Surf's Up... Again

A Hawaiian helps victims of a devastating fire in the most Hawaiian way possible

- John Rosengren

THE FIRE RACED through Lahaina last August so fast that it killed 100 people and destroyed more than 2,200  buildings, most of them homes. It left more than 7,000 people without their possessions and in need of shelter.

That afternoon, Kalyn Lepre, a 36-year-old nutritional therapist, grabbed her wallet and her grandmother’s pearls and drove out of town. She lost everything else in her four-bedroom house: clothes, documents, jewelry, GoPro gear, a computer and seven surfboards. Lepre surfed almost every day; surfing was a source of joy and a means to maintain her mental health. Seeing her surfboards reduced to a pile of fibres—especially her prized baby blue Doug Haut custom longboard—was devastating.

“I was so in love with that board,” she says.

Jud Lau understood. The 53-year-old Maui native has been riding the waves since he was a teenager, and he’s been building surfboards for the last 15. He knows the value of a good surfboard.