EDEN LAUNCH ECO SURFBOARD
The revolutionary new Eden surfboard, which started life when a giant tree fell to ground in the world’s biggest greenhouse, was launched at Fistral Beach in Newquay on Thursday 19 March in glorious spring sunshine. The ultimate in sustainable surfboards is made from more environmentally-friendly materials than those used in conventional board production. The board’s national launch is the result of a five-year collaboration between the Eden Project and three other Cornwall-based companies, Homeblown, Sustainable Composites and, more recently, Laminations.
The board proved to be a winner with two top surfers. Leading British professional Mark “Egor” Harris and junior British surfing champion Tassy Swallow took to the waves on the new boards and praised them for their green credentials and performance in the water.
Mark said: “It felt good and I can see these boards being popular with surfers. We spend a lot of time on the beach and in the sea and surfers have been campaigning to clean up the oceans for years. This board goes hand-in-hand with that philosophy.”
After trying the board for the first time, Tassy said: “It’s a really good board, it worked really well. It feels a lot more buoyant in the nose which makes it easier to catch waves. It will really catch on when people realise that it’s as good as a regular board.”
Next week, Tassy is due to take her new Eden surfboard to the International Surfing Association World Junior Championships in Ecuador.
Mark Beeley, Eden’s retail director, said: “At last we are able to offer surfers the chance to own one of the most sustainable surfboards in the world, available right here in the UK.
“This is a real Cornish success story, the Eden team championing the idea, local companies developing innovative technology and then being able to sell it at a very competitive price.”
The eco-board idea began after a giant balsa tree toppled in Eden’s Rainforest Biome, leading Eden team members to discuss what could be done with the spare timber.
There followed several years of hard development work to figure out how to reduce a reliance on petroleum chemicals used in conventional surfboard production and produce a surfboard made with more sustainable materials. Eden linked up with Homeblown who developed a new foam core (or blank), 15-20 per cent of which is from plant-derived material. Alongside this Eden worked with Sustainable Composites who developed a resin made almost entirely from linseed oil yet giving all the qualities of traditional oil-derived coatings. These revolutionary ingredients have been combined by local board manufacturer Laminations to produce the Eden surfboard. The result is a board in which more than 50 per cent of the materials used by weight are from renewable sources. This is a significant step on from traditional boards which are largely made from oil-derived products. Before the launch, the prototype board has been extensively tested by champion surfers to make sure that being more sustainable didn’t compromise performance. The Eden surfboard is available now from the Eden Project web shop edenproject.com/shop in a variety of styles that can be tailor made to your own specification from as little as £365.
Throughout the summer these boards will be available to try at a number of surf events being organised by Surfers against Sewage.
