I have yet to find a decent boardbag that will provide adequit protection against airline staff.
So here are some tips to get your board to its destination in as few pieces as possible.
1> Get one of those cheap camping mats cut it up and use some ducktape to cover the key areas nose, tail and rails. Camping mats are cheap and the protection pads you have made can be re-used.
2> Coffin bags are good because if your luggage is heavy it cant be thrown. If you dont have a coffin bag and are travelling with multiple board bags tape them together using ducktape.
3> Lastly if your bag does’nt have a fragile label on it get a fragile sticker from the airline. Though most airline staff have seen a surfboard before they have definately seen a fragile sticker and know what it means.
Most of this is common sense but I use these rules when traveling with my boards and so far so good.
Feel free to add to this if you have any more ideas.
I travelled to a remote island in Micronesia (not the one the Hobgoods are all over!) where they see a surfboard maybe once a year… I wrapped my board in that plastic bubble material and covered the bag in “fragile” stickers. Got there in one piece, although the handlers roughed up the bubbles to see what I was hiding in there.
I have had better luck with “golf clubs” written on the outside of my bag than “fragile”. I travelled with a 9 foot coffin bag labled as “golf clubs” for for years. The boards always came through fine and about half the time they would travel for free. At nine feet! The only comment I ever got was “That must be one heck of a driver.”
i was packing my board for a trip to costa rica, and my girlfriend showed me how to pack my board…shes been shipping custom ceramics for years, and shes learned a thing or two about shipping fragile items.
as was already stated above, wrap your board in bubble wrap. the trick is to completely wrap it with bubble wrap and duct tape…like a cocoon…and then take a pair of scissors and cut a long opening to take the board out of the bubble wrap. once you take the board out of the bubble wrap, you will be left with a custom bubble wrap cocoon of your board. now, take duct tape and tape up the frayed ends of the opening you just cut with the scissors. this way, you can use your custom bubble wrap cocoon over and over again. i put my bubble wrap cocoon in my board bag, and my board was totally free of dings.
My travel tip - buy a cheap chinese epoxy all round board. I’m heading to the Canaries in a couple of days and my Griffin and Campbell brothers are staying at home! It looks like the chinese have started to scan in merricks, so they should be half rideable. Then again I don’t have a surfboard industry to support here - everything here is an import.
you dont know the half of it. when it comes to shipping and receiving, shes the master. knows all of the parcel rates, times, policies, etc. she bakes cakes for the staff at ups during the holidays.
she tells me shipping and receiving to japan is one of the toughest places. very strict policies that are always enforced.
the most recent time i went to costa rica i didnt take a board.
i just purchased a used board while i was there.
a 7ft big guy tri for $175.
i was traveling with 7 other knucklehead surfers who all brought boards under 6’8".
they were teasing me to death on my board purchase, until we surfed ollies and i was able to stand up before they were even in the wave. fun stuff!
at the end of the trip, i gave the board back to one of the local tico surfers i met and partied with.
he was stoked. i figure its a small gesture of gratitude for letting us yanks go over there and surf their home breaks.
I use bubble wrap too especially when taking multiple boards. I wrap the boards around the rails nose and tail then I flatten the rocker by taping folded bubble sheets to the boards on the deck to meet the nose flip and on the bottom to in the nose and tail. I wrapped three boards this way and I could even jump on them and nothing at all happened.
Try buying a sheet of hardboard (masontie) and lay your board on it, draw round the outline and then add an extra inch all way round. Cut 2 of these out. Remove fins, lay board between the 2 peices and tape the whole lot together tightly with duct tape thne lsid eit in your board bag. The extra inch protects the rails and the masonite prevents any impact from suitcases etc when the bagaggae handlers throw our precious board around.
Simple and VERY effective.
Cheers
Rich www.thirdshade.com
I’ve had good luck putting thicker cardboard or coroplast(the stuff used for the plastic campaign signs) outside the bubble wrap. I’m working on a coffin style bag made of coroplast…it’s cheap and light.
I use pipe insulation around the rails, tape my wetsuit(s) and towel to the deck and bottom and throw the mess in a padded bag*.
*Well actually, I glued the padded bag myself from camping mat foam. It has 1/2 thick vertical rails tall enough for 2 boards and a thinner layer of foam top and bottom. I shrink wrap it at the airport so the foam doesn’t get torn up. Then I put straps around the thing and tie a handle so that the handlers have something to grab onto. I found this works out lighter than my coffin bag.
…apart to the things mentioned, bear in mind that the problem is when the board pass from plane to another or when they fall them from the plane to the cart, you have there around 4 meters fall; so the tip of the nose and tail are what the main problems are, due to its need to stand the impact and load and distribute it to manage to not break it.
Then between glass ons you should put a denser PS (like the ones that come in the TV boxes, etc) slightly taller than the fins.
Never a problem w/ two boards yet with removable fins. First use board socks on boards, and then palce each board in a day bag, and then place both boards in travel bag suited for 2+ boards w/ towels, trunks, sandels, and any thing else soft. I bubble wrap and tape fins inside a plastic future fin bag (the one that comes w/ fins).
Has anyone here sent their over 9’ boards beforehand through an air cargo service? What air cargo service do you use? I say pipe insulation on the rails and thick bubble wrap then into the board bag…
