and paipo (or pae po’o), delineation is needed and provided below.
Body surfing hand board: A body surfing hand board enables a body surfer to better catch a wave, hold their position, and draw a clean line as the wave distributes its kinetic energy toward the shore. The board is either affixed with a strap for a body surfer to slide their four fingers into, with the thumb placed outside of the strap, or is designed with a hand-hole for a body surfer to grip with four fingers while the thumb stays flat on the top deck. A few larger models have been designed without a strap or hand-hole, with the body surfer leveraging buoyancy, gravity, hydrodynamic lift, and the Coandă effect to keep their hand on the deck, but these are for advanced body surfers who are confident that they won’t lose their craft to the shore-break. A hand board is either made from wood or the same foam + fiberglass + resin combination as a surfboard.
Body surfing hand plane: Body surfers use hand board and hand plane interchangeably, and they are not necessarily wrong in doing so. That being said, hand planes can be manufactured using plastic (in addition to wood or foam + fiberglass + resin) whereas a hand board would not be manufactured using plastic.
Body surfing hand foil: A hand foil is the most recent (relatively speaking) development in the realm of body surfing instruments. They are shaped like miniature versions of surfboards with a foam core, one-to-two layers of fiberglass cloth, and resin to create a strong, lightweight, and waterproof outer shell. A strap is either affixed to the deck, or one-to-two handles (depending on the size of the board) are glassed-on. The biggest difference-maker, and why it’s called a foil versus a board, is that a fin is glassed-on the bottom – just like a single fin surfboard.
Brief History and Hawaiian Influence on the Development of Body Surfing Hand Planes and Boards
When Did the Hand Board First Appear?
Evidence supporting Hawaii as the birthplace of surfing is irrefutable. The Kingdom also lays true claim to the invention of the four primary types of wave-riding craft, including the Olo (between 12 and 18 feet), Kiko`o (between 10 and 14 feet), Alaia (between 6 and 10 feet) and the Pae Po’o (between 4 and 5 feet). These four were the catalyst for the surfboards and belly/knee boards that the world knows today. However, given the infancy of Hawaii as an habitable archipelago (as early as 300 to 800 AD) the Kingdom certainly did not invent body surfing. That honor would logically be bestowed to the first homo-sapiens near the Moroccan coastline some 315,000 years ago. But we’re not trying to figure out when surfboard riding or body surfing first started, are we? No, instead we’re attempting to hone in on when the hand board/plane first appeared.
There are all sorts of oral histories about body surfers first using slippers / flip flops to act as a planing surface to increase speed and lift, and help them glide on a wave. And if that was the case, could it be assumed that ancient Egyptians who invented the first flip-flops (made from hardened papyrus and palm leaves) around 4000 BC also toyed with footwear to catch rides along the wave-rich Mediterranean north coast and along the Red Sea? Firsthand accounts from the California coast also suggest that McDonald’s (founded 1940) food trays were stolen from the flagship restaurant in San Bernardino and taken to the shore-breaks that line Orange County. Although, if food trays were reassigned as the first hand boards, then ancient Egypt may get the credit once again. Tray-like vessels were used in ancient Egypt as far back as the Middle Kingdom of 2000 BCE. Others make a case for Benjamin Franklin, who was an avid swimmer when he wasn’t busy flying kites. Franklin made a pair of hand boards in the late 1770s, but he used them exclusively to swim, not ride waves:
“When a youth, I made two oval pallets, each about ten inches long, and six broad, with a hole for the thumb, in order to retain it fast in the palm of my hand. They much resembled a painter’s pallets. In swimming I pushed the edges of these forward, and I struck the water with their flat surfaces as I drew them back. I remember I swam faster by means of these pallets, but they fatigued my wrists.” (Benjamin Franklin, March 1773)
Franklin’s design (see right side below) morphed to feature leather cords for the fingers and hands to slide into. Less than a century-and-a-half later in 1933, a French naval officer by the name of Louis de Corlieu patented the swim fin. During demonstrations of his patent he also strapped small egg-shaped wooden boards to his hands (image on left below) to assist with swimming. Both Franklin’s and de Corlieu’s swimming accessories mirror early incarnations of body surfing hand planes to come in the preceding decades, although though there are zero accounts of them testing their wares in waves.
Benjamin Franklin’s hand boards (1773) | Source: University of Pennsylvania
Louis de Corlieu (1933) | Source: ushistory.org
Ultimately, it’s futile to attempt to lock down when and where any hand-guided instrument was first used to assist in body surfing. There’s simply too much hearsay with room for interpretation. What we can do is dig through the archives of purpose-specific craft that popped-up between the early 1950s and late 1980s. It’s within this timeline that the body surfing hand board/plane was introduced to the inside breaks of local lineups near you.
As with most things pertaining to the where and when of an invention in the culture of surfing, a variety of sources (including Wikipedia) incorrectly state that the first hand board “product” was introduced in the 1960s, by an Australian brand crudely dubbed Hand Surfa. The Australian Hand Surfa may or may not have been the first to use the word “surf” in their packaging of a hand-guided wave riding instrument, but they were not the first to sell the concept. The earliest record of such a product, was the Hawaiian Speed Swimmer, which was released a decade prior to the Australian Hand Surfa. Not only does its early 1950s box showcase a muscled Hawaiian being jettisoned down the line of a wave with the assist of its contents, the lifeguard-red plastic discs are fondly spoken of by Sandy Beach legends and Waikiki Beach Boys from the mid 20th century. The world’s best body surfer, Mark Cunningham, still has a Hawaiian Speed Swimmer set in his personal collection:
Original box image (bottom right): Beter Enterprizes LLC
Evolution of the Hand Board
In the early 1970’s, another Hawaii-based body surfer, Glen “Red Wing” Whitford (image above) was frequently observed riding the heaving shore-break of the North Shore Oahu’s Waimea Bay, and at Point Panic on the opposing side of the island. He often did so with self-shaped wooden hand planes in tow. Credited by some as the inventor of the wooden hand board, Red Wing’s efforts helped inspire other do-it-yourself hand craft that dominated the body surfing scene until 1977, when the original Morey Boogie body surfing HandGun was introduced. Whether or not it was a coincidence that Star Wars: A New Hope was released in the same year, the Morey Boogie HandGun had a Darth Vader-esque aesthetic, complete with a leash made from surgical tubing and Velcro strap to choke the wrist.
Images: Copyright protected by Surf Museum Hawaii
A number of offshoots of the Morey Boogie HandGun followed, but from a manufacturing perspective hand plane development flattened out in the 1980s and 90s. The temporary lack of innovation gave way to the coolest injection into the world of body surfing craft, even though it flew under the radar and beneath the shadows of West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, California.
Enter the Hand Foil
While the originator of the first body surfing hand boards / planes is challenging to trace, the inventor of the hand foil is known. His name is Mark Shepardson. Shepardson spent his early years body surfing the cold waters of Santa Cruz CA, along the very same beaches that Hawaiian princes introduced surfing to the Golden State in 1885. Almost a full century later, Shepardson started collecting broken surfboards and shaped (and glassed) them into miniature versions of their former selves. Instead of screwing-in straps for these new hand boards (which would create a water ingress problem) he reshaped broken surfboard foam into handles and glassed them onto the decks. For added function in managing the fast right-handed point break wave of Steamer Lane, Shepardson glassed a fin to the bottom of each board. The results were remarkable.
The first image below shows one of Shepardson’s original creations. This wave-rider is in the Surf Museum Hawaii (SHH) collection. The second image is of an early 1980s model that is in the permanent exhibit of the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum. At the time, he referred to them as hand planes, but came to realize that the integration of a fin changed the dynamic of the craft. The fin allowed the handheld vessel to generate an oh-so subtle lift and a smoother ride as it gained speed, making foil a more apt descriptor.
Images (top and bottom): Copyright protected by Surf Museum Hawaii
Soon after inventing the body surfing hand foil in Santa Cruz, Mark Shepardson moved to Oahu, where he continues to reside to this very day. Throughout the four decades (and counting) he has custom shaped hand foils for the likes of hardcore chargers such as Nathan Fletcher and Kohl Christensen, both of whom (among others) sing the praises of Shepardson’s contribution to wave-riding craft.
Today
Hand planes experienced a renaissance in the early 2000s. The trend has since become a mainstay thanks to the “ride everything” movement in the surfing world. Designs now vary widely vary in material, dimensions, rocker, and have become quite fashionable as a surfing accessory. High quality options can be found in boutique surf shops here on Oahu and throughout the mainland. Every surfer worth his/her saltwater should make body surfing a part of their repertoire and count a hand board, plane, or foil in their quiver.
Note: If interested in ordering a custom Made-in Hawaii hand plane, DM SMH through our Instagram profile @surfmuseumhawaii.
