Having been around the surf industry for much of my life one of the intriguing things to me has always been how the next thing is created. Lets face it, much of the industry is not based on true innovation or function, but advertising and nostagia.
Certainly there have been some breakthroughs in surfboard design and even in accessories like boardshorts and wetsuits. However; the vast majority of so called new designs or new accessories are nothing more than gobbly gook designed for the brainless masses of kids and adults who have no identity of their own and want to take on a surfing identity. Usually the identity they take on is not a surfing identity at all, but simply some clever marketer’s creation or a certain magazine’s opinion of how things used to be or are.
Truly one of the best things about the surfboard building end of the surf industry is the mix of characters within it and one of the beauties of this mix was the fact that few of it’s best innovators could care less about getting rich off the boards they build. Not that some of them have not become rich nor that others would not like to be rich, but the majority of the true masters I know build boards because they take pride in their work and enjoy seeing others appreciate it. Each board is it’s own unique creation and those boards seem to have a life all their own to us surfers.
I look at the threads here on swaylocks with pictures of old boards and see the amount of stoke people still have for old designs. It makes you wonder who first ordered the board or how many places the old board was used. Old hanshaped surfboards seem to breath a certain type of magic and my personal opinion is that part of it, is the fact that someone put their own life experience and energy into it. They are created for a purpose, not something to be looked at or hung on a wall. Kind of like an old blacksmith who made handtools. Those old tools even seem to have a magic about them, when compared to the modern popped off machine mass production.
The innovators as mentioned above are the ones that truly stand out and in many cases continue to drive the product forward, but in this age of market share and creating the next new gimick I fear the magic of the old board builder is being turned into simply another marketing tool for some to get rich from at the expense of those being used to market.
The waves upon which we surf and dedicate much of our free time to pursuing will always be there and their magic really comes from above, but this human creation we call surfing that began as a sport of kings and whose boardbuilders were revered has in my opinion been turned into (at least from the industry side) a sport of punks and bubble headed twappies (this term came from a legedary boardbuilder and swaylock member)
The builders who have created this culture with their designs must now fight the machine of industry and the false wave of progress. Taken over by clothing companies that have nothing to do with surfing and surf shop owners who don’t shape peddling their own names on surfboard designs created by masters as if the designs were their own. Made in countries by people who don’t surf, with little regard for the shaper who may have actually created the design they are copying. Functional? Maybe. Magical? Not on your life.
It reminds me of the movie " The decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." At the end of the movie the generals who had taken over Rome because of the corruption, were auctioning to the rich masses the position of Roman Emporer.
It had become something of little value, because there was not longer anything worthwhile to back it up…