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In 2007, surfboard manufacturer Ryan Siegel began looking for an alternative to the polyurethane foam blanks made with toluene diisocyanates.
Perhaps because the sport involves riding a force of nature, surfers tend to be environmentally conscious. But the tool of their trade, the surfboard, has traditionally been anything but green.
That irony was not lost on Ryan Siegel, who has been shaping boards in Ocean Beach, Calif., for 13 years. By 2007 he was looking for an alternative to the polyurethane foam blanks made with toluene diisocyanates (TDI), which off-gas volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A friend introduced him to San Diego-based foam manufacturer Malama Composites, founded by Ned McMahon, a former surfboard shaper and marketing director for Hawaii-based board maker T&C Surf Designs.
Although officially incorporated in 2009, McMahon and his team had been working since early 2006 to make the process of manufacturing surfboard blanks cleaner and greener. They started out working with suppliers in the U.K. to replace TDI with less toxic methylene diphenyl diisocyanates (MDI) in their foam. Soon after, they experimented further by replacing the petroleum polyols used in the process with polyols derived from renewable plant-based oils, such as soy, castor and jatropha.
No one on the Malama team had a background in chemistry, McMahon says, so the process involved a lot of research and development. “We had basic knowledge of formulation, and of course we asked our suppliers questions all the time,” he says. “But frankly, a lot of it was our own testing—pouring a little bit, testing, playing some more. We had a process of running percentages. When things were going in a good direction, we’d go down that road.”
After about 12 months of testing, the team developed foam that doesn’t off-gas VOCs and can be reused or recycled. The company calls its product AinaCore, after the Hawaiian word for “Earth,” and for good reason. Malama doesn’t just use renewable resources to make its foam; it also considers the lifecycle of the materials it uses.
Siegel, who shapes boards under his own name but is affiliated with the nonprofit artist collective Sezio, started using Malama’s MDI and soy foam blanks in 2007 and estimates he has used them in 150 to 200 boards. He now uses them nearly exclusively, though he does use other blanks upon request. Both types of foam, says Siegel, who now serves as Malama’s post-production manager, have the same or better characteristics as more toxic TDI versions. The soy blanks, in particular, have better memory and resist pressure dings better than standard surfboards. The MDI blanks even have the same clean white color.
“The soy blanks shape out pretty much the same way as any other surfboard blanks, but the main difference is the color of the foam,” Siegel says. “They have an off-white-yellow color, so it looks like a board that’s been sun-damaged…Other than that, the density, the weight of the foam, the feeling of it as a shaper is all really similar to a standard surfboard blank.”
Siegel shapes each of his boards by hand, though he says the Malama blanks can also be shaped by machine—a process many shapers are adopting. Once he shapes a board, he sends it to San Clemente-based Bashams to be airbrushed with a design or tinted with resin (if the customer chooses); wrapped in fiberglass cloth and coated with layers of polyurethane resin; fitted with a fin system, which can be inserted with plugs or fiberglassed on; sanded; and possibly finished with a gloss coat of resin and buffed out. The process, he says, is the same with the MDI and soy blanks as it would be with any other foam, with one exception.
“With the soy foam, the only thing you really need to take caution on is air brushing,” he says. “You can’t actually airbrush or paint the foam itself or else the paint will crystallize after glassing. You have to seal the blank before painting it by putting on a cheater coat of resin.”
Siegel says boards made with Malama’s soy blanks perform as well or better than boards made with more traditional materials and are similarly priced—or, in the case of his boards, cheaper. Yet, he often has to sell customers on the new material.
“Most of the time, I have to push it,” he says. “I have had people come to me specifically, but most of the time I have to educate them, let them know it’s just the same performance-wise as a normal surfboard. That’s what people worry about the most, is it going to perform the same as their other board.”
Still, he believes there is a market for greener surfboards.
“Surfers are pretty in-tune with nature for the most part, but a lot of shapers are stuck on the same path of using the same materials over and over, and they don’t want to change,” Siegel says. “Honestly, I think there are people out there willing to buy [greener] surfboards. They’re interested in it, but it’s just not readily available, and the reason for that is that the industry doesn’t want to change.”
Jamie Hartford is a freelance writer based in Hood River, Ore.
