From drafty source of renewable energy to a Draft surfboard.
Josh Kerr and his shaping collaborator at Draft Surfboards, Dane Hamilton, were probably thinking they’d bitten off more than they could chew. A giant, decommissioned wind turbine blade had just been delivered to their Tweed Heads board factory by crane. It was made of fibreglass and composite materials, ‘like the hull of a giant boat,’ according to Josh Kerr.
The turbine blade was a challenge sent their way by ACCIONA, a Spain-based renewable energy and sustainability company that has been making wind turbines in Australia and Europe for decades. Curiously, when the original wind turbines were launched in Spain some 30 years ago by ACCIONA, it was surfboard makers who were called upon to make any repairs, because they had the expertise to work on the massive blades spinning fibreglass.
After years of use at the Waubra Wind Farm in Victoria, Kerrsy’s turbine blade had reached its lifespan and ACCIONA were eager to find a novel way to demonstrate how the material could be up-cycled for another purpose. “I was just excited on our first phone call. My brain was ticking,” explains Kerr at a launch for the boards held last week at Sydney’s URBNsurf.
The Kerr/Hamilton duo had to figure out how to transform the turbine blade into materials that could be used effectively in surfboard production. Most of the blade was ground down into a powder and added to the fibreglass and resin to provide added strength and rigidity. Meanwhile other sections were sawn off to make fixed fins.
The end result was a quiver of around ten boards that had extensively utilised the material from the turbine blade in production. A neat concept when you consider the turbines had been powered by wind and the boards would be propelled by waves – another force of nature.
Once the boards were completed, Josh Kerr travelled to a remote section of the South Australian coast to ride them. As turbines spun on the cliffs above, eight-foot, empty slabs imploded on a near-shore slab; a worthy testing zone for the experimental craft. “It was such a surreal moment,” recalls Josh.
The event at Sydney’s URBNSURF attracted surprising attention, with Chris Bowen, the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy, in attendance. It’s not often you see pro surfers mingling with federal politicians, but Kerrsy seemed comfortable in the presence of Bowen, happily explaining the process involved in converting the turbine blade into a fleet of surfboards. Meanwhile, Bowen boasted he was wearing a pair of sneakers made from a decommissioned turbine blade – the product of a separate upcycling initiative between ACCIONA and European fashion brand El Ganso.
I managed to wrangle one of the turbine boards for a test-ride in the pool. Rather than dimensions, the boards were printed with the volume of energy the turbine blade had created – a quirky addition. The 5’6, narrow-swallow-twinny I rode, worked perfectly in the pool; slotting cosily into the pocket and providing plenty of hold when you pushed a turn. It also featured the fixed fins, cut-out directly from the turbine blade.
Will anyone be able to ride one of the unique boards? There are no plans as yet to make the turbine blades a regular part of the production process at Draft surfboards. Instead the initiative was undertaken by ACCIONA to prove that it is possible to upcycle its turbine blades, many of which will reach the end of their lifecycle in the next five to ten years, in Australia. ACCIONA is seeking Australian innovators to help explore groundbreaking applications for the material in the development of sustainable products. The company has opened an ‘Expressions of Interest’ call on its website.
While turbine blade boards will not be hitting surf-shop racks just yet, the collaboration between ACCIONA and Draft shows there is further experimentation to be done with surfboard materials, and that surfing can be at the cutting edge of innovations and initiatives in sustainability and renewable energy.
