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	1920 Risby Bros. Solid wood Belly Board 3ft 6''
	1930 Solid Wood Belly Board           4ft   5 1/2"
	1930   Solid Wood Belly Board           4ft 3 "
	1933  Surf-o-plane,  Dr Ernest Smithers
	1950 Lamaroo 5ft 1''
	1950 Lamaroo 5ft 6''
	1953 Plywood Bellyboard 2ft 11''
	1956 Paipo, Balsa  3ft 8"
	1958 Balsawood Bellyboard 4ft - Ridden by Leigh Tingle
	1960 Paipo Bellyboard  2 ft 8''
	1960 Plywood Bellyboard Twin fin 'Rocket'  3 ft 2''
	1960 Paipo by Farfor, 3 ft 5''  Tapa cloth laminated bottom
	1960 Bill Wallace Balsa Bellyboard 4 ft
	1963 Barry Bennett, Bellyboard Twin fin 5ft 1"
	1963 Bill Wallace, Kneeboard  5ft 3"
	1963 Skimboard by Blue Pacific 24'' (Diameter)
	1964 McDonagh Twin Fin Kneeboard 4 ft 9''
	1966  Bay Area   Belly/Knee Board       5 ft 5"
	1967         Barry Bennett  Kneeboard 5 ft 7''
	1969 Surf-o-plane Marlin model, surfer Nick Carroll
	1970  The Shoe by Shane.  Spoon decked  Knee Board       4 ft 11"
	1970  Zippy Board Small 'Hunters Toyline' 16''
	1972 Midget Farrelly, Coolite 4 ft 10" Rubber fin
	1973Jackson, Greenough Spoon 5 ft 10"
	1973 Ron Wade Spoon 4ft 8''
	1973  Barry Taylor, Flextail Kneeboard 5 ft 6"  Hand made fin box
	1973 Zippy Board Large 'Super Surfer' 3ft
	1975 Backyard,  Spoon deck Kneeboard 5ft 6"
	1975 Ron Wade Molded Spoon,  4ft 10''
	1975 Belly Bogger 3ft 7''
	1975 Rod Ball Design Ski tail Kneeboard 5ft 8''
	1976 Molded plastic handboard, 15 1/2''
	1976 Merrin, Air mat twin fin 5 ft 4"
	1976 Crozier, Kneeboard  Slab 5 ft 4" Tri boxes
	1978 Sky Kneeboard 5 ft 8 1/2" George Greenough Design Shaped by Chris Brock
	1979 George Greenough Design Kneeboard 5 ft 6 1/2" Shaped by Chris Brock
	1980 Coolite Twin fin adaptation
	1980 Morey Boogie, Mach 7
	1980 Crozier Tri fin Kneeboard, 5ft 7'',  Shaped by Peter Crawford.
	1985 Friar Tuck Four fin Kneeboard, 5ft 7'',  Shaped by Dale Ponsford.
	1985  Express Four fin Kneeboard 5 ft 7''
	1989 The Pod - Molded Handboard 12''
	1990 Zero Utra Light (Thruster Coolite)  5 ft

Before bodyboards there was plywood. Paipo rider Sean Ross, Pipeline, Hawaii.  Photo: Alan (Bud) McCray, Photo courtesy Rod Rogers

David Swanson and his and Val Valentine's Paipo Collection, Haleiwa, 2000. Photo and article by David Pu'u The Surfer's Journal, Vol 9 No 3, 2000 Pages 122-123

It does not appear to be a traditional Hawaiian surboard term and critically, it is not included in the Appendix of Hawaiian Surfing Terms of Dr. Ben Finney's groundbreaking The Ancient Sport of Surfing (1966, pages 94-96 in the 1996 edition).
Nor is paipo mentioned in the body of the text, with the term bodyboard preferred.

 In addition, there is no entry for the word in:
Pukui, Mary Kawena and Elbert, Samuel H.: Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian.
Revised and Enlarged Edition.
University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1986.

The earliest reference in a surfing book may be John Kelly's excellent Surf and Sea (1965).
He glossary entry for paipo, includes a possible derivation for the term and indicates it "is from popular usage":
There is no entry for bellyboard.

"paipo: A small surfboard from approximately one to three feet long held in front with the hands or beneath the chest; a belly board.
Some riders can stand on paipo boards.
The term is from popular usage but may stem from pae, to ride a wave to shore, and pu, the sea at midtide (Hawaiian)."
Kelly: Surf and Sea (1965) page 290.

Kelly's claim that "Some riders can stand on paipo boards" is confrirmed by a photograph by Val Valentine, facing page 192.

Puki's Hawaiian Dictionary (1986) confirms Kelly's interpretation of pae and pu.:
"pae.
2. vi. To land, disembark, come ashore; to mount or catch a wave, as of a surf rider; washed or drifted ashore.
... Pae i ka nalu, to ride a wave into the shore." (page 298).

"  pu.
11.  ... Kai pu,  a sea without animation, sea at midtide."

Note also that the entry for pu has an alternate derivation, that may be applicable to the dished nose design:
"pu.
6. n. canoe end-piece, both for and aft." (page 344).

Similarly, but far less likely, the term "pa ipu" (the a has an overmark) meaning "Calabash, wooden dish in general cooking utensil, bowl" [Puki: Hawaiian Dictionary (1986) page 303], also could have been adpted to describe  the dished nose design.

Kelly makes special mention of the wide-tailed dished nose design, however he identifies it as a "Skim or skitter board".

This is not to be confused with the 1960s Skimboard, a flat plywood, often circular, board that is not (normally) a wave riding craft. The rider would carry the board and run at full speed before lauching the it in the shallows and jumping onboard for a fast but brief ride. See #237, image right.

The glossary entry for the "Skim or skitter board" reads:

"A fast finless belly or paipo board about board 42 inches long and 30 inches wide and around three-eighths of an inch thick with a flat bottom-one of the fastest wave-riding devices."

Skim board; side, front, and bottom views.  Approximate dimensions:  length 42", width 30'" thickness 3/8", bow scoop 3". Kelly: Surf and Sea (1965) page 63.

"A Hawiian surfer cuts a fast right slide  in standing crouch on the zippy skim or  belly board at Kuhio pier, Waikiki. Photo by Val Valentine." Kelly: Surf and Sea (1965), facing page 192. Not a "Skim board", as described by Kelly.

At this point (June 2009), one early commercial use of the term is a decal for a prone timber board, possibly produced between 1935 and 1955. The decal reads: Hawaiian  PAI  PO BOARD  Mgf. By  FROISETH. The image was listed at stanleys surfcrazy logo library and is reproduced with permission, right.

John Clark, whom you probably know of, has written  several books on Hawaii and is working on a book on Hawaiian surf traditions.
He advised me, regarding this decal:

"Wally made his first Hawaiian Pai Po Board in December 1955, but he didn't like the way it rode.
He re-designed it early in 1956 and applied for a patent on it on May 9, 1956.
The decal was used only on his paipo boards, not on his surfboards."

I believe John has a copy of this patent and is in contact with Wally.
He also has done some interesting research into the origins of the term paipo.

Froiseth was probably Wally Froiseth, born in Los Angles in 1919 and who moved to Honolulu in 1925.
He began surfing at age eight and was active as a surfer, contest diector and judge until the1970s- a forty year surfing career.
The brief biographical notes (see Appendix C, below) are mainly based on Wally Froiseth's entry in Matt Warshaw's essential Surfing Encyclopedia and, needless to say, there is no mention of the decal or board under discussion.
With such an extensive resume  and out specific contemporary documentation or first person annecdotes, it is impossible to suggest a date for the Froiseth decal.
It could easily be anywhere between 1937 and 1970.
At a guess 1956 (???).

Note that John Kelly (quoted above) and Wally Froiseth were close surfing compatriots.
In 1936-1937, Froiseth, Kelly and Fran Heath developed the tapered-tailed Hot Curl design, setting the precedent for the templates of Gun or Speed boards for the next 50 years.
See Source Documents George Obelian : Give It  the Axe- Early Development of the Modern Gun
Ancients - Hot Curls - Simmons - Downing., from...
Surfer Magazine Vol 30 No. 10  1989, pages 104 - 105.

In the early 1960s, Val Valentine was observed building the dished-nose Paipo boards in Hawaii:

" I watched Val Valentine as he made a Paipo for me in Hawaii, and could see that there would be a better
 way of doing it.
He used a moulding surface to shape the bottom of the board.
This was formed in earth outside his house, and lined with cement mortar.
 He laid vaneers (sic) of timber in this with glue between, then pressed the whole thing with sandbags on top.
When the glue had set, he trimmed and finished the board.

 Concave tails to boards were all the rage that season, and Val was spending much of his time trying to build a concave Paipo that would work.
 I could see that this was not working out at all, and returned to Australia with one of his regular (non concave) Paipo boards."

Jamie Farfor returned to Australia and began manufcturing his own model:
"... I built a press that had a concrete base mould at table height, and was loaded with a hydraulic powered airbag.
 This makeshift thing ran off mains water pressure and put over 20 ton pressure on the boards while the
 glue set.
 Looking back on it, I was lucky that the thing never exploded.

 I started using timber vaneer, but was unable to get suitable quality of material.
 I then tried using layers of eighth inch thick hoop pine plywood, and found that with the extreme pressure
 that I could form the two way curve (shallow dome) at the nose of the board.
 By putting plastic sheet between, I was able to form 3 boards in the press at a time.

 With the stresses in the plywood, the curvature at the nose was less than with the timber vaneer."

Left: Paipo board by Jamie Farfor. Deck and bottom. 3ft 5'' x 29 1/2". Varnished plywood with branded decal and fabric laminated bottom. Right:  Branded Paipo by Farfor decal. Dimensions and photographs  Sydney Surf Auction, September 2003.  Catalogue No. 82 " PAIPO BOARD 1960's  All time rarity, plywood:  great condition." Thanks to Mick Mock.

The short length and stability allowed critical takeoffs and ride deep in the curl.
For this reson, they were particually suited to steep fast breaking waves such as Sandy Beach on Ohau and the Wedge in California.
Importantly, before the adoption of the legrope circa 1974, prone or knee boarders, by virtue of their proximity to the board, have more control during wipe outs, enabling them to ride deeper in the wave with confidence.
Thus, for a period, they dominated at rock-strewn breaks were wipeouts were potentially board destroying, for example Little Avalon, Sydney.

In the later 1960s in California, Paipo was used by several companies specializing in various prone and kneeboard designs, the advertisements often featuring easy transportation with the rider on a push or motor bike.
Several Californian companies located themselves at Newport Beach,  home of the famous Newport Wedge, such as Newport Paipo Boards (Box 5685, Santa Monica. Ca., 90405) which began around 1967 and by the mid-seventies had produced several models such as the Stub Vector, the Wedge Vector, the Concave Vector, the Shoe and the Knee Vector.
The boards often featured a hollowed deck, visually similar to the groundbreaking designs by George Greenough, and sometimes handgrips.
See Appendix D.

Also at Newport was El Paipo Kneeboards (Costa Mesa, California) and Hawaiian Paipo Boards. From Huntington Beach came the House of Paipo and Jack's Surfboards marketed Jack's Huntington Paipo.

Newport Paipo Boards Newport Beach

El Paipo Newport Beach.

Hawaiian Paipo Boards Newport Beach

House of Paipo Huntington Beach

Jack's Huntington Paipo Huntington Beach

The skim board is very simple in design having a perfectly flat planing surface with sharp breakaway trailing edges. It has no skeg. The size of the skim board is important in relation to the weight of the rider that its lift surface must support. Average dimensions are approximately 3 1/2 to 4 feet in length. The aft end is usually less than 3 feet wide, and it tapers somewhat to a narrower front end which is cambered to prevent digging. Most of them are made of 3/8 inch plywood, surfaced with the usual fiber-glass and resin. The curved front edge may have an elevated rim for gripping.

The riding technique consist of railing the extended aft side-edge of the skim board into the wall for the beginning of the fast slide. This enables ascent to a high position for the drop. On the drop, the board'is levelled with the water and tucked beneath the rider's chest, his head and shoulders extending over the front end and legs over the back end but not touching the water. The arm on the side of the slide (left arm on a left slide) extends forward to get it out of the way of any water coming over the side. The board then assumes a highly efficient planing position and achieves great speed.
On large waves, say twelve to fifteen feet or more, the skim board riders skid down the slopes hitting only the high spots, board and rider being airborne for a good part of the time. Without a skeg and drag produced by side pressure thereon, the skim board follows more closely the path of its own inertial flight and thus achieves the highest speed thus far of any wave-riding device."

APPENDIX C.
Wally Froiseth
In 1936-1937, Froiseth with John Kelly and Fran Heath, developed the tapered-tailed Hot Curl design, setting the precedent for the templates of Gun or Speed boards for the next 50 years.
See Source Documents George Obelian : Give It  the Axe- Early Development of the Modern Gun
Ancients - Hot Curls - Simmons - Downing., from...
Surfer Magazine Vol 30 No. 10  1989, pages 104 - 105.

The ultimate testing ground for the Hot Curls was Makhaka Beach, although the crew did make some attempts at riding the powerful breaks of the North Shore.
Froiseth and his step-son, George Downing, were the first to ride Lankiakea (1946) and Maui's Honolula Bay (1947), before testing the Hot Curl's in Southern California during 1948 .
He won the prestigious Makaha contest in 1959 (aged 39) and next year became the contest director until it ceased in 1971.
He was a respected and valued judge at wide range of surfing contests.
"...Froiseth built, sailed, and paddled all manner of canoes and catamarans."

Newport Paipo was conceived nearly a decade ago (circa 1967) to explore new avenues of wave involvement.
The testing began at the Wedge.
It had the energy and power needed to test our bellyboard and Paipo Board theories.
This experrmentation fed to the first commercially built Paipo and bellyboards in the surfing industry in the late 60's.
The Stub Vector, the Wedge Vector and the Concave Vector were air vehicles built and ridden during this trme.
We began working with kneeboards -in the late 60'5.
Our experimenting resulted in a radIcal two-in-one board called the Shoe.
It was designed to be ridden like a kneeboard or a surfboard, depending upon your wave position.
Our past ideas have evolved into a classic kneeboard design called the Knee Vector.
It's built especially for kneeboarding by people who have been involved in finding new approaches to wave involvement for ten years.
The Knee Vector is the culmination of those years of experience.

All Newport Paipo Boards have countersunk leash attachments, use the Single box FU fin system, are constructed of Clark Foam, and are available up to 5' 6 " in length.
(Flexible nylon rope handles are optional)

Dealers direct your inquires to:

1769
Joseph Banks and James Cook observe body and prone board surfing on the west coast of Tahiti.
1779
James King and David Samwell report prone board surfing by both genders in the Hawaiian Islands.
1788
William Bligh and James Morrison report prone surfing in Tahiti in extreme swell conditions.
Morrison also provides the first account of standup surfing and identifies Iddeah, the wife of a local chief, as the most skilled.
1821
Captain Raine observes descendants of Bounty mutineers riding prone boards with “a ridge like a keel” on the bottom at Pitcairn Island.
1840, and following
Illustrations of Hawaiian surfing show a variety of riding positions including prone, sitting, kneeling, drop-knee and standing.
Circa 1860
Percy Smith notes the use of prone boards by New Zealand’s Maoris.
1860 (?)
Prone boards first used in England.
1907
Small hand boards in use at Manly Beach, Australia.
1915
After visiting Hawaii, Jackson and Goldie ride prone boards at Point Lonsdale, Victoria, and introduce local girl Grace Smith-Wooton to the art.
1920s
Production prone boards built by Risby Bros. in Tasmania.
1930s
Square nosed timber boards with parallel rails, later known as Lamaroos (or Looma-Roo), used in Victoria.
The design is also common in New Zealand, South Africa and UK.
1932
Dr. Ernest introduces his inflated rubber mat, the Surfoplane, in Australia.
1934
Ronald Funnell extols the virtues and dangers of prone surf-riding on narrow solid wood boards to English readers in The Art of Surf-riding.
1934, July
Plans for a solid wood bellyboard published in Popular Mechanics magazine.
1935, August
Plans for a laminated redwood-pine prone board printed in Popular Science magazine.
1940-1945
Owen Churchill's molded rubber swim-fin design adopted by the US Navy and issued to their Underwater Demolition Teams in the early 1940s.
1946?
Vernont Bartlet’s You and Your Surfboard, an introduction to prone board surfing, published in Great Britain.
1953
Curved prone boards in ash or chestnut and the Solarbo, an “extra buoyant flat” balsa board, available in Newquay, England.
1955, December
Wally Froiseth builds his first Hawaiian Pai Po Board, re-designed in early 1956 and followed by a patent application on May 9, 1956.
1958
In Sydney, Leigh Tingle has a twin fin fibreglassed bellyboard built from balsa off-cuts.
1959
George Greenough builds his first balsa wood kneeboard.
Originally with a conventional D fin, the following year he replaces it with his first flexible high-aspect ratio fin.
1960
Bellyboards and kneeboards manufactured in foam and fibreglass.
early 1960s
Jamie Farfor observes Val Valentine building the dished-nose Paipo boards with a wide-tailed plectrum-like template in Hawaii.
Farfor purchases one of Valentine’s boards and, on returning to Australia, manufactures his own model.
1962
George Greenough builds his first balsa wood kneeboard with spooned deck, initially with twin fins.
1964 (1965?)
Greenough builds his first flexible Spoon and makes his first visit to Australia.
1965
John Kelly details the Skim board, a plectrum-shaped plywood finless board accredited to John
Waidelich and Jim Growney.
1965
Val Valentine commercially produces Paipo Nui boards.
1966
“Still others like a short bellyboard (sic) and a long ride like George Greenough at Santa Barbara, California” – Bruce Brown in the introduction to his The Endless Summer.
1966
Converse (USA) release their rubberised canvas Hodgman model surfmat.
1967
San Diego’s Steve Lis builds his first split-tail twin fin Fish kneeboard.
1967
The Coolite, a molded polystyrene foam board, and the hollow molded plastic Zippyboard introduced in Australia.
1967
Barracuda Bellyboards - a twin fin plywood board designed by Sydney’s Leigh Tingle.
1969
 “Far-Out flexible Surfboard - the wave of the future?” article on Greenough’s Spoon printed in Popular Science magazine.
1969
Peter Crawford shapes his first Slab (the name is credited to Midget Farrelly), a wide bodied kneeboard at Wallace Surfboards as an alternative to the low floatation Greenough Spoon.
1970
George Greenough releases The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun.
1970
Shane Surfboards (Australia) produce a foam kneeboard with a Greenough influenced spooned deck, known as The Shoe.
1971
George Greenough releases his short film on mat surfing, Rubber Duck Riders.
1972
Tom Morey’s Boogie Board released, originally offered as a buyer assembled mail order product.
1972
Bahne screw and pin fin box introduced and becomes a standard feature on most kneeboards.
1974
Adoption of the legrope (or surf-leash) sees standup surfers begin to appear at extreme reef breaks, previously considered the domain of belly and knee boarders.
1975
The Bellybooger, a molded plastic twin fin bellyboard with spooned deck, marketed in Australia.
1977
'Bout a Spoonful article by Bob McTavish, eight easy steps to building a Greenough Spoon, printed in Surfing World magazine.
1987
Boogie rider Mike Stewart profiled in Surfer magazine.
1995
FCS fin plugs
1998
Endangered Species, an article on kneeboarding, published in the Surfer’s Journal.