Corey Colapinto

Sometimes, the best ideas are born in a chicken coop. At least, that’s where Corey Colapinto (aka Kookapinto) got his start, dreaming up and shaping new surfboard designs like the “Fishy Noserider” and the “Thin Twin”—both popular models ridden all over the world today. Colapinto’s introduction to surfing started in the competitive shortboard scene when he was a kid in Southern California, but his calm and humble temperament didn’t thrive there. Instead, his father introduced him to the 2-3 ft mellow waves at San Onofre, and after discovering the joy of noseriding, Corey was all in. His surfing eventually became so advanced on the long walls of Sano, that the surfboards needed to advance with him—and that’s when he started shaping his own designs (out of a local chicken coop). Today, both his boards and his surfing are widely known. As Surfer’s Journal put it, “His approach is vintage elegance meets speed and progression, an archetypal style in the making with elements drawn from classic surfing of every era.”