Rob Machado Surf Experience & Green Expo:
THE SHAPE OFF!
Exploring Environmentally Responible Equipment & Materials in Surfboard Building
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We spent the weekend at the Rob Machado Surf Experience at Cardiff-by-the-Sea and took some photos of the Green Shape Off surfboard building contest. There were some awesome boards and great eco-friendly concept designs.
First prize winner received $2,000.00, Second prize winner received a Greenlight 6’6” Basic Eco Friendly Bamboo Sufboard Build Kit, 3rd Prize Winner received a Greenlight Eco Friendly Bamboo laminating kit for longboards. Both 2nd and 3rd Prize were donated by SPEARZ – High Performance Surf
The Organizer: Ned McMahon
www.malamacomposites.com
Ned Has been shaping since 1977. He started his career at Sunset Surfboards in Encinitas. He then went on to shape for many years at T&C in Hawaii. While at T&C he worked with great shapers like Ben Aipa and many pro surfers too, from Sunny Garcia to Bruce and Andy Irons. Ned has 30,000 surfboards under his belt. But, his current focus is making boards using the cleanest methods and materials possible. Ned stated in the interview for the event promos that “…the change was made after having too many friends get sick or die from exposure to the toxic chemistry of typical surfboards.
Ned put together a group of shapers to see who could come up with the best board design using the most environmentally responsible equipment and materials. Here is the list of shapers and the boards they brought to the competition: (Note* Some of the boards were not present at the event. Either they were in a different area and we slacked on getting shots of them, or they just didn’t get them entered.)
Ned’s Board:This board is a minimalist approach based on using sustainable materials, minimizing waste, and using clean manufacturing methods. It's a 5'8" finless design with no stringer. Using stringer wood is very wasteful with only a 2% yield of material in the typical board. The board is vacuum bagged with epoxy for no VOCs, no wasted resin dripping on the shop floor, and as little exposure as possible to anyone working on the board. It's hot coated with a non-toxic 96% linseed oil resin and finished with water base paints.
Shaper: Eli Mirandon
http://www.mirandonsurfboards.com/http://elisurfing.blogspot.com/Board:Agave stringered bio foam blank from Malama Composites. Agave grows locally and is harvested and milled by myself. The part of the plant I use is already dead. I will use a bamboo cloth inlay on the deck to give extra strength and make the board last longer.
Shaper: Craig Hollingsworth
http://www.hollingsworthsurf.com/Board: Hansen “Master” – The board is a 9’0” featuring art by Wade Kaniakowsky. Craig shaped the board with a soy based blank from Malama Composites. The blank is made of 48% organic soybean oils and 52% MDI base creating on of the greenest blanks available today. The tail block is made of balsa and cedar that he retrieved from the trash at a local surfboard manufacturing company. The material was the remains of balsa surfboard cut pieces.
Shaper: Dan O’Hara / Solid Surfhttp://www.solidsurfco.com/Board: 5’9” x 20” x 2 3/8” “ Discus”
The concept was taken from a longboard template. But, he cuts 3 ft out of the middle, making it a 6’0” nose rider rather than a 9’0”. The board is made with recycled EPX foam from previous board outline cuts. The outline pieces are ripped down to straight blocks and then glued up to form a new blank. The board is laminated with bamboo cloth, which is a renewable and organic material. It is laminated using an Epoxy resin for low VOC’s. The leash plug is made from a corn-based bio-plastic and the bamboo fins were hand-cut and hand foiled using a 3/8” thick piece of solid bamboo. The bamboo fabric, bamboo fins and bio-plastic leash plug are manufactured by Greenlight Surfboard Supply and supplied by SPEARZ – High Performance Surf.
Shaper: Chris Dierckshttp://www.resinworks.net/chrisdiercks.htmlBoard: 5’8” x 19 ¾” “The Mush Missle”
Created using locally sourced blanks to reduce environmental impact from shipping.
Shaper: Ashley Lloyedhttp://www.bingsurf.com/surfboards_ashleyBoard: Custom shaped board using soy based blank. (no further info available at this time)
Shaper: JP Holmanhttp://www.hsdsurfboards.com/ Board: 5’8” x 19 ½” x 2 ½” HSD “Cherry Bomb”
Hand Shaped from a recycled EPS core, FSC bamboo ply stringer, hand-glued blank, hand-foiled glass-on bamboo fins from the stringer scraps and laminated with bio-epoxy (poine, linseed base) by Wyatt Hederson. Artwork and recycled surf resin leash loop by Andrea Holeman.
Shaper: Jason Keens
Board: (Board not present at photo session at event)
Shaper: Tim Bessel
http://www.bessellsurf.com/
Board: (Board not present at photo session at event)
The line up.......
For some odd reason, the winners of the shape off contest were not announced at the event location. Instead, they took the boards (and the prizes) to “Belly Up”, the local favorite restaurant and bar. Rob Machado was apparently performing there after the weekend long surf competition and green expo. We had to head back North to Venice Beach. So, we missed the prize announcement. If anyone knows who won the event please post it for us. Otherwise, we’ll post it once we find out.
Solid Surf was there and came out with a killer display of their latest and greatest. Dan Ohara also had a board in the contest.
Malama Blanks was at the event and had a wood "shape-room" style set-up with friends of the biz displaying their boards.
We also ran in to our friends over at Synergy Surf. The Synergy "Tri-Fecta" (Todd Patterson, Greg Provance & Trevor Watkins) brought their newest in high-performance eco-technolygy for one of their team riders. The "V-Drive". board made with EPS Foam, Bamboo Fiberblass Cloth and Epoxy Resins. These guys are off the hook right now with the newest in eco-technology and post-consumer recycled board products as an alternative to current board materials. More to come on that later...
We came out to the event with the mission of getting people more connected to and advancing their personal surfing experience by shaping their own boards while using eco-friendly and sustainable materials.
We brought out our Greenlight Eco-Friendly Bamboo Board Building Kits. And, we brought a slew of Probox Fin Systems, Fibreglass Fin Co. Fins, Aircore Fins, And Synergy/Probox's newest post consumer recycled fin system products which are currently getting ready to launch into production. ProBox is, hands-down, the most advanced fin system on the market today. (We'll have more on these products in other posts)
The entire event was run off solar power.
Tons of Green / Eco-Friendly vendors selling everything from Art, Food, Owl-Nests, to Electic Motorcycles.
The main event was the surf contest sponsored by Hurley, and other smaller sponsors, and was right at Seaside in front of the lifeguard tower.
Their was a woody car display that brought out some of the old-school, "Surf-Americana" style from back in the day. And, was a good addition to the event.
The event wrapped up on Sunday with the awards ceremony for the surf competition winners. Rob Machado announced the winners and presented the awards. Good times...
