January 9, 2006
The last wave | Maine's surfboard makers and retailers reel from the loss of a big supplier
By Whit Richardson
While the frigid water and rocky coast has never made Maine a hotspot in the surfing world, independent surfboard makers like Ogunquit-based Kirk Stockhaus and a handful of surf shops along the coast have staked out a niche serving the state's small cadre of dedicated surfers. But Stockhaus is unsure if he will have a business come springtime.
That's because Stockhaus and the rest of Maine's surfing-related businesses were rocked by the unexpected December 5 closing of Orange County, Calif.-based Clark Foam ˆ far and away the world's largest manufacturer of the polyurethane foam blanks used to make surfboards. Stockhaus, who founded Syndicate Surfboards in 1998 and has been ordering 30 to 60 blanks a year from Clark to create his custom-made surfboards, is now wondering where he will find the blanks he needs to continue. "It's pretty much going to kill my business," he says. "But if the industry doesn't level itself out blank-wise, it's not just going to harm me. Big surfboard companies are going to go out of business."
The reason for such predictions of nationwide doom is that at the time Clark Foam shut its doors under a cloud of rumors about ongoing environmental concerns, the company was providing roughly 90% of the foam blanks used by surfboard manufacturers in the United States and 60% worldwide, according to Roy Turner, president of the North Carolina-based Board Retailers Association, a group representing surfboard retailers. That fact has Maine surf shop owners wondering whether they'll be able to get finished products from dozens of board suppliers this year.
In response, Maine's surf shop owners and shapers ˆ as the people such as Stockhaus who shape the foam blanks into surfboards are called ˆ have been scrambling to find short-term solutions to their supply problems while they wait for the market to adapt to a world without the monopolistic Clark Foam. Though many in the surfing industry expect someone in the market will eventually step in to fill the void left by Clark Foam, the question looming in front of independent shapers like Stockhaus is whether they can last until there are blanks available again. "Because the big guys are starving for blanks," he says. "And the big fish will eat first in this market."
Wipe out
Mark Anastas, owner of the surf shop Liquid Dreams, with locations in York and Ogunquit, uses the automobile industry to put the closure of Clark Foam into perspective: "It's like if the whole car industry all of a sudden didn't have steel to make cars, what would happen?"
Panic. Internet sites dedicated to the surfing industry called it "Blank Monday," and surfboard prices jumped at least $100 overnight in places like California and Florida as big surfboard manufacturers scrambled to line up new blank suppliers in places as far away as Brazil, Australia and China.
A week after Clark Foam closed, Anastas was receiving several faxes a day from the roughly 15 vendors that keep his surf shops stocked with approximately 200 to 250 surfboards at any one time (out of 25 brands of surfboards Liquid Dreams carries, Anastas says 23 of them used Clark Foam as their number one source of blanks).
One such fax from R&D Surf, a Florida company that used Clark Foam for two-thirds of its production line in 2005, let Anastas know the future availability of foam-core surfboards would be uncertain, prices on its remaining available surfboards would immediately increase between $50 and $100, and there would be no more terms on sales ˆ "all surfboards will be C.O.D."
"We're going to have to be smarter businessmen and monitor our cash flow a lot better to be able to have a 150 to 250 board presentation on our floors," Anastas says.
While Anastas hasn't raised the prices on surfboards in his stores, which he says average around $450, he has noticed that people are buying more surfboards. "That's a good thing, but that can also be a catch-22 for us because depending on what happens I don't know how many of these boards we're going to have [in the spring]," he says.
To help ensure his store will have enough surfboards in time for when the 2006 surfing season picks up in May, Anastas scrambled to place an order for 250 boards with an Australian company called Base that represents several surfboard manufacturers that produce their own foam. "We're just lucky that we were doing business with them in the past because they're not taking any more accounts on, because they're in such demand," he says.
Vic Brazen, co-owner of Wheels 'n Waves, a surf shop in Wells, says he and his partner Bob Morrell talked about increasing prices on their boards, but decided against any "knee-jerk reactions" to the news. He says the real effect will be felt after the winter's snow has thawed. "It'll be a major supply and demand issue [in the spring]," Brazen says. "Jaws will hit the floor with the new pricing."
But even with the dearth of surfboard blanks driving up prices for shapers, retailers and customers, most retailers and shapers say the surfing industry will survive this bump in the road. "It's like a mountain we've got to cross, but I think we will," Anastas says. "And in the long term it may even better."
Stockhaus agrees. Because Clark Foam had such a stranglehold on the blank-making business, competition was limited. "Now I've heard of three or four guys that are already starting up their own blank companies," he says. "It's going to bad for a while no matter what, but we could come out of this with cheaper blanks and a lot more avenues to get them from."
Meanwhile, Stockhaus has a short-term plan he hopes will allow him to stay in business. He has an informal agreement with Hampton, N.H.-based 2SI, a moderately sized surfboard manufacturer that will most likely be able to order blanks in bulk from another supplier. "I gotta kind of piggyback on Shane [Smith, owner of 2SI]. If he's going to order from outside the country, I'm going to order through him and we'll split the shipping," Stockhaus says.
Still, that's only a plan at this point. Because nothing like this has ever happened in the
surfing industry, Stockhaus is unsure about the future of Syndicate Surfboards. "If May rolls around and there are no blanks, we're going to have to figure out what to do then," he says.
And what if he can't get the blanks to make his surfboards? "I would have to return to restaurant work, probably waiting tables or something," Stockhaus says. "I'd hate to have to do that."
That's because Stockhaus and the rest of Maine's surfing-related businesses were rocked by the unexpected December 5 closing of Orange County, Calif.-based Clark Foam ˆ far and away the world's largest manufacturer of the polyurethane foam blanks used to make surfboards. Stockhaus, who founded Syndicate Surfboards in 1998 and has been ordering 30 to 60 blanks a year from Clark to create his custom-made surfboards, is now wondering where he will find the blanks he needs to continue. "It's pretty much going to kill my business," he says. "But if the industry doesn't level itself out blank-wise, it's not just going to harm me. Big surfboard companies are going to go out of business."
The reason for such predictions of nationwide doom is that at the time Clark Foam shut its doors under a cloud of rumors about ongoing environmental concerns, the company was providing roughly 90% of the foam blanks used by surfboard manufacturers in the United States and 60% worldwide, according to Roy Turner, president of the North Carolina-based Board Retailers Association, a group representing surfboard retailers. That fact has Maine surf shop owners wondering whether they'll be able to get finished products from dozens of board suppliers this year.
In response, Maine's surf shop owners and shapers ˆ as the people such as Stockhaus who shape the foam blanks into surfboards are called ˆ have been scrambling to find short-term solutions to their supply problems while they wait for the market to adapt to a world without the monopolistic Clark Foam. Though many in the surfing industry expect someone in the market will eventually step in to fill the void left by Clark Foam, the question looming in front of independent shapers like Stockhaus is whether they can last until there are blanks available again. "Because the big guys are starving for blanks," he says. "And the big fish will eat first in this market."
Wipe out
Mark Anastas, owner of the surf shop Liquid Dreams, with locations in York and Ogunquit, uses the automobile industry to put the closure of Clark Foam into perspective: "It's like if the whole car industry all of a sudden didn't have steel to make cars, what would happen?"
Panic. Internet sites dedicated to the surfing industry called it "Blank Monday," and surfboard prices jumped at least $100 overnight in places like California and Florida as big surfboard manufacturers scrambled to line up new blank suppliers in places as far away as Brazil, Australia and China.
A week after Clark Foam closed, Anastas was receiving several faxes a day from the roughly 15 vendors that keep his surf shops stocked with approximately 200 to 250 surfboards at any one time (out of 25 brands of surfboards Liquid Dreams carries, Anastas says 23 of them used Clark Foam as their number one source of blanks).
One such fax from R&D Surf, a Florida company that used Clark Foam for two-thirds of its production line in 2005, let Anastas know the future availability of foam-core surfboards would be uncertain, prices on its remaining available surfboards would immediately increase between $50 and $100, and there would be no more terms on sales ˆ "all surfboards will be C.O.D."
"We're going to have to be smarter businessmen and monitor our cash flow a lot better to be able to have a 150 to 250 board presentation on our floors," Anastas says.
While Anastas hasn't raised the prices on surfboards in his stores, which he says average around $450, he has noticed that people are buying more surfboards. "That's a good thing, but that can also be a catch-22 for us because depending on what happens I don't know how many of these boards we're going to have [in the spring]," he says.
To help ensure his store will have enough surfboards in time for when the 2006 surfing season picks up in May, Anastas scrambled to place an order for 250 boards with an Australian company called Base that represents several surfboard manufacturers that produce their own foam. "We're just lucky that we were doing business with them in the past because they're not taking any more accounts on, because they're in such demand," he says.
Vic Brazen, co-owner of Wheels 'n Waves, a surf shop in Wells, says he and his partner Bob Morrell talked about increasing prices on their boards, but decided against any "knee-jerk reactions" to the news. He says the real effect will be felt after the winter's snow has thawed. "It'll be a major supply and demand issue [in the spring]," Brazen says. "Jaws will hit the floor with the new pricing."
But even with the dearth of surfboard blanks driving up prices for shapers, retailers and customers, most retailers and shapers say the surfing industry will survive this bump in the road. "It's like a mountain we've got to cross, but I think we will," Anastas says. "And in the long term it may even better."
Stockhaus agrees. Because Clark Foam had such a stranglehold on the blank-making business, competition was limited. "Now I've heard of three or four guys that are already starting up their own blank companies," he says. "It's going to bad for a while no matter what, but we could come out of this with cheaper blanks and a lot more avenues to get them from."
Meanwhile, Stockhaus has a short-term plan he hopes will allow him to stay in business. He has an informal agreement with Hampton, N.H.-based 2SI, a moderately sized surfboard manufacturer that will most likely be able to order blanks in bulk from another supplier. "I gotta kind of piggyback on Shane [Smith, owner of 2SI]. If he's going to order from outside the country, I'm going to order through him and we'll split the shipping," Stockhaus says.
Still, that's only a plan at this point. Because nothing like this has ever happened in the
surfing industry, Stockhaus is unsure about the future of Syndicate Surfboards. "If May rolls around and there are no blanks, we're going to have to figure out what to do then," he says.
And what if he can't get the blanks to make his surfboards? "I would have to return to restaurant work, probably waiting tables or something," Stockhaus says. "I'd hate to have to do that."
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