look | High Wave Riding: Why Chennai Surfers Are Making Their Own Surfboard

“Travellers order me to take it back to my country and hang it in their homes to remind me of my time in Kovalam,” says Sekar, who shaped the surfboard last year. Champion surfer girlfriend Srishti Selvam.

It is 6 in the evening and Shekhar has finished surfing and training for the whole day. Playing on his phone, he settles into his workshop in the Kovalam fishing village as ‘the beats of Moongil Thottam fill the space. Shaping a surfboard is a meditative and calming process for him. “It is easy to get drowned when shaping. My favorite part of the process is reducing the block of foam to a neatly sized board. I’m totally in my zone when I’m listening to music and making with my own hands,” says Sekar, who makes boards out of EPS foam as well as balsa wood.

Buying a surfboard was a challenge for almost all local surfers in Covelong when they started almost a decade ago. The sport was nascent in India, and surfboards were hard to source. “We were able to buy them only from those coming from abroad. So I started shaping so that I could make boards for myself,” says Sekar.

Surfboard maker Santosh in his workshop in Mamallapuram | photo credit: R Ravindran

In 2012, when Australian surfer Dave Hearns visited India and made a board during his stay in Kovalam, he became an inspiration to surfers like Sekar and Santosh Murthy. Santhosh, one of India’s first shapers, was a stone carver in Mamallapuram for six years. He spent his days fishing and carving intricate figures on stone, which he sold from his cousin’s shop.

Things changed when Dave saw him surfing using a block of wood, and gave him his surfboard to practice on. “As a thanksgiving gift, I made Dave a small stone pendant in the shape of a surfboard. That’s when he suggested that we should start making surfboards in India,” recalls Santosh. As a result, Temple Surf Boards was born in 2014. It performed well before it was discontinued a few years back. Dave moved back to Australia and eventually, Santosh launched his own brand, Alai Surfboards in 2019. “My stone carving skills come in handy in this profession,” he says, “they help me understand symmetry and brightness.”

Satisfaction with your made surfboard | photo credit: R Ravindran

Surfboard shaping in India is still purely a handmade business. Although the demand for boards is increasing as surfing is gaining popularity along the coast, it is still not enough to establish factories where they can be mass-produced. The surfboards here are made on a made to order basis, with some making about three a month. These are competitively priced, with shapers charging around ₹17,000 to ₹25,000 and above (prices abroad can start at ₹70,000 and go up to ₹1 lakh or more, except in Bali in Indonesia).

It may take 15 to 20 days to make the board depending on the specifications requested by the customers. Some even ask for elaborate art works or their initials. “It always helps to watch a video of surfing to get a better idea of ​​their surfing ability. Factors such as surfer weight, height, and their performance level affect the final measurement of a surfboard,” says Seker, for whom most The challenging part is fixing the fin plug system to the board. Feathers play an important role in the speed and direction of the board so it is important that they be perfect.

“Now, there are CNC (Computer Numeric Control Device) machines that can cut the foam into the desired shape. It’s quicker, easier, but probably still early to market to India,” says Pedi (otherwise known as Pandurang Pednekar), who owns Bebo Board and School, and from his rooftop in Mandrem, Goa Make up standup paddles (SUP) and surfboards. SUP boards are longer, wider and thicker than surfboards.

surfboard maker pedi | photo credit: special arrangement

A former fabrication structural engineer in the shipbuilding industry, when he saw a group of stand up paddlers in Goa, he was astonished by the boards. “It was like they were standing on the water. And I just wanted to know what the technology was and I wanted that board for myself. That’s how it all started,” says Pedi, on a call from Goa.

Of all his creations, he says he is particularly proud of the hydrofoil (an underwater fin that helps move the boat or in this case the board). They believe that they can be a game changer in terms of speed. “I’m building a SUP board with hydrofoils for myself now,” he says.

There’s an undeniable allure about handmade boards, agrees Shapers. Down the wave-rich east coast of Tamil Nadu, Samai Reboul, who started Kalialaya Surf School with his brother from their home in Auroville, says he’s been making surfboards since 2012, and even now some of them are 100 percent accurate. Can’t be. “Handmade surfboards are rare overseas,” he says.

Samai launched its surfboard brand Kalialaya Original Series (KOS) in 2019. Before that he was making them with another enthusiast under a different brand name. “But now, it is a one-man show,” says Samai, who, like others, began to take shape given the lack of availability of boards in India. He learned this skill from some French shapers.

Surfboard made by Capacit | photo credit: special arrangement

“It’s a passion project of mine,” says Samai, adding that his day job is surfing coaching. By evening, “time and vibe permitting,” he heads to his unit in Auroville to take shape. It is not a process he wants to run away from and wants to fix under tension or time. “I have stopped taking orders. And I’ve raised prices by 50 percent so I can make one free surfboard for upcoming talent for every two of my boards,” he explains. Since 2020, Capacit has made 24 boards. While his customers, the rest Like the people, a mix of Indian and foreign surfers, they love to make boards for local customers.

For some of these self-starters, this has been a steep learning curve. Shekhar, who has completed 15 boards so far, says that he first made them for his girlfriend’s birthday. But disaster struck when he used polyester resin instead of epoxy resin. The wrong resin melted the foam. After much trial and error, with only one hand in hand, Sekar sat overnight and made another surfboard to gift to Srishti the next morning.

Pedi says the first board he built failed because of its weight. “It was made with PU foam instead of EPS foam. It took a lot of effort for the paddler to maneuver it,” he says. While Pedi was initially self-taught, he later mastered his techniques with a Swiss shaper, invited to India by Cedric Renard, a SUP instructor from Switzerland who surfed with Pedi in Goa and Saw his work.

This kind of camaraderie among the surfing community is as much a pedi value as some other surfers. They are always learning from each other, bouncing ideas off and helping each other get better. And that’s what Pedi and Shapers want to do with their handcrafted boards: help surfers enjoy and ride the waves.