KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY
After the Clark shutdown, speculation about what would happen to the industry was rampant. Shapers had to scramble to get foam. Because Clark's position in the U.S. foam market was so dominant, basically all of the new from was from unknown sources, some of it of dubious quality. The market abhors a vacuum, though, and sure enough, enterprising entrepreneurs moved in to supply foam blanks to feed the apparently unceasing demand for new surfboards. Just as he had accurately predicted the rise of the offshore, factory-shaped kookstick in his manifesto, Parmenter was right on again when he discussed the fallout of the end of Clark Foam: "It is probable that when the dust settles we will see a stratification of the various surfboard constructions, each supporting the three main categories of board buyer: The entry-level Sunday surfer, who looks primarily for generic shapes with low cost and durability; the connoisseur, who seeks out fashionable labels and cosmetic qualities; and the performance surfer, who cares only about shape and design. With the performance surfers, I predict, we will likely see a substantial exodus toward EPS/epoxy boards.” Parmenter, while spot-on with all three of his predictions, has now capitulated to the demands of the market and is mass-producing his stand up paddle boards overseas in EPS composite sandwich under the Boardworks label. He's been pilloried (unfairly in my view) on Swaylock's and other bulletin boards, as a sell-out and hypocrite. From what I've read, it seems his decision to go to that route, to give up, essentially, on the position he'd staked so eloquently in his manifesto, was as much an acceptance of the benefits of the technology (especially when applied to paddleboards) behind the so-called compsand boards, as much as it was a financial sellout. Of course, pictures of Jennifer Garner and other celebs practicing the hottest new surf fad probably hasn't hurt the bottom line.

But really, all that is irrelevant. The fact is, Parmenter is a surfer who still shapes hundreds of boards a year by hand, filling custom orders from surfers in the know who want to buy a board from somebody who surfs and don't mind paying a little more for it. And that's the thing, isn't it? Shouldn't we buy surfboards made by surfers? A few weeks ago I was at a party in Rockaway Beach arguing with a guy I know in passing, a decent surfer and lifelong Rockaway local. He was trying to justify to me the business of a local shop owner, who for the last ten years or so has been flooding the market with cheap, foreign made boards under long defunct, classic labels, including Plastic Fantastic, Canyon, Challenger and others. Apparently the new batch were top notch. I wanted to yell and scream. This is a guy with an incredible quiver; boards of every vintage, size and shape.

What do you say to someone like that? To a certain degree, I guess its just an inevitable part of our society that economics is the engine. I mean, Grubby Clark amassed a fortune making the manufacture of surfboards streamlined and easier by developing a better blank. This isn't even the first wave of popouts. Throughout the Sixties, you could buy them in sporting goods stores. Shit, I own one from each generation. A 9'8" Dextra D-fin circa '64 and a Plastic Fantastic made in China and purchased from said local shop owner before I knew any better. In fact, when I asked the kid in the shop about the board, if it was "the" Plastic Fantastic (the first board I ever stood up on was an early '70s downrailed, swallow tail, single fin Plastic Fantastic), he said it was. The unwillingness to admit to what is being done; the appeal to nostalgia by using defunct labels to sell an inferior product, seems to be a separate and distinct issue from Parmenter’s 180-degree turn on the composite technology. Now, Jan and Dean have given way to the Blue Crush generation and the population of people taking to the water to catch a wave seems to grow unrelentingly. Maybe there is a place in the market for the popouts. The latest survey from SIMA (Surf Industry Manufacturers of America) indicates that, in 2006, just about 70% of the boards sold in the U.S. were made in the U.S. and that approximately 75% of all boards sold in the U.S. were of traditional polyurethane/polyester construction. To a certain degree, many of the new surfers won't ever think of their surfboard any differently than they do their tennis rackets or golf clubs.

My plea is that we, those of us who care about this thing that we're obsessed with (and surfers are, without fail, the most obsessed people I know), don't let that happen. Surfboards aren't tennis rackets. They are the essence of what remains of this culture, which, like everything else, is getting more homogeneous every day. The history of the surfboard is the history of surfing and we need to see that the people who surf, and who make surfboards, don't get marginalized. If I learned anything building those two boards, it is that we ought to appreciate and support those of us who make it possible to enjoy the ride. If you've read this far, I'm probably preaching to the converted. And maybe I'm a hypocrite, too. I mean, here I am on the one hand defending Parmenter's move into the macro-industry overseas while at the same time arguing that people shouldn't buy cheaper overseas polyester boards.

The point is, let's not abandon them. As bleak as things may seem (and any summer Sunday in Rockaway or Long Beach, or shit, just about anywhere around here, can be packed to the gills with first-timers on kooksticks and pretty fucking bleak) I think there's reasons to be optimistic. For as accurate as Parmenter was about the proliferation of "the entry-level Sunday surfer, who looks primarily for generic shapes with low cost and durability," he also realized that the market for high-quality, durable and aesthetic boards can and must endure, for it is there that the tradition of board building will survive in this country. The Sunday surfers on their popouts are to surfing what I am to shaping. Dilettantes and passersby; and they won't sustain the vital connection between the board and the ride. That's up to us. Don't feed the machine by buying the knockoffs. I'm gonna take that "Plastic Fantastic" and I'm gonna strip off all the glass off it and shape myself something I can connect to. If you can't do that, buy a surfboard made by a surfer.