I gave my old Aipa stinger to a friend and his wife to use as a paipo board 25 years ago. I recently checked to see if he still had it...but alas....he had left it in the rafters of his old garage when he bought a new house.
It was a 5'4" twin fin made for the Country....ie..VLand. It worked bitchin' on double up reform reef surf, but was crappy on the more slopey waves CA is famous for. These things need dredging walls to work at their best potential.
I can remember why I gave it away now. McGuire, my brother, Duane Inoye, and myself went to NewBreak one stormy winter day while we were here on vacation. Surf was running 5-8' outta the NW and it was an angry storm driven swell. Conditions there were marginal at best and after about two hours of dodging and pounding we decided to head for "East Mission Jetty"....as we so appropriately called it due to the inland transplants.
It was dredging here also. My first wave was intense...but I ate $hit royally as the stick wouldn't perform correctly. I tried again and got beat down even worse. Next wave I get up and the board is undulating underneath me like a frickin' rollercoaster. I kick out, flip it over, and discover that it is cracked in half....but the glass is intact without a sheer or a delam.
So I paddle in and freeze waiting for everyone else to get there fill.....took them 2 hours the chumps.
I roughly pached it over and a couple of weeks later, then took it to the Rock....whereupon it proceded to plow like a barge on every wave....the magic was gone.
So giving it to my pal was not a loss for me, but it was a big gain for his limited surfin' experience.
That board design rocked in it's time frame...soo far advanced than everything else on the market. It ate the Lis fish up as an apetizer by comparison.
I had a 5'8" hand me down Harold Iggy twin fin from Mcguire at the same time and it became my go to stick after this one croaked. This stick had won him a few back to back US Titles and was majick allright. It was around '78 when I got it. That thing tore thropugh all the LJ reefs like butter....it really rocked at Hogan's and the ellusive deadly Vetours.
I can remeber it's last ride......an insanely roping 8' swell at RockSlides. I got one from deep on the reef and screamed in the pocket with four complete cover ups to the channel......well the channel walled out and I elected to ride it to the end for the hell of it......I got drilled bad and 3/4 of the deck delamned and peeled away in that wipe out.....but man it was worth it.
I repaired it and it still worked better than most of the sticks being shaped here then....until the GIRLFRIEND FROM HELL beat the $hit out of it with a giant ballpeen hammer cause she was a jealous insecure she-wench.
...I can still visualize it lying in the bed of my bus looking liike a worn out pin ball machine waiting for some balls......I didn't know any shapers willing to work at copying it then and sadly heaved into the garbage bin nextdoor....two months later I had me a self designed rocket fish that Ned McMahon shaped for me and it was a brave new world.
That Aipa today would be worth some cash to a collector...but a fortune to a shaper.
As a note....they both had yellow ski rope handles....one of the smartest things going pre leash in one way....unbeliveable kinetic energy for leverage and loading up G forces in another....at the time those ropes allowed boards to perform above their design limits. They allowed you to ride surf far above the boards capabilities in larger surf....however within 3 years Bud had resolved the design flaws and the ropes weren't needed anymore....
....but I can still "feel" being stretched out parallel over the water, fully compressed by G's, driving perpindicular off the bottom parallel to the heaving wave, and having all that energy harnessed on the rail just ready to explode out of a gouging carve.....
Man those were the days when when ya really had to know how to surf....
.....it's all to easy now....as today's boards come with auto pilot.....any monkey can do it.....lean, turn, lean turn, flap yur arms, pose for the camera, grimace like yur a real bad man......etc.
I wonder if it that Aipa is still up in those rafters......it's a dangerous part of town to go askin' questions in now days.