I don’t believe it is conditioning. It is consumer awareness, or lack thereof.
The surf industry has hyped lightness as a desireable quality. Longevity is not hyped, and people that really want to rip KNOW the tradeoff and choose lightness over durability, and some knowingly break 4-5 shortboards a year. Pros go through many more than that (at no cost).
When Honda/Toyota started making inroads against US cars because they lasted longer, Detroit made their cars just as long-lived, and this change came relatively fast.
I advise people who want their boards to last to get shortboards 6+4 deck 6 hull. The shaper always says “that’s going to be heavy”, to which they reply, “Yeah, but I want it to last 2-3 years”.
But on the showroom floor, the last thing a surfboard salesman wants to hear is “Ohhh, that’s too heavy”, so all the rack boards are light.
This is a choice PEOPLE make, and not one forced on them. You can choose differently, and if enough people do (as was the case with Honda/Toyota cars), then boards will be built more durable by default.
But the trend appears the opposite. The incredible lightness of surfing is driving things lighter. This trend is nothing new, Gordon Clark has written about it for decades.
Three quickies.
We here in NJ had a good last week of waves from hurricane Frances.
Yesterday I came across a lifeguard in Ocean Beach who asked me if I had an FCS key. He was trying to get the fins out of the tail half of his brand new Dan Taylor. He’d broken it after just 2 sessions.
I examined it as I removed the fins and untied the leash tether. It was glassed one 4 top one 4 bottom. Left side fin plugs were both pushed up into the board.
A real light Sam Hammer style board (local hero) stocked off the rack at a local huge surfshop. If someone knew Sam and held his board they could go to this shop that sponsors him and buy the same super light board they’d been shown by the local pro. Good marketing, yes. But this lifeguard told me he weighed 200lbs and Hammer is what 150?
I suggested he switch to epoxy, but he said he didnt trust that new technology. I said the technology is older than you. He gave me a blank stare and so I walked. I was not in the mood for his negative attitude especially since I had salvaged his fins and leash tether. Some times a little goes a long way too. I figured him to be the type to grind on a thought for days anyway.
Later in the afternoon in Manasquan I checked out a new Merrick Flyer Surftech that a team rider had just bought. He’s a lifeguard, too, and recently met Greg Loehr, so he knows a little more about epoxy than most kids in NJ his age He said the Surftech worked fine, but the extra boyancy was taking some getting used to. I suggested it ws the same old scan a poly board and make it out of epoxy issue: Different materials mean differing centers of gravity, the most fundamental concept for any flying or floating machine.
His buddy has been riding a Surfboards Australia all summer that proved, in the better surf, to be a dog with fleas. So he cleaned it and polished it with car wax and took it to his local shop and traded it even for a year old off the rack Fly Surfboard made with Resin Research epoxy. Told me it’s super fast and works great. I think it was shaped by Regis. This 19 yr old kid is 190 lbs and rips, but the Fly takes it. It weighs about the same as a 4x4 poly board, but has extra glass and isn’t corky like the Merrick. BTW the year old Fly is as white as a new off the rack Dan Taylor!
Just talking story.