I’m using the Dakine world traveler bag (3 boards). Let’s hear some advice.
Thanks in advance,
If you go somewhere cold, pack your wetsuit around the rails. I usually take my own towel too just so I can pad the rails. My boards have made it unscathed to NZ, Tahiti, Aus, Inter island from Oahu with zero dings. I may just be lucky though.
If your really pinched up about it. 1) Go to the HD and get some heater insulation pipe foam, get the stuff thats split. Put those on the rails, and tape them down. 2) Get some 1" in EPS sheets, and cut them to the size of the boards. Put them between the boards and the bag. 3) Make sure the tip and tail have good padding around them, use the EPS to make blocks. I usually put 2 boards in a 3 board bag. the rest is padding. It’s all about impact resistance. Nothing will stop a fork lift!
Also make Epoxy travel boards.
Go to any place that sells or rents kayaks and get the heavy duty bubble wrap - that kayaks are shipped in - that they throw in the dumpster and wrap and tape the shit out of your board - it’s free! (usually) and better than store bought bubble wrap…
Check the archives here…this topic has been gone over…
It doest matter what you do or how you pack em
if TSA decides to inspect your bag, they wont put it back the way you had it
I know…It happend to my two boards
They cut open the bubble wrap and the rest is history
just do your best and pray for the rest!
It does matter where you are going and how
you are getting there. We carried/shipped four
bags of longboards/shortboards to the Mentawais.
All had rail protection by “pipe insulation” and cut
& fit nose protection by the same. On the 23rd of
December I got back the last bag of shorties
(we returned in July) & all were ok. We
had only one damaged and that was due to being on
the bottom on the truck on the way to the boat.
The best advice I can give you is to pack your bag
with towels on the nose & tail and protect the bottom
board in the front third with a lot of foam/bubble pack.
This is where a lot of the dimples occur. Our boards
went thru three checks & two airlines and two truck
transports before arriving back home and we had no
broken noses, not dented tails and only one rail ding.
That’s not bad for a total of 13 boards going half way
around the world.
BKB
Get a bisect board.
double bag with one board----pipe foam on the rails and tail and nose—make them rright the first time and you can reuse them forever-----i also pack my clothes into 2 gallon ziplok bagies and us them for top and bottom packing along with towels and flippers and hats (you get the picture)…i take a largish carry on with my numatic mat and trunks and flippers on the bottom (just in case) and Rseinheads idea ----travel with epoxy boards!----i use fletch’s Point Blanks–a rocket Sled with the five fin bonzer set-up, just a great all around board and super strong------this has worked to panama, costra rica, calif and oregon—o, and in every trip but one the bag has been inspected —i think surfboards look like cruise missles or something