"I don’t know how long we can survive.”
Surfboards, the indispensable item.
Surfboard shapers, designers, glassers, sanders, our
indispensable craftsmen.
World-wide they are being hit hard by the pandemic, or more
accurately by the response to the pandemic.
Europe is the worst hit.
Zarautz based builder
Johnny Cabianca who puts the steeds under Gabe Medina
has been essentially shut down since Spain introduced almost total
lockdown on March 23.
“My two employees can’t come to work, it’s not allowed” he said
via Whats App. “ We’re a young company, only four years old and
without cash flow I don’t know how long we can survive.”
The shaper to a dual world champ, for now, is fixing dings and
finishing boards that have been sitting in corners of the
factory.
“For us it all depends on how things evolve. When the beaches
open again and when the shops open again, worldwide, as most of the
boards we do are for export.”
Collapsing export markets have hit closer to my home, too.
Lennox-based Steve (Shuey) Shubonj of Glassing Division
laminates for DHD and LSD. Glassing for DHD makes up eighty percent
of turnover and has come to a complete halt.
“It’s put me in a precarious position,” he said. “I’ve already
put two people off. As long as people can keep surfing around here,
it’ll keep ticking over, as long as the landlord cuts me some
slack, but I’m doing it all myself now.”
San Clemente-based
builder Timmy Patterson was working around the clock
to get boards ready for Italo Ferreira’s title defence.
A last-minute drive to LAX to meet Italo en route to the Gold
Coast and handover boards was stopped at the eleventh hour as the
tour opening was cancelled.
The undelivered quiver sits in a corner of the factory, “like a
stash of gold.”
Patterson is still building boards at a reduced level behind
locked doors with the shop shut, for now.
Marcio Zouvi of Sharp Eye surfboards is in a surer footed
position than most.
“We own our own building, and our employees are on the payroll,”
he said. “It’s the sub-contractors who are in trouble. Our
business is diversified, we export a lot. We’re still servicing
orders from Japan.”
Zouvi says the virus catastophe may precipitate a shake-down in
the surfboard building game.
“We have very little receivables, we’re fine. Others have very
high overheads. Rent, insurances. There’s an ageing workforce.
There’s a question over how many factories will survive.”
The shake-down could extend to shops with “retail also
struggling. There’ll be some impact, how deep we don’t know.”
Zouvi also worries with clothing companies struggling that
payments with team riders are being suspended in an effort to bring
surfers back to the negotiation table, presumably for far less
shekels than currently offered.
His main concern is with the sport’s governing body.
“I hope the WSL can weather this out. We need an organisation
such as WSL to standardize a format for competitive surfing which
we can use as a reference. It’s very important for my business,
with the type of boards that I make, to really gauge who is who,
what they are riding and how they are riding.”
Ballina-based builder Gunter Rohn has been in the game for a
long time.
He describes a board-cutting facility as being down from 400 a
week to 100 a week.
Things are “patchy, but not dire” for him, with a loyal custom
clientele still ordering boards as shop sales go through the floor.
He sees surfing as important for “mental wellbeing” and hopes
beaches stay open but admits lots of people will fuck it up.
Conspiracy theory pisses him off.
“I have to tell people to stop sending me shit,” he says.
Fellow Ballina shaper Wayne Webster is also surviving from
custom orders, with his shopfront closed.
“I’ve had pneumonia twice, I can’t risk it. But the landlord
wants full rent and I’m not eligible for the Government stimulus
money, so I keep going.”
He describes success in these “absolutely nuts” times as “not
going broke, having a house and food. This virus is polarizing and
magnifying everything.”
For Webster, this is the start of a potentially long
journey.
“A lot of people might feel like they are on holiday with no
work, they’ve got more time to surf. That won’t be the case in a
couple of months. Social distancing is here to stay. Who knows how
long my showroom will be shut for.”
Not everyone is in crisis mode.
Maker of the hottest item since
custom face masks, the mid-length channel bottom twin*, Simon Jones
is in a good mood on this day that Jesus got nailed on the
cross.
“Touch wood, and I feel I’m tempting fate,” he says, “the orders
are still coming in.”
Where from? USA, Japan and Australia.
“Shipping is more expensive, I won’t be shipping until next
month. It’s a time to catch up on domestic orders.”
For now, Jones has his eye on a local break.
“Gunna head down on a seven footer and try and dodge the
crowd.”
The virus might be global, but the solutions will be local.
Happy Easter comrades.
*As ridden by Torryn Marten.
