Ben Aipa's influence on modern surfing has affected all of us. His major contributions to shaping are such things as the hugely popular swallow tail, the "stinger" and the modern longboard. In 1965 Ben also started his shaping career, thanks to Joe Kuala, who offered to help him shape his first blank.  There was a Wardy shop that was going out of business and Joe bought some blanks for real cheap. He tells Ben to shape a board with one of those blanks. So Ben was still working for the lumber company at the time and calls in sick. He goes down to Inter Island around 7AM, this was back in 1965. He starts shaping the board with the help from Joe Kuala and by 7 that night he finished the board. That’s how he got started in shaping. Since that time Ben has produced thousands of boards. In 1966 boards were changing, guys were going from the traditional "tankers" to shorter boards, 9 ft and smaller.
   The big change came when two kids that rode on swallow tails for Ben made it to the World's Finals at Oceanside in 1972. Those kids were Michael Ho and Larry Bertlemen. Some people had tried tails similar but he made them deeper and more defined. He picked the name swallow tail because of the way the bird makes really fast turns. During the 80’s he went to Town and Country doing about 7 boards a day. They were all computer cut. He was the first to bring computer blanks into Hawaii. Also during this time he was coaching the Town and Country Surf Team.  He was working with Brad Gerlack, Sunny Garcia, and Johnny Boy Gomes. A successful career surfer and legendary shaper; Ben was recently inducted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame.