Polyurethane Foam

The Largest Surfing Encyclopedia

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The roots of the modern surfboard can be traced to World War II more so than to any one man. Created during the war as insulation for refrigerators and airplanes, polyurethane foam proved to be the perfect replacement for balsa wood. It was cheaper, easier to shape, man-made and abundant, impacting every aspect of our equipment -- from planing hulls to hydrofoiled rails to fiberglass to flotation. By 1960, the technology originally developed to end the spread of fascism would ultimately open surfing's borders, making easily constructed boards available wherever people wanted to surf. But before polyurethane became the standard, shapers had to bumble through other, less qualified materials.

Preeminent mad surfing scientist Bob Simmons got the foam ball rolling in 1947 when he first began tinkering with the revolutionary new compound. By 1949, he sandwiched a Styrofoam core between two pieces of plywood and added hand-shaped balsa rails. When exposed directly to resin, the polystyrene foam (used in aircraft radar domes during the war) dissolved, so the plywood kept the volatile components from meeting. The concoction was sealed with fiberglass, an ingredient Simmons had known about for some time but was reluctant to use until he determined that lighter was better. He located the materials, built a concrete mold, and blew the foam fixings for his sandwich. Having drastically reduced board weight, he and cohorts Matt Kivlin and Joe Quigg sold over 100 sandwiches during the summer of '49.

Simmons soon stepped away from board building and eventually died tragically in 1954. In his absence, balsa remained the core of choice until Whitey Harrison cooked up a polyurethane plank in his barn in 1955. Whitey's creation failed to make waves, but the following year, brothers Dave and Roger Sweet began selling boards with the "new" foam around Santa Monica. Funded by future acting legend Cliff Robertson, their boards were undeniably light and their success was impeded only by their somewhat clunky designs.

Meanwhile, the supply of useful balsa coming into California had virtually dried up, leading Hobie Alter to dive headlong into foam with his glasser, an engineering wiz named Gordon "Grubby" Clark. In a secretive factory in Laguna Canyon, Alter and Clark devised a mold that would create a blank in two halves divided lengthwise. The sections were joined by a wooden stringer, and by the summer of 1958 the foam and fiberglass surfboard was a way of life.

The movie Gidget arrived shortly thereafter, and all of America wanted a part of the beach lifestyle. Hobie was happy to indulge them, branching throughout the surfing world and becoming the first name in surfboards. In 1961, Clark went off on his own to create Clark Foam, quickly becoming the foremost supplier of surfboard blanks. Armed with new molds and processes, he accommodated the '60s surfing boom and retained his advantage for the next 44 years.

Then, on Dec. 5, 2005 , Clark abruptly shut his doors. Later called "Blank Monday", a single fax to all his clients shook the board-building industry to its very core. Citing environmental laws and possible jailtime, he said not one more blank would ship from his Orange County warehouse.

No sooner did the news hit the wire, the surf world began to tremble and quake. Some shapers hoarded blanks. Others ordered whole containers from overseas. Shops hiked new board prices by hundreds of dollars. Experimenters danced on P/U's grave while competitors and capitalists ramped up production and scouted locations with looser restrictions. All predicted it would be years before any maker could replace the estimated 1000 to 2000 blanks a day pumped out by this monopoly.

Six months later, most factories had sourced materials from places like Brazil and Australia and South Africa, as surf companies backed domestic ventures. Meanwhile, many surfers -- fearful of what lay beneath the fiberglass shell -- simply stopped buying, leaving surf shops sitting on a glut of finished glass. Five years later, PU remained still readily available, but many small shapers had officially shutdown, as much from the impending global economic downturn that followed as much as Clark closing down.

Ironically, those who remained, found themselves pleasantly surprised the quality of the new sources of P/U foam. Simultaneously, the shakeup forced builders to consider new technology to fill gaps, making room for epoxy, vacuum bagging and the next generation of sandwich construction. Even the most notorious holdouts -- pro surfing -- were publicly test-driving alternative equipment. In 2009 Dane Reynolds' performance on an epoxy stick at Lowers lit up order forms and chat rooms, while Kelly Slater's design tinkerings were almost purely polystyrene. Along the way, Taj Burrow became the first top-5 surfer to exclusively ride Firewires, which combined molded cores, balsa rails, foam sheeting -- roughly the whole history of modern board building in a single design.

Still, as of 2010, despite all complaints of their 'disposability' compared to modern composites, at least 75% of traditionally shaped boards were still strictly P/U. In some ways because surfers are so slow to change. But also for many of the same reasons it caught on to in the first place: because of polyurethane, custom surfboards progressed quicker, with greater more dependability and less cost. No innovation since the development of foam has had such impact on the way we make boards, and perhaps until the next World War, none will.

-- Jason Borte (updated, February 2010)