Paipos have always had a way of making people smile. Even the name feels funny to say! But if you know what a boogie is, you know what a paipo is.
Paipos have held a special place in our hearts for years. If you’ve spent any time around our shop, you’ve probably noticed that they tend to show up everywhere—leaning against workbenches, stacked in corners, heading out the door with our crew, or getting passed around on beach days when the waves are playful.
Over the years, we’ve built paipos in just about every form imaginable. Hollow and solid construction. Wood, cork, recycled PET, and other experimental materials. Some were purpose-built performance craft. Others were spontaneous one-off ideas born from curiosity and late-night conversations in the shaping bay.
That spirit of experimentation ramped up when we added some CAD skills to the paipo world. Now there are no limits. While solid paipos are easy enough to make, boards with shape and volume, built of wood, require a hollow construction and more thorough design process.
Suddenly, ideas that once lived as rough sketches were coming to life. This is the birth of Mike’s dream paipo, the Puffin.
Mike kept coming back to the radical spoon kneeboards designed by innovators like George Greenough—boards that looked unlike anything else in the lineup and were 100% purpose designed and built. If you’ve seen a spoon, you know how unforgettable they are. Those early designs challenged conventional ideas of what surfing should look like, and were the birth of the shortboard revolution of the 70’s, and that same spirit became the foundation for the Puffin.
This is our second hollow paipo—the Leaf model was the first—but the Puffin pushed our design and craftsmanship further than anything we’d built before.
Ironically, shorter boards are often the hardest to make. Every curve matters. Every contour becomes more pronounced. There’s nowhere to hide.
The Puffin’s bottom contour starts with a soft belly through the nose, helping smooth transitions and keep the ride forgiving as you drop in. Moving toward the tail, that contour blends into a subtle concave that creates lift, speed, and hold.
Then there’s the deck—which may be the most unique feature of the board.
To create the dished-out spoon shape and tapered rails, we had to rethink how we build our hollow boards completely. The deck is constructed in two pieces before being joined, allowing us to create a dramatic concave that helps lock you into position.
It feels incredibly intuitive—like the board is inviting you to settle in and go faster.
The wide tail creates plenty of planing surface, while the thinner profile keeps it light and easy to duckdive. Surf it finless, or add any combination of single or twin tab fins. It’s fast in small surf, playful in beach break peaks, and surprisingly capable when conditions build.
The best part of paipos? They’re incredibly democratic.
A pro surfer can push one to its limits—drawing lines, trimming at high speed, and finding entirely new ways to engage with a wave.
A kid can grab one and discover the thrill of wave riding for the very first time.
An older surfer looking for a lower-impact way to stay connected to the ocean can paddle out and rediscover the pure joy of sliding across a wave.
That’s what makes paipos so special—they remove barriers.
And above all, they bring people back to the most fundamental feeling in surfing:
Joy.
A reminder that surfing can still feel playful, creative, and completely new.