Surf Local!

It’s about time for a new surfboard. My old one is fine, but like most great pastimes surfing marries physical enjoyment with the collector’s impulse. Good surfboards are objets d’art and a pleasure to own.

Photo Credit: Michael Sloan

Shopping for a surfboard, however, isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

As a machine, the surfboard has changed very little in the 200 years since European explorers first saw Hawaiians riding waves. Its dimensions have remained fairly constant since antiquity: between about 6′ and 11′ long and about 28″ wide.

The material used to make boards, on the other hand, has changed. In ancient times, boards were carved from wood. In the 1930s surfers discovered that they could use light-weight balsa, and later dense polymer foam, coated in fiberglass. Today epoxy resin is sometimes used as a sealant.

That aside, today’s surfboards are remarkably similar to those from the distant past. If you went back in time and handed a modern board to a surfer from the court of King Kamehameha, he would have known exactly what to do with it.

Likewise, the economics of the surfboard remained constant for a very long time. Until the early 1990s, surfboards were made by A Guy at the Beach. In any locale where surfers congregated, a few would become interested in building boards. These “shapers” were artisans, usually looking to sell just enough boards to support their own surf habit.

It doesn’t diminish the shaper’s art to note that making surfboards has always has been a low-intensity industry with a low skill barrier and almost no start-up costs. You can teach yourself to shape a surfboard in your garage for $200. And while you might not be as good as a professional shaper, his economics and manufacturing process will differ very little from yours.