Is epoxy the future of surfing or a turn-of-the-century fad?

Nick Carroll examines the differences in board construction

QUESTION
Seems like every surf shop wants to sell me an epoxy board. Is epoxy the future of surfing or a turn-of-the-century fad? The pros and cons please.
Asked by Michael B in Fallbrook


ANSWER
Surfline's Nick Carroll replies:

By "epoxy", WK presumes you mean a SurfTech TufLite or similar composite product.

Future of surfing? Turn of the century fad? We suspect neither description fits this form of surfboard manufacturing. After extensive testing experience on various TufLite boards in the past 18 months, WK feels confident in listing the pros and cons (as opposed to standard polyester boards) below:

- TufLite is very much as its name suggests: it's tough, and it's light. Very difficult to permanently dent or injure, a TufLite board will survive months of fairly intense surfing without caving in at the deck or other visible damage. The boards are considerably more buoyant than their polyester cousins, reflected in their ease of paddling and quick reactions.

- They have extremely stiff flex patterns, and in the shortboard range can appear to be almost completely rigid. This results in a subtle yet clear difference in the boards' performance characteristics. While a polyester board flexes around its stringer and tends to absorb a certain amount of wave energy in critical situations, a TufLite reacts abruptly to any changes in the wave face, with no softening of its effects beyond that built into the board's design. It's not a particularly good or bad feeling -- just different. A competent surfer might work with it to gain surprising amounts of speed in smaller surf. Equally you might decide it's not quite what you're after.

- Thanks to the buoyancy, TufLites are easy to move underfoot. There is, however, an occasional feeling of the board "lifting" up and out of the water during rail turns at speed -- for some reason this seems to happen most in bottom turns. Use of larger fins helps overcome this problem.

- Not that we'd recommend it -- but if a polyester board is slightly dinged, it'll usually survive a surf or two. Not so with a TufLite; once the board's skin is broken, it MUST be taken out of the water immediately, carefully dried out, and repaired before your next session. Epoxy resins MUST be used in the repair.

- The TufLites are all pretty much perfect copies of really well shaped plugs by master shapers; you know the next one you buy will match the last. This pro is matched by a con: the board can't be hand-tuned by an experienced shaper or sander to your personal specs in sensitive areas like the tail and nose rails. (Of course, it can't be screwed up by 'em either.)

In summary, WK reckons you're not seeing a Noughties fad or the total future either -- you're seeing a worthwhile alternative. And for the long-suffering surfboard customer, that probably isn't a bad thing.

(Posted on 02/09/05.)