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Approximate dimensions are 8 to 9 feet long, about 23 inches wide and 5 inches thick.
Using  (the now common) hollow timber board construction, they are a plywood skin over a timber frame, often with a bung, and many examples have either painted decor or are fully coloured.
The template has a wide square nose and tail with a slight curve in the rail outline.
The deck and bottom are almost flat with very little rocker and the rails square.
There are no deck mountings such as splash guards of footstraps, which were not required for flat-water  use, but some examples feature a shallow long-based keel.
Victorian surfriding historian, Bob Smith, reported:

 "The paddle boards you mentioned were very popular as ocean craft on Port Phillip bay.
I used to holiday on the bay at Rye and Rosebud as a kid and these paddle boards were very popular, used for paddling, fishing and a bit of exercise.
They were also popular at ocean towns where there was a river meeting the sea eg Anglesea, Barwon Heads.
Some had a long keel type 'fin' but most had no fin."

- email correspondence from Bob Smith, in reply to an enquiry to Jeff Arkinstall at Surfworld Museum, Torquay, Victoria, November 2007.
Thanks to Bob and Jeff for their contribution.

A wide tailed, short bellyboard made from solid timber or, more usually, plywood with definite nose lift (dished), no fins and ridden prone. The design is not noted in any pre-contact Hawaiian terminology or in existing ancient examples. The design does not appear to be used in the first half of the 20th century and only came to prominance in the early 1960s.

Phaser Bottom / Phazer Bottom / Dimpled Bottom small dish-like concave features in the bottom, most commonly in the back half in front of the fin/s. First prominent use by Wills Brothers (Hawaii) 1991. Design theory based on ‘dimpled’ outer surface of a golf ball. Image right: Milton Willis and Phazer bottom, circa 1990. Photograph by John Callaghan (cropped). Martin, Andy : Walking On Water. John Murray (Publishers) Ltd  9 0 Albermarle Street, London WIX 4BD, 1991, facing page 119.

Power Ridges circa 1990.  US. patent # 4878980 Adhesive plastic ridges to apply to the bottom of surfboards and boogie boards. Short lived. Image  Surfing Magazine July 1990 Volume 26 Number 7 page 40.

Several designers have enhanced the safety aspect of prone boards by producing their designs in a “soft” format, for example inflatable mats and the Boogie board.
Since the 1960’s many prone riders use extensions (flippers) to increase paddle power and riding control.

The prone board has the advantage of applying extra power by paddling and/or kicking (the most effective) when the wave face becomes less critical.
This option is not readily available to standup riders.

Prone boarders, by virtue of their proximity to the board, have more control in extreme situations, which substantially improves safety.
Contrast and compare this with standup boards.
It also helped to enhhance performance levels, for example it allowed them to ride deeper in the wave with confidence and to feature at breaks were wipeouts were potentially board destroying.
This factor was significantly modified with the introduction of the leg rope, circa 1973.

The biggest determining factor in surfing performance appears to be the rider’s skill, and although ‘designed’ to be ridden prone, the earliest experiments at stand up surfing were probably on ‘prone’ boards.
Special Note
The locomotion of prone craft is particularly historically significant – prone board paddling became the basis for Polynesian swimming, incorporating a vertical over-arm stroke of the arms and scissors-like kick by the legs.

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