Toxic Free Surfing

Surfers and recreational water users often like to think of themselves as environmentally friendly. Your support of SAS is proof alone that a multitude of water users care about the environment.

But taking a closer look at the materials that currently make up the foundations of our chosen water sports can ask questions of our environmental ethics. Worldwide, every year for example, as many as 750,000 surfboards are manufactured from some very toxic petrochemicals that feature in each stage of board production.

This hasn't always been the case. Early surfboards were originally made from the will tree if you were a Hawaiian chief, or the koa tree if you were a commoner! Early surfboard developments concentrated on reducing the weight of the boards by making it hollow and shorter (from 10ft to 16ft). Tom Blake did this and he took a patent out on his board, making it the first mass produced surfboard. After that Tom Blake also added a fin. Surfboard construction was in the early days and experiments were common.

The Problem

After the end of World War II a whole host of new materials were made available to civilians and surfboard shapers started to use foam and fibreglass for the first time. Little has changed with surfboard construction since then:

The core of the board is known as the blank. This is made from inert liquid materials that are then mixed with numerous additives, including the most important active ingredient, toluene di-isocyanate. They are then poured into a mould, where gases formed by the chemical reactions 'blow' the foam, transforming it from the liquid state into the foam 'blank'.

The fibreglass cloth that covers the blank is treated with oils to stop the filaments from breaking and to encourage flexibility and to ensure they bond to the polyester resin. Also, when fibreglass is sanded, as it has to be in surfboard construction, the dust given off is carcinogenic.

Then there is the resin, bonding the fibreglass cloth to the blank and making the cloth rigid. Polyester resin is basically a liquid plastic. Styrene, a benzene derivative is added along with numerous other stabilizers and anti UV compounds. This chemical cocktail is turned into the hard plastic coating on your board by adding methyl ethyl ketone peroxide (commonly know as a 'catalyst') to the resin. There are 3 main types of resins used in surfboard manufacturing and they consist of a combination of anhydride or isothalic acid, phathalic, makeic and hydride propylene or ethylene glycol and styrene, plus the 'catalyst'.

All in all pretty nasty ingredients but there is a light at the end of the tunnel as there is a growing movement looking at making the surfboard 'greener'.

The Solution

Any solution has to be market driven, you as a water user must demand that your toys don't harm the environment you love. Only then will manufacturers be able to develop green surfboards. The technology is there, plant based foams are been used in other markets, packaging for example. Plant based resins are also already in production. They need adapting to the surfboard market but if there is a demand, supply will follow. Hemp cloth is currently used by a select few surfboard manufacturers and they claim that it is 10-15% stronger than fibre glass cloth weight for weight.

Sunny Garcia has won the Triple Crown in Hawaii on a bamboo board, which suggests the potential for greener boards to perform at a top level. Chris Hines (a founding member and original director of SAS) helped produce a 100% 'green' surfboard at the Eden Project in 2004 proving that it can be done. However, it was heavy and cost a fortune. But they have started to refine this process and they are making exciting, groundbreaking progress.

What can you do right now. In the UK Homeblown are making blanks out of 'less' harmful chemicals. They use MDI (methylene di-phenyl di-isocyanate) rather than TDI (toluene di-isocyanate). It's still nasty, but not as nasty as the normal blank. They claim that their cell size is the same as the best of their competitors (meaning it will not soak up extra resin that makes them heavy), they are 10% lighter and 10-25% stronger than any blank they have had the opportunity to test. MDI is more expensive than TDI, but Homeblown blanks are about the same price as their competitors, making less profit for Homeblown. Homeblown are also heavily involved in producing a green blank that will hopefully replace the current TDI surfboard blank. At the very least you can ask your local shaper to make you a board from a MDI Homeblown blank.

SAS take a 'cross step' in the right direction.

After many a surf and SAS action, our in-house surfboards were starting to show their scars. We needed a couple of new boards and we tried to find as 'green' a board as possible. We have been following the 'green board' revolution for a number of years and were impressed with a few designs.

We decided to help fund some research and development of the green surfboards with Ocean Green, a company who had worked in part on the Eden board. They had a great idea but needed some funding. We helped them out and got 2 lovely boards for our support.

Our boards are made from balsa wood, covered in hemp cloth and then coated with polyester resin. The polyester resin is the same petrochemical based resin that is used in the normal surfboard and still needs improving. But the board is 2/3rds greener and a definite cross step in the right direction. The design is much like an airplane wing and so they are hollow. This means that our balsa longboard weights about the same as a normal longboard but because it has hemp cloth it should be stronger.

The proof is in the pudding, or the paddling, paddling into a perfect 4ft wave. I'm no longboarder but my first wave on our green board was brilliant, a nice long right, a little head dip, a few turns and I was in love with the board. But like I said, I'm no longboarder. So we gave the board to silver medallist at the World Surfing Games and SAS team rider Ben Skinner. Ben is one of the best longboarders in the world so we were really interested in what he had to say. We all headed to a quiet beach break. Waist to shoulder high waves reeled down a headland, starting off a bit fat, then speeding up into a perfect green tube. Ben wanted to make sure he could give a decent review of the board so we ended up staying in the sea for over 3 hours. After the marathon session Ben said, "I had a great surf on SAS's green board, it went really nice off the tail as well as off the nose. It was fantastic fun! This board is only a prototype, but from my surf, I think we could definitely have a more environmentally friendly way of surfing coming soon." It was a great reward for us to watch Ben ripping on our green board. As he effortlessly walked up and down the board, executing turns that belonged on a short board and weaving through barrels he proved that green boards can perform as well as their petrochemical competitors!

You can buy boards like these from www.oceangreen.org and they should cost between £595 and £795.

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