 I had all intentions of bursting the technology bubble in this annual Surfboards Issue column. Of explaining how, after the demise of Clark and our two-year bender on alternative materials, we’ve finally sobered up and gone back to our old, faithful polyurethane Thruster like nothing ever happened. How we’re sick of hearing about carbon reinforcement rods, polypropelene support beams and high-density foam inlays. We just want to keep it simple with something we know, trust and can afford. It’s understandable. There’s a reason why approximately 90 percent of our surfboards still use the same technology Dave Sweet, Hobie Alter and Grubby Clark popularized 50 years ago. Like the internal combustion engine, we just can’t find something that consistently compares in the two most important categories: performance and price. (See "So Much for the Revolution," pg. 112) So, as the “next big thing” in surfboards comes and goes, we just keep guzzling gas and loving our PU. What does this mean, then? Another half century of oil dependence, broken boards and funky foam that’s on every environmental black list? Not necessarily. Fortunately at the magazine, we sell hope. And when the surfboard issue rolls around every year, we get to witness hope by the boardbag-load. No matter what the current trend is in the local lineup, there is a shaper or designer out there, completely off the grid, working diligently on a board that just might blow our minds. In one case this year, it’s someone paring down the idea of the surfboard to its simplest, most streamlined form and getting us to rethink the concept of waveriding altogether. (See "Shaper of the Year," page 136) In others, it’s a fine-tuned formula of materials and design that makes you feel like an astronaut when you’re holding one under your arm. I got to try both of these forms of hope for this issue and — in between going back to the beginning (literally) on the alaia and feeling futuristic flex on the Rapidfire and Double Helix — I realized we have a lot more to look forward to in surfboard design. That someday, some way, we will wonder how we were stuck on the same damn equipment for so damn long. Should be right about the time we’re all driving electric cars.
- Evan Slater
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