Jon Wegener is a shaper who builds mod­ern wood surf­boards based on the ancient Hawaiian Alaia. Together with his brother Tom, they want the surf­ing world to know we don’t need foam, fiber­glass, and fins to ride a wave.

What was your life like grow­ing up?
I grow up here in the South Bay and my broth­ers were a big influ­ence on me. They were older than me so I would tag along when­ever they went to the beach. I’m the youngest – my brother Tom is five years older and my brother Curt by eight years. That got me boo­gie board­ing. My brother Tom stuck with surf­ing, and of course he has became pretty famous for what he’s done. My other brother Curt is a com­mer­cial fish­er­man. We were all water-oriented and never got into much else.

For col­lege, I went down to San Diego to study at Point Loma for five years. Spent a lot of time surf­ing. The col­lege was right in front of Sunset Cliffs. There was also Ocean Beach, Mission Beach. I surfed my way from there to Black’s. I really enjoyed surf­ing Black’s.

What was your first surf­board?
My first board was a hand-me-down from my brother Tom. It was a Rick “pig board” and it was a 6’8″ sin­gle fin round pin with kind of a big, wide. By no means a long­board nose because long­board­ing was not going on in 1981. And the next four boards were sin­gle fin round pins. It was Tom’s influ­ence – he was into long­boards at the time. There were twin-fins and thrusters out there, but my brother wouldn’t let me ride any of it. My brother was a strong pro­po­nent of the clas­sic style of the ‘60s and ‘70s – no leashes, things like that. And that was my influence.

Do you remem­ber the first time you stood up on a board?
My friend and I both went down to the beach with our lit­tle Hilton boo­gie board and that day, Rick and we both stood up on a lit­tle day at Rat Beach. And it was awe­some! Boogie board­ing was really fun, but stand­ing up was a whole new thing. It was like being on top of the world look­ing down – and you’re just going along and angling.

Who inspired you when you were young?
My major inspi­ra­tions were my brother Tom and his good friend Bill Burke. Bill was also a long­board rider who starred in a cou­ple of Tom’s films in the ‘90s. He was also a big time skate­board­ing and surf­ing influ­ence on me.

But in the big­ger scheme of things, it would have to be Gerry and Rory and the whole crew from the ‘70s surf films. Also Larry Bertlemann and Buttons.

How did you get involved in shap­ing?
Again, it was my brother’s influ­ence. He had started a cou­ple of years before me and our par­ents were really nice about let­ting us work in the garage. We didn’t shape so much in the garage, but we did glass in there. Because we didn’t have a lot to spend, it was key that we did every­thing our­selves. We’d buy our fiber­glass and resin either from ET Surfboards or J & C down in San Pedro. At that time blanks were like 40 bucks and glass­ing mate­ri­als were about 40 bucks so we could make boards for about 80 dol­lars. We would ride the board and then go on to the next one.

What were the fac­tors that led you into the wood surf­boards?
My brother remem­bered the feel of the balsa surf­board. He decided to start mak­ing hol­low wood surf­boards that he remem­bered as a kid. Initially I didn’t get into the wood thing just because it was just so inten­sive. Then we started mak­ing the Alaia boards! I real­ize now what I was miss­ing. It has a cer­tain amount of flex with­out being too flexy. I’ve been work­ing on the wooden surf­boards for the last three years. You don’t need foam, fiber­glass and fins to ride a wave. You can do it on a piece of wood.

What has been the reac­tion to the wood boards?
When some­one stands up and angles on a wave with an Alaia not only are they hooked – they get super excited. The ride is unique enough that it sep­a­rates itself from a nor­mal day of surf­ing. It has a lot to do with speed. It almost feels like grav­ity because you are rid­ing on a board that is stick­ing to the wave in a dif­fer­ent way.

We’ve had rid­ers like Dan Malloy, Rob Machado, Chris del Moro, The Marshall Brothers, Cyrus Sutton, Ryan Burch, Jacob Stuth, Dave Rastovich, Mike Stewart and Kassia Meador. And I get e-mails from guys all over that write and say “I’ve got it to go” and “I’m crazy about it.” Basically, any one that has an open eye for other types of rid­ing equip­ment will try an Alaia.

Who do you want to give a shout-out to?
The shops that took a chance on us. Patagonia in Cardiff has been the biggest sup­porter. Icons of Surf, Thalia Surf, Mollusk Surf, Central Coast, and Wetsand. There are many oth­ers and I apol­o­gize if I left any one out. Basically any­one who took a chance on us and put our boards out there.

What’s next for Jon Wegener?
We got tons and tons of stuff going on. We’re tran­si­tion­ing the Alaia board into other types of boards. We’re work­ing on mak­ing some wood boards that are more “floata­tious” (laughs). And we’re hav­ing some good results. I got a new board I’ve been rid­ing called the Bluegill model. I think you’ll be see­ing a lot of these. Incorporating the speed of a fin­less board… we’re mak­ing ‘em and they are going to be hot!

More infor­ma­tion about Jon Wegener Surfboards (US) can be found here. Tom Wegener Surfboards (AUS) can be found here.