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The goal of these eco or, at least, "eco-er" boards is to "get hemp into the hands of not only surfers, but the next generation," said Carvajal
By Gwen Mickelson
Aaron Carvajal hefted the deep-green, bat-tailed board into the air and eyeballed it.
"I'd say it's about nine feet," he said, peering upward past the bill of his hemp cap.
Carvajal, one of Santa Cruz's newest hemp evangelists, was decked head to toe in clothing made of hemp on Friday, as he is every other day at his hemp products shop and museum, U.S. Hemp Co. And, you guessed it, the surfboard in his hands was also constructed with fibers from the controversial plant, which many praise as the world's premier renewable resource but whose use in the United States is severely restricted by governmental drug enforcement bodies because it contains the psychoactive ingredient found in hashish and marijuana.
That ingredient, THC, is only found in minute levels in hemp, according to Wikipedia. Though industrial hemp is legal for import and sale in the United States, American farmers are not permitted to grow it.
The government notwithstanding, Carvajal, whose "hemporium" carries clothing, jewelry, bags and other goods, says hemp has a place in surfboard manufacturing.
"Hemp is the ideal fabric for anything related to the ocean because it doesn't deteriorate in salt water and is stronger when it's wet," he said, brightly.
The green board, which is a practice run for the hemp boards the store plans to start carrying and wholesaling in about three weeks, is made with an expanded polystyrene, or Styrofoam, core ? more environmentally friendly than the traditional polyurethane cores ? with hemp fabric rather than fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin, which releases fewer toxins than the polyester resin used with polyurethane foam.
The goal of these eco or, at least, "eco-er" boards is to "get hemp into the hands of not only surfers, but the next generation," said Carvajal.
When surfboard blank monopoly Clark Foam imploded last December, it really brought to light a paradox that kind of gets swept under the rug in surfing: the chasm between the groovy image of surfers as ocean spirits in tune with nature and the reality that their surfboards are made of toxic, nonbiodegradable substances.
The main "ingredients" in a surfboard haven't changed since about the early 1960s. They consist of a polyurethane foam blank with a wood stringer, fiberglass and polyester resin. While these materials have allowed significant advancements in surfboard design and rider performance, they have equally meaningful drawbacks, including possible hazards to people who work with the materials, potential environmental contamination and the resulting production of a nonrenewable product, according to the Surfrider Foundation Web site.
Urethane foam is made using toluene diisocyanate, a highly toxic and irritating liquid, and polyether compounds, according to Surfrider. Some types of fiberglass cloth are treated with toxic chemicals such as chromium, and breathing fiberglass dust can be hazardous ? hence those uncomfortable dust masks you see shapers wearing. Polyester resins are made from dicarboxylic acids and dihydroxy alcohols, and they release volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere when they cure.
In July, the widow of a former Clark Foam worker sued the surfboard blank maker, claiming her husband died from exposure to deadly chemicals at the factory.
Maria Teresa Barriga's Orange County Superior Court wrongful death suit claimed her 36-year-old husband, Martin Barriga, handled toxic chemicals at the now-closed Laguna Niguel plant.
Barriga and other employees ran with open buckets of toxic toluene diisocyanate sloshing on their hands, arms, torso, legs and feet, according to the 30-page complaint.
Toluene diisocyanate is commonly used to make foam products and paint. When heated, the chemical becomes toxic and can cause severe respiratory, gastrointestinal and central nervous system problems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also said it is a possible carcinogen.
The death certificate listed cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, inflamed and scarred lung sacs and arterial inflammation as causes of Barriga's death in July 2004. He also suffered from a cancerous chest tumor.
Carvajal, who was on his honeymoon in Hawaii when the Clark Foam closure news broke, got to thinking maybe he could offer a hemp board.
He will have eight shapes, from shortboards to fish to longboards, available on his Web site and in the store. He's got team riders lined up, including local surfer Darshan Gooch, Central Californian Chad Jackson and female big-wave challenger Jamilah Star. The team riders contributed shapes, and the blanks are cut by computer and glassed locally, said Carvajal.
So OK, the boards are eco-conscious. How do they ride?
"They ride very well," said Chris Butler, a local surfer and U.S. Hemp employee who helped start the surfboard project. "Hemp has really good flex characteristics. The board responds really well, very crisp, and is really light."
Though Styrofoam does make for a lighter board that some surfers prefer, many others don't care for that lightness, saying epoxy boards feel corky. The new boards coming into U.S. Hemp try to approximate the feel of polyester boards by having a little weight added to them, said Carvajal.
U.S. Hemp isn't the first to put out hemp boards, said Carvajal. Several people have produced them for the past 10 years or so, but not on a commercial scale and not at a consumer-friendly price. U.S. Hemp wants to use the boards as hemp-education platform rather than a profit-maker, said Carvajal, so they'll be priced in the $550-$1,200 range, about the same as regular surfboards.
If epoxy boards continue to earn market share, the hemp promoters want to push to make a 100 percent biodegradable surfboard using a hemp-fiber core mixture, hemp resin and fins made with hemp plastics.
The more people see different, cool products made of hemp, said Carvajal, "the more they'll realize it's not just a hippie, potato-sack material."
The store will also be producing a line of hemp surfwear. For information on the local hemp boards, visit http://www.ushemp.us/.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
- SURF QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "All I need are some tasty waves and a cool buzz and I'm fine." ? Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," 1982 from "Surfing and the Meaning of Life".
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