When Clark Foam Inc. in Laguna Niguel shut down, it looked like Harold Walker would catch a break.
Clark Foam had been the chief maker of blanks -- the cores of most surfboards -- and Walker Foam Inc. moved to fill the void. The workforce at the factory in Wilmington quadrupled, and Walker added a second shift to meet the surge in demand.
Now Walker's factory is closed too, another casualty in an industry that has been roiling since Gordon "Grubby" Clark decided to call it quits just before Christmas 2005 after 44 years in business.
Walker gave up in January because sales were "dismal," as he put it, and there were plenty of reasons.
In the wake of Clark Foam's exit, there was a bit of a panic. Companies in Southern California and Mexico rushed to churn out blanks. Cheap alternatives from Asia flooded the market. Soon there was a glut. And then the economy swooned.
"It was like three strikes and you're out," said Steve Ford, who recently shuttered his Encinitas, Calif., surfboard factory, West Coast Glassing Inc. Ford said orders dropped 50% in the last year and that after 14 years in the business he had been forced to rent a shaping bay in a competitor's factory.
"Nobody's really buying anything. The industry right now is taking a really bad hit," he said.
Another problem: The rising prices of the petroleum-based products used in surfboard manufacturing.
"Resin jumps practically weekly, fiberglass, sandpaper, rent, electricity -- just everything has gone up," said Peter St. Pierre, owner of Moonlight Glassing in San Marcos, Calif.
U.S. retail surfboard sales were $190.4 million in 2006, an increase from $105.9 million in 2004, according to the Surf Industry Manufacturers Assn., which releases sales data every two years. Many in the industry aren't expecting the 2008 numbers to look very good.
"I would say sales are off right now -- 30% easy," said Fins Unlimited President Bill Bahne, who represents surfboard makers on the association's board. "And last year wasn't that good either."
Many conventional board makers and shapers, as board-making artisans are known, are feeling pressure not only from the sagging economy but new technologies and competition, much of it unleashed by Clark Foam's shutdown.
In fact, Sean Smith, the trade group's executive director, said the industry had seen more innovation in the last two years than in the prior 20, with boards that are "stronger, lighter" and that in "some cases perform better."
