In the mid-1990s, an amazing cultural sea change swept through the surfing community. It began with a revival of longboarding and the classic style of surfing that had all but died out in the aftermath of the so-called shortboard revolution 25 years earlier. As revivalists researched the best boards of the ’60s, a market emerged for collectibles. Highly prized surfboards that had sold new for $100 or $125, suddenly became worth thousands.

Some rare examples went under the hammer for tens of thousands at vintage board auctions. Finally, board-building company SurfTech began mass-producing models designed by legendary shapers of the ’50s and ’60s using ultra-modern composite technology at a factory in Thailand. For such craftsman as Reynolds Yater, the new technology was a blessing, allowing them to earn royalties from their decades-long experience, and freeing them from the grind of hand-shaping the same basic models over and over again. For Yater, and others like Dale Velzy, Greg Noll, Donald Takayama and more, it was the dawn of a new era. Surfboard makers who knew how to work with wood—essentially a lost art to shapers who’d only ever used foam—were in high demand by customers who wanted replicas not to ride, but to hang on their living room walls as functional, hydrodynamic, sculptural art.

This is the largest big-wave gun Reynolds Yater ever built. It is constructed of balsa and features five redwood stringers. The board was shaped in 1994 and glassed by Clyde Beatty specifically for the Santa Barbara Surf Museum. Said the museum’s director, James O’Mahoney: “It’s hard to find balsa over twelve feet long and I had the wood. The board’s never been surfed, but you could paddle out at Mavericks or Waimea on it tomorrow if you wanted. It’s just badass.”