A Better Board : Success of Computer-Aided Design Stirs Surfing Controversy

Tucked away in an alley littered with trash cans, just a stone’s throw from this seaside mecca’s popular pier, Al Merrick’s surfboard factory hardly looks like a hotbed of controversial technological revolution.

Behind the signless blueberry-colored front door, workers are churning out surfboards at the rate of 150 a week. They’re good boards, championship quality even, but Merrick’s success has sent tremors through the surfboard design community for what seems to be a most innocent reason: The boards are built partly by computer.

Resistance to “the machine”--as surfboard makers, or “shapers,” refer to it--is coming from hundreds of small-volume shapers still working out of garages across California. For them, the computer is at best irrelevant, an unwelcome incursion of mass production into a craftsman’s business. And some view it as a threat to the very soul of their very soulful sport.

“When I talk about the machine, my butt puckers,” said Greg Noll, better known as Da Bull, a legendary surfer who hand-shapes a dozen boards a year for wealthy collectors.

The machine “probably makes a better board in some instances, but it kind of takes the heart and soul out of it,” said Skip Frye, co-owner of Harrys’ Surf Shop in San Diego.

All this soul-searching has Merrick slightly defensive. At a concession stand near his factory, he crushed a Styrofoam cup in his fist then held it up to eye level.

“There’s no soul in that foam,” he said, twirling the flattened white cup in his fingertips. He shook his head. “The soul of surfing is to get out into the waves and have a good time--that’s where it’s at. The surfer has the soul, and computer-made boards aren’t going to change that.”

Computer-made boards, in fact, have some distinct advantages. Traditionally, in creating a surfboard, a shaper starts with a piece of hard polyurethane foam, known as a “blank,” that’s in the general shape of the intended board. The blank is then cut and scraped and otherwise massaged into the final shape, and finally coated in fiberglass. Every board is different, essentially a handcrafted item.

With “the machine,” though, Merrick can re-create a popular board, such as one used by a professional surfer, and ship it to a company in Carlsbad called Kahuna Kalai Limited--a Hawaiian name for master carver. At KKL, the dimensions of the board are scanned into a computer--or, to be exact, half the board is scanned in and then digitally mirrored to make a perfectly symmetrical surfboard.

Once the digital information is recorded--up to 1 million measurements per surfboard--the computer orders a cutting machine to duplicate it, chiseling away at two foam blanks at a time. The boards come out with the shape of a surfboard and the skin of ruffled potato chips, and are sent back to the shaping factory to be finished.

Although roughly 95% of the work is done, a board can still be ruined in the final stretch. “It doesn’t take much to be out of the game,” Merrick said. His crew sands down the ridges of the machine-made boards to bring back the bottom contours--critical for high performance--before being shipped for fiberglassing, fins and delivery to retailers.

The machine makes it possible to mass-produce boards, and Merrick says younger surfers, at least, like that. “Now people are asking for boards that come off the machine,” he said. “I make boards for some of the best surfers in the world. The kids go: ‘This is legitimate.’ ”

Competition surfers Kelly Slater and Rob Machado, ranked first and second in the world, have won on Merrick’s high-performance boards, and now any surfer can have the privilege of riding a board that professionals use. Merrick says quality is now more consistent, and design changes are easy to test and improve upon.

Many other high-volume shapers are also turning to the machine. Bill Stewart of San Clemente-based Stewart Surfboards, the world’s largest manufacturer of long boards, uses the computer for 20% of his volume.

“I fought the shaping machine originally because I hated the concept,” Stewart said. “The truth of the machine is it’s great for replication. We wouldn’t be able to keep up with demand without the machine. It has a place.”

But Rusty Preisendorfer of Rusty Surfboards in San Diego didn’t have the same experience. He tried the machine for 1 1/2 years, but his designs varied so much the company had four times the inventory it needed.

“The momentum for computer-shaped boards may be waning,” Preisendorfer said. Foam blanks are now so close to the finished board that a machine isn’t really necessary, he added.

And shapers such as Frye, who makes one long board a day and has a four-month backlog of customers waiting for his designs, are intent on preserving the traditional craft.

“I’d make more money if I went to the machine--I could power out boards.” But it wouldn’t be fun, he said. “I just want to be traditional.”

Machine-made boards from KKL currently represent only about 3% of surfboard sales worldwide, but the company’s customer base has steadily grown. The number of shapers has risen from two to 49, and they made 20,000 surfboards last year. The computer-made boards cost from $409 to $420, Merrick said, a little pricier than comparable handmade boards, which range from $325 to $425.

There is talk of franchising the technology, and other companies in Hawaii and Australia are using their own machines.

What is the future of surfboard making? It depends on whom you ask. Shaper Mickey Munoz of Capistrano Beach predicts that high-production shops will be few and far between. “I don’t see the machine taking over. It isn’t going to revolutionize anything. All it’s going to do is put more surfboards out there and flood the market.”

But Merrick is hoping to move the factory to a bigger space because he’s overflowing with boards.

“We’re way overbooked,” he said. “It’s a nice problem to have.”

When Merrick looks into the future, he sees his son, Britt, eventually taking over the business. And when he contemplates “the machine,” he’s pretty confident it’s here to stay. “It’s got so far to go. There’s so much to be done.”

Freelance writer Linda Berlin can be reached by e-mail at 73732,1410@compuserve.com