WTF is a sponge?

This week’s Word of the Week is: sponge. Yes, it’s surf lingo—even if the sponge itself is not technically a surfboard.

When you hear “sponge,” you may be thinking: Wavestorm, Catch Surf, that new Costco board. But before “sponge” meant a foamie, the name was reserved for a boogie board.

???? From Paipo to boogie woogie

Let’s start at the very beginning though. Before there were surfboards… there were paipo boards. That’s P-A-I-P-O. (We covered paipos in one of our previous pods.)

Ancient Hawaiians used these small wooden boards—2 to 4 feet long—to ride waves lying down or kneeling. They were made of wood, had no fins, and were usually for commoners and kids, because the royals were riding the fancy olo boards. Belly riding was all the rage!

Fast forward to 1971. Meet Tom Morey—jazz musician, engineer, and inventor. One day, on the beach in Kona, Hawaii, Tom grabs a piece of polyethylene foam, cuts it into a rectangle, irons the edges flat… and boom. He invents the boogie board.

He named it after boogie-woogie music, if you must know. That very same day, he rides it. It works. It’s light, soft, cheap, and easy to use. Welcome to the boogie board revolution.

By the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the boogie board was everywhere. Tom licenses the design, and suddenly literally everyone’s on a boogie. It becomes the gateway to surfing: easy to carry, no wax, no fins, all the fun. Side note: Tom Morey eventually sold the rights to the name and never made much money off it. Shame.

???? The boogie boom is getting serious

In the 1980s and ’90s, boogie boarding evolves into bodyboarding—an actual, hardcore sport.

Riders like Mike Stewart and Ben Severson start paddling into some serious, heavy waves—like Pipeline heavy. They pull into barrels. They invent new moves like el rollos, spinners, and airs. This is now serious business, with its own pro tour.

You’ve seen the board: it’s short, soft, and made of foam—usually with a slick plastic bottom for speed. It’s shaped with a nose, rails (edges), a wide tail, and often has channels underneath for control. Sizes vary based on your height and weight, but it usually hits around your belly button when upright.

You’ll need fins. Bodyboard fins are short and stiff—like swim fins—built for speed and control in the water. You’ll need them to paddle into waves and kick through currents, especially if you’re not wearing a leash.

Then there’s the leash. It’s coiled and attached to your wrist or bicep.

You might be wondering why I’m talking about spongers—sorry, bodyboarding—at all. This is a surf mag!

Well, I have recently come to a conclusion: if all beginners started as bodyboarders, we would’ve progressed faster, because we’d understand the waves better before even attempting a good-man pop-up.

In case you were interested, not all bodyboarding is riding prone. You can actually ride bodyboards standing up or dropknee—making it an even closer discipline to surfing than you might’ve imagined.

Author: The Wipeout Weekly team