Tide turns against California's surfboard makers

For California's world-famous surfboard manufacturers, time looks to be finally running out on the endless summer that started in the Sixties and saw them bring their sport, together with its laid-back beach culture, to a global audience.

Artisan firms, which until recently still dominated the multimillion-dollar industry, are facing a crippling financial crisis. Many craftsmen, who turn blocks of foam into the colourful wave-riding equipment, have hit the wall; others are down-sizing or going part-time.

A collapse in America's wider retail market is to blame, together with increased wage bills, competition from cheap imports, and the burden of new environmental regulations. Experts report that one in five of the thousands of board-makers operating along the Pacific Coast is now shutting up shop.

"Right now, the home market is off around 30 per cent," said Sean Smith, the director of the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association. "Our surveys of members show about 15 per cent in real trouble, in danger of going under, and another 66 per cent who say they are experiencing a slump."

Hardest hit are small-scale "shapers", or craftsmen. At the Becker surf store on Huntington Beach in Los Angeles, founded 50 years ago by Phil Becker, a well-known professional wave rider, sales are down as much as 75 per cent.

"All our boards are hand-made in the factory around the corner, apart from one," says Ryan Shaver, the salesman. "That one board is imported, from Asia, and it costs $350 (£180); our home-produced boards start at around $500. People haven't got as much money as they did, so they're either patching up old boards, or buying imported ones. It's hard times."

Huntington is just a few miles from Rodondo Beach, where George Freeth, the "father of modern surfing" and founder of Los Angeles' iconic lifeguards, first demonstrated his technique for "walking on water" to California's public in 1907.

It was not until Freeth's heavy wooden boards were replaced by plastics developed by the aviation industry in the Second World War that surfing went global. Its place in popular culture was cemented with films such as Gidget (1959) and The Endless Summer (1966), and the rise of surf music, epitomised by the advent of The Beach Boys.

Now some say globalisation is killing surfing's heritage. In Encinitas, California, Steve Ford recently closed his workshop. "Each piece is done by hand, and people who can do it are a dying breed. It's a pity. A lot of soul goes into California's boards, a whole lifestyle has grown up around it." Others are philosophical. "Our industry is like the ocean: there are swells and dips," said Jane Schmauss of the California Surf Museum. "I just hope we are in a dip at the moment."