Like a trip back in time to simpler days, it was actually a modern-day concern for the waste impacts of surf culture on the ocean that led to the invention of the planet’s most sustainable surfboard – a beautiful retro wooden board created by the Aussie founders of Sine Surf.
“Sine Surf was born from my own experience in surfing. I snapped a foam board on its very first surf early in 2020 and began researching why they were so disposable and wasteful; I was drawn to the beauty and durability of wooden surfboards. Most of the surfboards marketed today as being wooden, still use foam and fibreglass and have no sustainable advantage,” says Sine Surf co-founder Emile Theau.
With a University of Sydney degree in chemical engineering and nanotechnology, Emile had the answers at his fingertips and the motivation in his passion for surfing. Alastair Pilley, his partner in the venture, contributes his expertise in automation and manufacturing.
“I was keen to find an alternate manufacturing process, which led to a long journey of proto-typing and design testing. Our boards address the problems of plastic pollution in our oceans by replacing the foam core with a new hollow timber structure and by reducing the amount of epoxy used by two thirds.
“We tracked down the materials that could combine to be the most sustainable, whilst also being high-performance and maintain affordability,” he says.
Northern Beaches start-up, Sine Surf, has launched with a splash into the local Sydney surf community. Already attracting the likes of Layne Beachley, Declan Wyton and Steve O’Donnell, its products combine cutting-edge industrial design to deliver on performance.
Your typical surfboard produces twice its weight in unrecycled plastic waste, often as microplastics and with the average lifespan being only two short years, this accounts for over 200,000 tonnes of waste globally, annually. Emile says the environmentally damaging products available to surfers are at odds with the ocean-loving passion surfers feel.
Beautiful and far more durable than conventional surfboards, Sine Surfboards produce less than 0.5 kg of waste, are more than 95% biodegradable and are better than net-zero emissions whilst maintaining competitive market prices.
You can check out the boards and talk to the guys at the Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival markets at Bondi on the beachfront on March 12 and 13.
Legendary Bondi local, Brenda Miley, the founder of Let’s Go Surfing, will host a free panel talk – ‘Surfing Towards Sustainability’, including Sine Surf, to be held on the Sunshine Stage in Bondi Park North at 12.30, Saturday 22nd of April. We will also host a sunset screening on March 12th of Girls Can’t Surf.
The Volvo Ocean Lovers Festival, born in Bondi, celebrates with beachside bands on stage across the weekend, a market showcasing cool ocean friendly products and organisations, ocean aware art displays and some science in your swimmers – a laid-back Aussie take on finding out about ocean issues and solutions. You can literally dive into ocean restoration projects like a live Crayweed Forest and Living Seawall tile display at Icebergs Pool or drive a drone under the surface at Bondi and hear from marine experts.
Check out the full program on their website oceanloversfestival.com
Go in the draw to win one of two Sine Surf sustainable surfboards by subscribing to Tracks.
Head to tracksmag.com.au/subscriptions
