If you were a surfboard manufacturer, December 5, 2005 was the day everything changed. That was the day that Gordon “Grubby” Clark announced his decision to close his Laguna Niguel-based company Clark Foam — virtually the only supplier of the polyurethane blanks used to manufacture surfboards. Clark, who said he tired of battling the EPA and county environmental groups, had a near-monopoly in the production of blanks, producing nearly 90-percent of those manufactured in the world.
Clark’s decision rocked the surfing world. Suppliers began rationing their surfboards and an underground market for foam blanks emerged overnight and many people wondered what would happen to the industry and the sport.
However, where there’s a market, there’s a way and Californians are stepping up to fill the void with new technologies and ideas that may revolutionize the industry.
Correspondent Judy Muller reports.
December 20th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
Hello!
I saw the re-airing of this story on Dec 15, ‘06 and wanted to comment on what Gary Linden of Walker Foam said about pop out boards from the Far East. He said that a generic Chinese board shaper wouldn’t have the equivalent of 40 years of board shaping experience that he does but not all pop out boards from the Far East are shaped by some unknown Chinese shaper. In fact, in the story you showed BIC Surf Sports long boards when talking about pop out boards and these long boards’ shapes are actually by American or French board shapers.
Another company that features well known international board shapers such as Al Merrick, Tadashi Suzuki and Greg Webber and use high tech composite materials for their surfboards is Surftech.com. However, they’re not like the Far East companies that offer a lower cost product. In fact, their boards are similarly priced to the traditional glass boards of American custom shapers.
For a beginning surfer like me, I like that I have a choice in either a Far East made board shaped by a known surfboard shaper, a craigslist/eBay beater board, a Surftech, an off the shelf glass board by a big surfboard company or a custom made glass board by someone like Doug Haut depending on my budget at the time of my purchase as well as what my perceived commitment into how much time I’ll put into learning the sport of surfing. I would think the prowess of the saleperson will also factor in my purchasing decision.
I just started surfing but I have windsurfed since ‘87. My windsurfing boards range in construction to glass boards, pop out technology as well as the high tech composite construction that Surftech uses with their boards. That said, I still love my old glass windsurfing boards because they do have a very sweet feel under the feet. They are also very easy to repair versus epoxy boards and can withstand being thrashed in the impact zone. My California specific asymmetrical windsurfing glass wave board by Tony Cox still rules after all these years of construction technology progress.
Did you see the Frontline show The Persuaders? They might have something there…
Thanks for listening,
-joe