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.