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Danny Hess surfs Ocean Beach, San Francisco. A beach break with a reputation for holding a swell up to whatever size you can personally manage and making even the strongest surfers sulk all the way home. It’s a fast hollow wave. On big days most people are lucky to even make it outside. There are […]

There is a continuous debate between the supporters of epoxy versus traditional poly fans; one of the leading arguments being a claim that epoxy boards do not have the feel of poly boards. Another issue is durability. While I don’t wish to say that one should stay and the other should go, I do have […]

The state of Maine is known more for its boat building and sailing than for its wintry point breaks. From this rich boat building tradition emerges Grain Surfboards -a group of craftsmen led by helmsman Mike LaVecchia making hollow wood boards. In a short time Grain has developed a loyal customer base in both their […]

Continuing our series on surfboard construction, this week we’ll spend a little time with EPS and Epoxy construction. The goal of these “anatomy” posts is not to give a complete overview of the materials and construction methods, but rather to give the reader a quick look into it’s uses, limitations, pros and cons, and finally […]

Ned MacMahon is one of the men behind the Eden Project’s award winning “eco board.” He is the General Manager for Homeblown US, a company manufacturing polyester blanks using the less environmentally damaging MDI (Diphenylmethane di-isocyanate) foam. In their environmental statement, Homeblown states that they use a “chemistry that mimics the best characteristics of our […]

If you have seen Tom Wegener in Siestas & Olas you’ll know that he surfs some heavy waves on huge boards. Tom is a respected surfer and has inspired the likes of Joel Tudor and countless others with his classic style. But Tom is also a master shaper and designer. His design philosophy and choice […]

Durability is a strange concept. A quick search of the word in Google provides an array of different definitions depending on the context. The definition we will use here is found on the Mass.gov site and it states that product durability is: “the ability of a product to be reused, without significant degradation, for its […]

In the next few months we will be exploring the most common surfboard construction methods as a primer to open a broader discussion regarding sustainability. We will include some links for further reading as any written work on surfboard building materials can fill pages and pages of information depending on how deep one wishes to […]