E's Surf Report

Interesting news!

If you are considering a new board, you might want to read the following:

http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/2005_12_05_clark.cfm

Miss High Times

Kaiser,

we missed you yesterday. You're a day late with the breaking news. I just sold my perfectly good 6'6" board to a buddy so that I could get a new one. Now I hear that at least one surf shop down in SoCal has raised their
prices by $100 per board!

Doh! That was me.

For all you toxic avengers out there that can make some sense of polymers beyond simple Organic Chemistry 101, 102 and 103:

http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=872708&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Big day in surfboard news. Read a shit load on this today and people are referring to this as "9-11" for surfboard industry, "the h-bomb of the custom board", and everything inbetween. Some shops claiming they raised board prices by $100 last night. Others claiming that they are double the price they were 2 days ago as they can't get blanks from anyone.

Good thing my quiver counts around 9 and my Campbell Bros showed up over a month ago! I guess I won't be getting #10 for Xmas.

If I had a surf shop, I'd be changing the price stickers on every board in the racks today. The supply has just been cut off. The days of marginal profit on boards may just have come to an end. ON the other hand, for those with a full quiver, your investment value has just increased.

Hang onto those old boards kdalle!

Thanks for the link Kaiser. Guess I'll hang on to all my boards just in case. Strange that it got to this point. I thought OSHA had very specific guidelines and did regular inspections of all major surfboard factories. Nasty VOCs in the traditional fabrication of our beloved water wings. Chances are if things can't be worked out he will just start a plant near Tijuana.

That stuff in blanks is nasty (although I'm no chemist). The EPA enforces rules and laws that ensure a clean and carcinogen-free environment and OSHA enforces similar laws and regulations that ensure a working environment that is safe for workers. I don’t know the whole story of course, but Clark should have done more to change their mix to evolve with our intolerance of nasty chemicals. No one should get cancer (and I'm no doctor) so we have extra-light boards.

And I don’t support any move they make to Indonesia or Baja – they shouldn’t be able to ruin other peoples’ environment so we can have a healthy quiver.

And I'm definitely short a board right now, planned on picking it up after the holiday.

Down here, a day or two after Korwin left....sorry brotha!

Niiiiiiiice.

Man, this guy posts so much, he has to start using the same pics over again. Lame.

I like this part, "It's estimated that 90% of the world's blanks came from Clark Foam." I can just see it now: in a year's time, people will be riding boards with duct tape everywhere.

OWNED, that is funny!

Time to quit surfing and move back to Colorado.
Blakestar knew....

Eh, you used that one before too! LAME.

My guess is the price of epoxy boards will also increase with demand.

What really sucks is that is Clark himself didn't take the threat seriously and had no contigency or continuity plans for his business if this happened. Totally irresponsible to his customers and employees. And us his ultimate consumer.

There has got to be more to this story....I'm thinking shaper titans like Rusty and Al are going to have to help bail this situation out.

I dont understand why he just doesnt move his factory south of the border where they still let companies make money. not all crazy eco-hippy nonsense like california. Clark should just rent a couple 40 foot containers and set up in tijuana, shipping isnt too much more expensive and he could just warehouse the blanks in SD and ship from there.

I understand there is a steep learning curve involved in the blanks production process. If so, even if he moved south today, production quality and quantity would be very low for some time. Agreed 3to5. I was wondering if the Tuflite production team had anything to do with the EPA enforcement, maybe by way of complaints... I'm always thinking conspiracy. That old saying, "If you can't beat em, kill em." Something like that anyway.

clark shoulda cleaned his act up long ago. it's too bad that the rest of us are gonna have to pay the price.

but we've all got problems. i've gotta job interview in a couple hours that's brought on a bad case of the jitters. i'm a kook!!

I think I may pick up a couple of tablas is Rio,, Any Suggestions on shops or shapers??

In 2002 Surfer Mag published The Power Issue listing the "25 most powerful people in surfing." Gordon Clark was listed number 2 (behind Quiksilver CEO Bob McKnight). In his photo, he's hiding his face behind 2 extended middle fingers. One might imagine a 68 year-old multi millionaire who holds essentially a total monopoly on the industry to be just a bit less smug about it.

if Clark packed up his entire factory and reinstalled in in TJ with his same crew why would he production suffer? you can relocate your guys to SD and have them commute to TJ everyday. 1000s of people do it. secondly he can start to train locals and probably reduce costs significantly over the medium term, thus bringing all of us cheaper boards. thank you NAFTA.

and then they can dump all the chemicals into the Baja Malibu line-up and the mexicans can get cancer

yeah, cheap boards!

can someone lay down the clark foam contreversy for a guy that has a pretty low attention span and doesnt like long articles or linking to other websites?

i've always thought it crazy that surfers and artists, on a whole, are a pretty environmentaly consious and aware bunch, yet the stuff they fill the world with is like the dirtiest, most toxic shit ever..

looked fun and nice out there today i passed again though, wierd..

No one is going to invest in Baja blank production....It makes dumb business sense. Right now Walker foam has just opened their Asia blank factory and is sending a container ship of PU blanks stateside in February. Al Merrick has already bought a significant chunk of the first shipment. In addition, asian Pu/Pe boards are hitting California's shipping ports at $125 wholesale.

With the EXPECTATION that Walker blanks and Asian Pu/Pe boards will make North American blank production unprofitable, it would not be wise to spend the significant cash to set up a plant there. In fact, declining returns are a significant factor in Clark shutting down (mainly pumping up equipment to handle VOC emissions).

With Walker already having Asian blank production, it shouldn't take past next summer for them to provide PU blanks to anyone who wants one. In the meantime Matt Ambrose is sitting on a shaping machine in Pacifica that can machine EPS to close tolerances, and Stretch will be happy to glass the EPS board in epoxy for your shapers.

M10 and Stretch are gonna be a hot ticket this year. M10 has their own, in house, epoxy glasser.

Clark is an old man looking to retire. And so he shall, on his terms, and everyone can just live with it. Life will go on, although the road may be rough for some in the coming year.

Clark uses a banned cemical to make the boards, and the process of finishing the blanks leaves behind a "toxic" dust that has to be disposed of. the EPA and more specifically the CA government warned him for many years and finally dropped the hammer. So now he needs to move to mexico where old 60s left-overs dont run the government.

The Clark controversy.

for years the handling of VOCs has become more stringent. Clark has upped and upped the equipment at his factory to handle it. He was under a 10 year review period from the EPA that just ended. If he continues and they find his emissions are too high, he can be fined to the moon and back. PU blank production uses lots of nasty VOCs.

In addition, Clark is 70 years old, rich as he11, and his factory sits on a multi-million dollar piece of land in SoCal, and no one in his family wants any piece of the action. It would not be easy to sell the factory without the land, and no one would buy the factory+land unless they wanted to tear the factory down and develop the land (the land is worth more). Re-tooling costs are too high. Run it until the ball drops, then shut the doors was the logical choice.

The ball just dropped.

Why can't they just go back to the drawing board an make a more eco-friendly board? How hard can it be? I'd pay an extra 50$/ board. But I guess when the $$ is rolling in, there isn't much motivation.

What about those Salamon S-core blanks? What's the deal with those, are they getting cheaper?

At least epoxy is way more eco-friendly. Doesn't point blanks/ patagonia custom shape "epoxy style" eco blanks- maybe this is a solution?

I've no clue on the chemistry behind their waste byproducts, but it seems as though their neighbors played the Nimby card as well. Imagine if that factory was in San Mateo..people would freak just on general principles..

I read a couple of interviews with Clark a while back and it was clear even then that he was sick of the ancillary issues associated with running his business. 3to5 I agree he did a piss poor job on contingency planing, but perhaps he just decided it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. If he really is 68 and loaded, I could see why he would walk. Sounds like he is shafting a lot of people he's done business with for decades, but from his perspective maybe there was no viable or at least appetizing option..

Again, as we're all stuggling for answers, the Bstah comes to the rescue with the scoop.

BTW Bstah, I did the RFS handoff to lp yesterday. We let it float on the water unmanned in honor of your abscence;^)

A friend of mine recently picked up a hand layup eps / epoxy M10, its a pretty sweet board. Clark shutting down may finally allow the technology to advance in a widespread way, after the immediate disruption.

All these other companies are going to be in spec with the EPA (or will have a means to circumvent EPA reg via location, etc) and may assimilate/absorb Clark's market share sooner than you think.

That aside, I'm more concerned about the fact that we are all complicit in a very highly polluting industrial mechanism. I'm in the group (like obro, etc), that thinks no company should pick up and move offshore or over the border just to keep the money machine alive with very hazardous shit. If we have to "suffer" while this gets ironed out, so be it. This happened because it deserved to happen.

cool site if you dig forests

DSX, you are a fucking idiot! Die Bitch!

doesn't rastovich have a quiver of super enviro-friendly boards?

Well I couldn't afford a new board anyway, but this will likely raise the cost of used boards as well. I'm glad in a way though because I don't like the disposable sociaty we live in and the waste of a ultra-light board that is trashed in a year or less. Rasing costs will reduce that phenomenon. The chemicals are really bad from the little that I understand and if it was another company, like a dry cleaners or handgun factory, I would be all about shutting it down. It's like a feeling of guilt has been reduced alittle. I guess my next board will have to be triple 6 top and bottom with a 1/2" stringer. Built to last... I never could do an air anyway.

Point Blank blanks are made by Patagonia.

$1000/ board = crowd control

thanks dsx and gang..

e, i heard medows are the new forests

Want to make money? Set up a ding-repair operation. Or is that what shapers will be reduced to?

has anyone ridden one of those point blanks boards? they look pretty nice? the malloy brothers make them look good, but that's probably not a good point of reference. how are they more enviro?

Its about time the surf industry came to terms with how much toxic crap they are putting back into our oceans, ground, and atmosphere.
i am talking all the way around, from the blank companies, to the wetsuit and 'surfwear' companies.

It isnt enough to pump out chemical laden and/or petroleum based products made cheaply in Asia or Latin America, making $$$MILLIONS and then just give $5000 to the Surfrider foundation. (see Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Billabong, Volcom, UltraNectar, Patagucci, Converse, Stubbies, Beach Towne, etc.)

Time for these companies to start becoming eco-friendly, put their money where the mouths and wallets are. Even Patagonia has sold out. phuck it.

Surfing is great, but it is a totally hypocritical and selfish sport. surfers that complain about oil company profits at the same time they buy petroleum based products, ad naseau, are pathetic. These companies profit greatly on your purchases, your boat trips, your SUV drives up and down OB searching for the best spot, your 4 boards a year, etc. these companies promote WAR.

you guys that are bragging about having 9 or 10 boards in your quiver, think about how much the manufacture of those boards polluted the water/ground/air where they were made and shaped. who gives a phuck, right? you joined the surfrider foundation, so everything will be ok.

and dont even get me started on how bad snowboarding is for the environment....

ps- i just threw in the "Stubbies and Beach Towne" references for you old guys.

OK here's about as old school as I get.
Dec 1995 Crowds- what crowds?

$1000 per board means only rich folk can afford to surf, especially in Hawaii, where boards get broken regularly.

#3, why mess around:
Volan cloth
1" T band stringer
3.5" thick
Voila! The kdalle model!

As the price goes up watch for durability to become a main selling point. Adios to the chips.

With a proprietary franchise like Clark somebody gonna swoop in and pick it up if the Grub wants to sink into his Barcalounger.

Looked like that this morning, less brown though.

Sorry DSK... I lost my cool... You are not an Idiot, just dumb and irresponsible.

$1000/board = serious crowd control. That's a huge barrier to entry, and i'm all for it. I don't know about you guys, but i'm pretty tired of hearing people say, "I want to take up surfing."

I heard about this whole deal with Clark Foam last night and decided that, as a end user, I'm not likely to be too badly impacted - at least not over the long haul. Boards will be harder to get - short term - and definitely become more expensive, but I'll cope with that.
I feel for the small-time shapers and individual shop owners I know - they seem to be in a bit of a panic right now. The short term reality of Clark shutting down will have a MAJOR impact on these guys. I'm pretty sure they all survive month to month - this could be disastrous for some of them.

how about those Florida State University girls? which tittybar do they dance at? i am there!!

Atari, I was like "He said Stubbies???" You got me. Don't forget Maui & Sons, Sundek and Instinct.

jimmie-what's the story with aqua? are they gonna raise prices right away? wondering if i should just go grab a board off the rack right away before the prices go up. do give us the inside scoop!

Small time shapers will be decimated. Can a shaper get a table dance?

Look at it this way- MAYBE Wise can sell off some of that 400+ board inventory they have now. finally. i wonder how that guy makes his rent every month.

Wise moves volume. I hung out there for about an hour one day and watched 6 boards go out the door.

wrong Mexi no hard feelings, i live in reality, not fantasy land. in 25 years when all the manufacuring businesses have left this state will you and others like you be happy? maybe so. our world and surfing depends on industry and its totally irresponsible of this piss poor government to think that by outlawing every single chemical somehow we will all live better lives. thats BS and thats the anti-everything crowd that runs this state. get smart and get real, the pendulm swings both ways, right now its gotten way out of balance in favor of eco-radicals, in the 50s it was the opposite, somewhere in the balance is best for the long run. if california cant find it, then we all lose. right now Mexico is the best option for many companies because California closed them down.

Wise is probably one of the main reason OB is so packed with weekend-warrior-beginner surfers. The majority of their boards are those big fun shaped beginner boards.

wait! Mexi gives DSX crap about moving industry to Mexico, and then says he wants to buy boards in Brazil. poetry!

4 boards a year?

DSX, you'd prefer more Superfund sites in the #1 state for Superfund sites? Our industrial past has ruined habitable lands and water tables galore -- you cannot just move the pieces around the board and hope for a win, you have to change the game itself. I'm all for a balanced solution, have not seen it yet -- it is obviously in the future or else we have no future. So far the eco-"radicals" have won very, very little in the Golden State, so your mega-industrial ideals are sfae for the time being. Remember when we all thought Malathion, asbestos and DDT were wonderful new inventions of man? Yeah, we as a species are quite reliable at fucking things up, let's now see if we can rectify. Respectfully submitted....

Everyone was a beginner at some point.

The real money is in wax. I bet Wise sells a lot of wax.

Word atari, (except for the last negative post) - but how did Patagonia sell-out? They always seem to improve products in their industry.

“Can a shaper get a table dance” – best line of the year.

DSX, yikes dude – you’re clueless.

And on a brighter note:
Brazilian chicks aren’t that hot:
www.bellaclub.com
Maybe someone with some internet brains can link. Although I’ll always love Heather, Dani Lopez has kept me single longer than I’d ever imagined.
(Sorry for two posts in two days that promote and perpetuate stereotypes that women are just supposed to be pretty and nothing else. This is not what I believe. Do as I say not as I do.)

You guys can argue about the chemicals clark foam used, I worked 10 years + stone throw away from the Clark foam building. This is personal, everytime I left work you could smell the chemicals in the air. There are huge homes directly above the factory, I bet they had a say in what was going on. Nothing like going out on your back porch in the morning and getting a wif of what was going on below.

steamwand - hmmm ... go to the shop and look at the sign on the board rack. That's what I mean by panic. But really, no one I've talked to is quite sure just how to react yet. I did hear that there are rumors that Grubby Clark may possibly be facing charges (!?). Totally unsubstantiated, but it's been bandied about.
In the meantime, as others have said, hopefully this open up innovation and help clean things up in the manufacturing end of what we all love.

Hey folks, the waves are small but fun. Anybody practicing 360's or airs the last couple days? There must be something good you have to talk about related to surfing.

I don't know why, but I just can't get myself to try a 360. Guess I hate to blow a good wave.

what was negative about that last post? i called a spade a spade. runman69.

Eco-friendly boards...

Geoff Rasche and Stretch make epoxy/EPS boards. These use, start to finish, more than 20 times fewer VOCs than PU/PE boards that are most common. WISE sells M10 boards on the rack, his production will be completely unaffected by the Clark fallout.

And if you want to go the extra mile and go another 10 fold lower in VOCs, Danny Hess will be happy to talk to you about a hollow wood board with no EPS in it (link under community at blakestah.com). It will cost more, weigh SLIGHTLY more, be tough as nails, and you will not find a more eco-friendly board anywhere. And it is made entirely in NorCal.

I think EPS will work out better than XPS and Rasche and Stretch are better shapers than the guys at Patagonia, but they don't have a masterful clothing manufacturer helping with their marketing.

If a small local shaper cannot figure out how to get Matt Ambrose to machine down a hunk of EPS using free software, and then get Stretch to glass it, he doesn't deserve to be making surfboards for a living. That'll tide someone over, bare minimum, until the Walker blanks are readily available.

As a bonus, EPS blanks cost a fraction of the Clark blanks.

Agreed Atari,, you called me on my shit..

aren't the Hess boards made of old growth redwood?

I know! Maybe we can convince Clark to move his factory to Brazil, make eco friendly boards, and employ only hot Brazilian chicks who will welcome all the niceness posters at the airport with free boards and blowjobs! After all, we're solving the worlds problems here with our rants...it's the least we should expect!

Just spoke to Pearson, everything is on hold. He's not taking orders, and old orders not picked up.....SOL.

Ummmm, Monkey Milk? You do you know that asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral, right? go up into the foothills around Sacto and you can find tons of the stuff in people's backyards. In the right application, asbestos is all it's cracked up to be - a good insulator and very fire resistant. Have you even seen any of that old Armstrong linoleum made back in the 50's? The stuff is bombproof and totally safe.

As for the other real manufactured chemicals, it's kinda hard to live these days without using products that contain or use hazarous materials in their manufacture. Look at your desk - pens, pencils, paper, computers, the set of Hot Wheels I play with while on conference calls, etc. How about your shoes - leather, rubber soles? Do your cloths have any color in them? Ever wear anything made with polyester? Don't get me started on the "clean" epoxy resins and polystyrene foams.

Yeah, our country ran wild during it's industrial development from the early 1900's - 1970's. Fact is, that's what made America the greatest place to live. We've since instituted the toughest set of environmental regulations of any industrialized nation. Go ahead, check - Germany, France, Italy, Japan, China. Not even close. Industry has responded in a good way. Any sites added to the Superfund list since 1986? Don't forget that several hundred sites on the original Superfund list have been cleaned up. Any rivers catch on fire in the last 30 years?

DSX & Blakestah's views are correct about Clark. CA envir regulations go overboard. In many cases, the stupid state is trying to enforce cleanup standards that can't even be measured by the best technology available today. There needs to be some sense of balance. How about taking into account the economic impact of shutting these guys down? Sure, the industry will recover in 3 months, or 6 months or 2 years, whatever. How's your local shaper going to survive for the next 6 months? This will put a lot of local shops and shapers out of business. The result will be that the major industry players will take even more market share. Oh my god! Rusty will take over the world!

I am feeling a little stress over this whole thing because my short board is yellow, buckled and in serious need of replacing, my gun, longboard and fish were all built to last.
I am willing to pay more for eco friendly stuff... No shortboard is a freaking tragedy though...

okay, i'm all questions today, but i've got another. can you cut holes in your glass job and add fin boxes without destroying your board? maybe this is one for swaylocks?

I am learning so much today.
I have the same shortboard woes, Mexi. I was just gonna order a new Cole myself, this week in fact. damn. time to stock up on solarez.

damn, Obro, if Dani Lopez is keeping you single, you are doing too much clicking&stroking. get out there and meet some girls.

Mexi - I feel you, my brother. My "shortboard" (7'4") is yellowed, dinged, and destined for some "lucky" kid at the end of my next surf trip. My longboard has rail to rail stress cracks nearly the entire length of the hull. I keep promising it that each surf in overhead waves at Ocean Beach will be it's last - but I'm a liar. Don't panic it'll be o.k.
I think Johnny Rice is still using Walker Foam almost exclusively.

sounds like Clark has been warned for some time. pathetic that the rich idiot didnt spend the time/money to get his shit straightened out before they shut him down. i think this will be good, long-term, environmentally speaking, but it will anihilate some shapers. all those waiter and bartender positions are now gonna be filled.

EER The notion that the US is more environmentally conscious or strict than Western Europe is absurd. We are a nation of consumers. How many Europeans live in Mac Mansions and drive huge SUV's, pay 2.50 a gallon for gas and drive an hour to work each way? Environmental laws are in full force in europe and looked at as a means of economical stimulation rather than bad for business. And Companies can't bail out of a community if the community calls them on their shit. Companies are held accountable and must clean p their act or not do business within that community at all. By adhearing to regulation that promote a clean environment they create business to develope better and more advanced equipement and manufacturing techniques.

I like forests.
The forests were my family's first home.
Your's too.

Steamwand, use a router, cut the hole in exactly the right place and no larger than necessary, and no worries.

Steamwand - short answer yes. Better not try it yourself unless you have a beater board. Fin placement is very important, plus the fins boxes are angled toward the center and tilted outward slightly.

Two different answers. I'm assuming side fins.

anybody skate pacifica yet?

steamwand--->Short answer is: Yes.

I've made two boards (from Clark Foam), glassed them with epoxy (from Resin Research), then used the router to put in fin boxes (made by Proboxhawaii.com).

Works beautifully.

You get the stuff from Proboxhawaii.com, I'll lend you my router and my meager skill/knowledge.

sweet duncan, here's my e-mail: steamwand89 at the yahoo

"Any rivers catch on fire in the last 30 years?" Good point EER. That's a great index of how the environment is doing. "No rivers catching on fire. I guess we're a okay!"

look, you guys have this partly rigth and partly wrong. the state of california is so poorly managed that nothing is ever done right. this extends to unmanageable environMENTAL laws written by hippies from a bygone era. we as CA citizens need to wake up to the fact that bad laws and bad government do not help us in the long run.

we need to balance economic needs, like surfboard blanks, and environmental harms, like VOCs. in a perfect world there would be good laws that balance both surfing and the eco-hippies living on granola and tree bark, but we havent gotten that far yet.

EER, I just noticed you put China down too. Are you for real? I've been to China and the other countries you mention. In China, I had nose bleeds the whole time I was there. You can barely see three blocks throught the hazy fog of smog. I hope it doesn't come to that here in our neck of the world.

i think they should just burn the foam factory.

i gotta chime in on the contest at sunset today: good lord some people absolutely rip on critical waves...

surfing is fun, right?

Blanks -I don't need no stinking blanks!

on the plus side, you should be able to pick up a good planer for cheap on craigslist in coming weeks.

Air is the new foam blank!

Let's get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One love)
So when the Man comes there will be no, no doom (One song)
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
There ain't no hiding place from the Father of Creation

I like to give credit where credit is due. That guys is getting barelled on a blow-up board! I could not do that.
Good work old blow-up board dude!

But the polyethylene skin? SOOOO yesterday. Why not laytex?

damn, wonder how that inflatable bottom turns?!?

Latex?

Why not that material they make nonlatex rubbers out of?

(just a joke)

so bending your knees and leaning towards a feathering lip is a barrel these days?

is that derek hynd?

i'm no scientist but thats a narrel

While France, the largest country in western europe gives off the appearance of being "eco-conscious" and all, but you'd be surprised at all the mini-malls and american style convenience stores popping up all over the place. Nuclear power plants dot the whole country, they infamously produce way more nuclear energy than they could ever use, selling off most of it to other countries. The north coast at La Hague, in Normandy is an ominous, ugly place France has openly acknowledged massively radioactive polluting. I love France, I lived there a couple years and have scored some great uncrowded surf too. But to generalize that western europe is stricter environmentally than Cali just isn't really true.

Boo hoo hoo trustafarianyuppie "surfers" have to pay an extra hun' for an addition to their
"pro-quivers." You guys sound SO spoiled.
Um, and ...uh - 'like that guy is NOT getting
"barrelled," looks like a claimers 'head dip'.
Best thing of all with the last 5 year influx is exactly this: most " surfers" appear, on land and especially in the water, to be involved in the art of surfing soley for the purpose of experienceing '" life- as " surfer"'. All these dudes posing and preening next to their fancy cars yet in the water it's all slow and no go. I am truely thankful for this.

"I just got my sixth wave! But who's counting - right guys?"

let me rephrase:
That guys is bending his knees and leaning towards a feathering lip on a blow-up board.

Now that sounds good. Becasue god forbid - we don't want the anonymous old guy with the blow-up board claiming anything more than pulling into a close-out.

Old dude with the blow-up board - you suck!

Boo hoo hoo trustafarianyuppie "surfers" have to pay an extra hun' for an addition to their
"pro-quivers." You guys sound SO spoiled.
Um, and ...uh - 'like that guy is NOT getting
"barrelled," looks like a claimers 'head dip'.
Best thing of all with the last 5 year influx is exactly this: most " surfers" appear, on land and especially in the water, to be involved in the art of surfing soley for the purpose of experienceing '" life- as " surfer"'. All these dudes posing and preening next to their fancy cars yet in the water it's all slow and no go. I am truely thankful for this.

weekend scene in SF, who else likes to go clubbin?

agreed, cadaver. it is so cliche~ to say that europe is "so much more environmentally conscious than the US".
easy to say, very tough to back up with real data.
some of us really like to see the backup data.

trust nobody, especially if she looks like that heather chick from last week. OMG!

Dennis, Let's see the pics Dude!
www.photobucket.com

i've seen worse form

Ummm, "Environmental Engineer" (not) -- VERMICULITE is in the hills, NOT asbestos. Asbestos has its applications, true, AND causes mesothelioma.

OK, I was panicking about this whole sitch, but now I feel a bit better. Check out this thread on swaylocks.

New EPS tech soon
http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=239293;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=50;

Mexi - exactly my point on China. They have virtually NO envir regulations - that's why you're eyes burned. And despite what you think about Western Europe and their people not living in "McMansions" (the topic of Americans hating America will be left for another day), Germany, France, Italy & others are all sorely lacking real institutional envir regs. Their industries pollute, and there is very little pressure to cleanup the old stuff.

America has a tendency to overproduce. If all manufacturers of clothing, etc. were to halt manufacturing those items, there'd still be enough surplus/used ditties at thrift stores and yard sales to go around for probably the next 20 years. Same is probably true for surfboards. I'm sure there are enough used boards to keep those quivers full. There was once a poster here that declared "One man, one board." Seems to shed true light on the issue: we're overconsuming. My friend's grandfather used to save all his chewing gum wrappers after WWII b/c of shortages. We're definitely living in a different world now, but maybe we should be looking a little deeper. Prices for boards are surely going to go up: supply and demand. My $.02 is boycott the places that raise their prices. The greatest disappointment out of all of this will be to those that lose jobs right before and after the holidays.

Atari, that is a cool name. I want to change my name to Nintendo.

kaiser,
i wanted to use 'bagel' or 'namersgetowned' but they were taken.

also, you have great tits

Brasilian chicks are hot and Kelly Slater is a bastard!

derek bailey is pretty awesome.

I spray WD-40 on the bottom of my snowboard or surfboard before each session.It Really makes the board go faster.

2nd that by amigoism....
1 man, 1 board, yes OK, but maybe for us OB denizens 1 small-wave and 1 big-wave board OK too? :) Beyond that, 3rd+ board is not really necessary. Building quivers looks like a fun and expensive hobby and all that, but releasing the stoke only needs one board, placed underfoot upon takeoff (just 1). In the long run, living leaner (and for a lot people, debt-free) pays off in a much, much deeper way than consuming just to consume.

Consumption for consumption's sake and (economic) growth for growth's sake are the exact same ideologies as a cancer cell. And just like that disease, your "habits" slowly become a part of you, until you yourself are "consumed."

As a younger American who's pretty much inherited all this mess, some of us say: Don't hate America, hate what whacked policies and regs we've inherited and, as your generation finally begins to come into power, use that to reshape America in a mindful, environmentally and socially conscious manner. Don't kill all industries, change industries that we need and kill the ones that are really killing us (doing more harm than good). Earth's coming up short and the rent is due. You guys defending the current state of industry: dudes, we could **never** be friends but I respect you just the same.

Ever, SDD

holy crap. the pollution being generated on this board needs some EPA regs. Asbestos is an amazing mineral that was used in some inapropriate aplications. ummm monkey, VERMICULITE is often found along with asbestos. Crysotile (the most common form of asbestos) is found in serpentine rocks. so, there is serpentine in them there hills. there are areas of hollister off limits to off road vehicles because they cause to much serpentine dust.

the USA, does in fact have some of the strictest envrironmental regulations, some of the cleanest air and cleanest water. Mostly because we let it get so bad in the mid 1900's. Countries are like individuals. remeber when you first discovered beating off? you maybe went a little overboard right? so did the US when we discovered chemicals. now we're still looking for a box of tissue big enough to clean it all up.

for me the bottom line is that Gordon Clark fought tooth and nail to maintain a monopoly utilizing an outdated chemical production facility. He knew 10 years ago that this day was coming. He walks away rich, we feel the pain.

"box of tissue..." That's classic.

Just launched the new Stretch Boards website!

http://www.stretchboards.com

From what I've learned reading posts by Kaiser. He seems like the queen pig consumer here.

adbuster, go home. back to hater.com

aye carumba! apparently he walked away unscathed from that last 'little' air there...

http://www.punchbaby.com/media/latrz/clips/cool/Steiner.wmv

jeez, frequent poster today. thought this may be of interest to a few out there.

http://www.shaperoom.net/lettre_gordon_clark.doc

680-720 per board at stretch. oiy! there's some cool looking boards though. i wanna try that channel one.

Stretch really raised prices for his epoxy boards as of last summer... like about $200/board (ouch). Nice boards however.

Read the entire letter. Clark is signing off with a big F-YOU to California. He rocks. He's like, "Fuck this shit, fuck California, fuck the lawyers, fuck Surfrider, fuck all you guys."

Clark is like the Willy Wonka of surfboards: eccentric, inventive, brash, at the top of his game, do whatever the hell he damn pleases.

"Yellow Board" thx for clarification. My point was really to say that the extraction, release and manufacture of asbestos product is the primary trigger/vector for negative consequences for humans. When we *decided* to go dig it up (w/o studying the effects) and appropriate it widely and for verious uses, THEN it became an EPA and OSHA issue.

All part of the industrial "orgasm" (as you said) of the past 100+ years.

Hey E, aren't you a web geek, too? Do you like the XHTML/CSS technology behind the new Stretch Boards website? Check it out, you can even reach the new Stretch Boards website with your cellphone. I built a full CMS so they can update the pages themselves. Sweet!

It's funny cause I just ordered my first epoxy board on Thurdsay, a new Fletcher 4-Fin. I have ALWAYS had polyester boards. Glad I still have a quiver of polyester boards. Guess it's epoxy from now on....

PS feels good to be home in SC after four years in SF...I have been surfing WAY more.

is that mavs ^?

that's not Mav's

I like big boobs:

nice drawing Brian. and nice panoramic vision AS, as always

Sorry for the pic delay. been way too busy with school to set up an account while at home - Actually in class right now on a break.

I've got some pics...

E

Sorry Christian...

Korewin

Christian's friend solo

Kdalle

i don't know any of those guys but those are some great pics Mexi.

Mexi - you got me pretty good. The guy behind me and on the barrel picture is Benji. He is a good friend and we were laughing after the fact. He was a litte deep and didn't seem to have any intention to paddle for that wave. So I went. No excuses though and I kooked out. A genuine drop in is still a drop in. When are leaving to Brazil? Gimme a call if you need any help there.

Christian, I couldn't help but put it up after the rant the other day... and I know you guys are bros.. He's smiling too and he wouldn't have made it.

Sure that is kdalle?

I've never noticed stomp pads on his boards.

Nice pics, Mexi, someone oughta front for some bigger glass for your photography talent.

and kdalle's board looks about 18 inches too short.

I'm perty sure that is Kdalle, I talked with him after and we discussed the fact that he was riding a shortboard that day, twinzer. My be wrong though.

Nice pics Mexi! That morning turned out pretty sweet from behind the lens I guess.

Sweet shots