DING - DONG

Well Spring has finally sprung and undoubtedly the dog “daze” of summer will soon be upon us, which means there are a few other steadfast events to expect that are just as predictable as the sun rising and setting every day. The water will get warmer, school will be dismissed for the year, tourists and more surfers will flood the beaches and waves, barometric high pressure will take command and provide us lots of southwest wind chop, and we’ll all be obsessing over every counter-clockwise rotating cloud mass within the Atlantic hoping for some hurricane swell. This diabolical series of events can only mean one thing for that fixation of yours with fins – surfboards will be dinged, and they will be dinged often. Take your pick regarding the methodology – a collision with another surfboard in the water is a good one, an unpleasant encounter with shallow sand is common; but crashes into a car door or a “whoop see” on the driveway/parking lot are easily within the realm of possibility. A sacrificial burning of your surfboard for waves is perhaps the only thing you can consciously avoid, unless your friends have some other ideas.

While surfboard dings may be inescapable – quickly fixing your most prized possession is not. Regardless of the type of foam/resin combination you may have (traditionally referred to as “poly” or “epoxy”), once the fiberglass is cracked and water can get to the foam, it’s imperative to get out of the water and get ‘er fixed. Granted that’s hard to do when the waves are firing and the last thing you want to do is to end your session. But as most of us know, it’s almost impossible to get every drop of water out of the foam once it begins to get saturated. Thus we’re left with one of two unpleasant options; (1) cut out all (and we mean all) the saturated foam and replace it before glassing the repair with cloth and resin, or (2) go ahead leave the saturated foam intact, make the repair to the glass and watch the foam turn yellow and spread like kudzu before your very eyes.

Regardless if it’s a surface ding without any foam exposed, a minor ding where there has been little contact between foam and water, or a major gash with lots of saturated foam; you can try to fix it yourself or take it a surf shop for an experience repair. If you enjoy the trial and error process, then surf shops have all sorts of ding kits and materials for the home repair. Conversely, if you don’t want to deal with it or don’t trust yourself, then leave it for the professionals at your shop unless you know that “ding king” personally and can outreach to him directly.

And finally – a quick note to the visiting surfer. Ding repairs can take days or longer depending on the severity of the ding, so please be understanding if you drop off your board for a repair. It’s not an uncommon in the summer for a ding to happen late on the 4th day of a 6-day vacation. Of course everyone wants the ding to be repaired before they go home and the clock is ticking. Just exercise some patience and you’ll get the best ding repair as possible – we have some great ding repairers here along the Crystal Coastal.

See you in the water until next time – www.eisurfshop.com.