winning the 2021 vissla upcycle contest with “the daytime robber”
What do you get when two dimwitts walk to their crappy beach break during peak Covid season? A Global winning concept! Funnily enough, that is exactly where the conversation started, February 2021. Dom and I, walking towards our local, knee-high peeler, when I popped the question, ‘Hey man, do you fancy entering the Vissla Upcycling Contest this year? We’ve got the recycled fishing nets already dialed, let us get this into a board!’ We had the entire beach break to ourselves, taking waves from one side of the beach to the other, and then racing back to each other with potential concepts that we had dreamt up on each wave. Baked off the stoke, we ran back home, made coffee and poached eggs, and continued the brain storm. From then, I started the CAD work which then led to countless prototypes being manufactured with 3D printing technologies, then tested again. And again.
The material is made up of disregarded fishing nets that once served their particularly important task amongst the hake fisheries, Southwest of Cornwall. The nets are made from PA6 Nylon, a well-known material for its durable, impacted resistant nature. This recycled plastic is 97% less of a CO2 impact than virgin PA6 Nylon, a common material that is often used in the surfing industry. And that is just based off just the manufacturing processes, never mind the thousands of miles the product has travelled before it gets to the end user. Scary right? And if you think it is coincidental that the nets are the same colour as the ocean, it is not, it is so that those little fishes cannot see that net!
The prototyping of the plastic hardware lasted 4 months of continuous work. Seems like we had some spare time on our hands, right? Thanks Boris! At this point, we were still stuck for a blank. I left this job for Dom to figure out as I was taking lead with the hardware. It took multiple nights of beer drinking, and chatting with mates about the project before one of our mates, who has never picked up a surfboard before, suggested using body boards... Excellent job Dom! We were hooked on the idea, but we were equally dreading it. We pulled together 6 broken boards from a few random beach bins. It was pushing into peak tourist season at this point so we were spoilt for choice.
In June, the Board construction took place. What a fun time we had - camping in vans, drinking beers, and board making under the hot sun. We were giddy with excitement, laughing at the fact that we have 6 body boards, and a box full of our own Frankenstein hardware looking back at us. “So, I guess we just square these off, and make some bricks?” The plan was set!
We got to work taking the top layer of foam off the body boards, and then that awful layer of glue, leaving us with some tidy white bricks. We laid out the bricks in all sorts of ways, trying to figure out how we would get enough foam to achieve any form of rocker, and keep some length in the board. We found a pattern that would work, and jumped straight into the resin room where we glued up the jigsaw pieces.
As we were working in a metal container in June, the epoxy wanted to set fast so we had little time to faff around. The tunes were turned up, and we got messy! We deconstructed the workshop wall to get enough weight on the top as well as a couple of ratchet straps around the whole “blank.” Instantly we noticed that the concentrated resin (Plant based I should add) was generating plenty of heat whilst it was curing, leaving us worried it was going to dissolve the foam. It was pure guess work.
After an evening of frisbee at the local beach, we jumped straight back into the workshop to assess the foam. My gosh it was ugly! We also realised at this point how little room for error we had. One side of the blank was slightly too small with just enough room in the center to pull off a rail. We cut out the
template we made up, and Dom got cracking with the foam mower...after we broke and fixed the shaping table (4 hours later).
As I was prepping other parts of the project, I would hear the plainer chewing resin every half a minute as Dom would hit a joint between the bricks. The further into the shaping process, the more Dom was enjoying it, absolutely freestyling the hell out of it. As he runs courses and builds boards for a living, making sure each board is perfect, this was the perfect opportunity to let rip with the plainer! As it happens, he claimed it was his best work yet. The board came out of the booth with Doms huge grin right behind it. The best part was, the way we stuck the bricks together left us with the most perfectly symmetric joins, this was a complete fluke. A beasty 5’0/20/3 choad was born!
We glassed the board with random off cut patches of fibre glass, with off cut inegra on the deck for reinforcement, and a fabric inlay I salvaged from one of the shitty body boards. The high and low points created from the patches of fiber glass gave us a super sweet, camo/denim jeans aesthetic – another unplanned feature. We were so stoked that the materials we chose to work with dictated to us how this board was going to look.
And then, it was onto to installing the recycled fishing net fin boxes and plugs. We routered out the holes, added resin and then chucked them in, as simple as that. There was absolutely no difference in installing our Plug & box designs compared to the well-used brands...a dream we did not expect. Whilst Dom got to work on the final sanding, I was jamming away on garage band. As it is a creators contest, I wanted our video submission to be all our work, including those magical beats. I also did not realise how much shit we chatted about until it came to editing the voice over!
We had one day left before the original deadline of the competition (it was extended after we had submitted to allow for more entries, annoying right?) I had booked the Bristol wave with the idea of having some consistent waves to film, although a 5ft swell popped up at our local beach. Do we risk it? And then we realised, that was this spot where the idea was spawned - We had to risk it. Obviously, that was a dumb idea, as a 5ft swell in August never shows up.
We had a fun time despite the poor waves trialing the board. The usual crowd showed up, super stoked to see our work. I guess now I can let you in to a little secret. One too many party waves led to a collision of boards, I split the nose, F***! Dom and I have a tradition of accidently breaking new boards during their first dip, so it did not really come as a surprise to us. We just laughed, said we would never fix it, and sulked our way home in our true dimwitt style. We will fix the bloody thing now that the competition has ended.
Despite the poor wave conditions, the board felt amazing in the water, catching those dribbly waves with ease. We cannot wait to get it back into the water and give it a good seeing too this winter. We screened the digital final of the competition at our house with the company of our closest mates, and some good tasting beers.
Winners of the 2021 Vissla + Surfriders foundation Creators and Innovators Competition.
Our mission was to demonstrate the power of using materials you are surrounded by. Check out your local waste streams, do some research, and have some fun with it. What is next for us? Dom continues to grind away at Natural Selection Surf Co, pushing sustainably sourced, durable surf crafts. I am developing recycled fishing net plugs and boxes under the brand Benthos Surf Co. We are close to getting these products onto the market, and into your boards! We would like to thank all of the dudes involved in the process, and to anyone who spared a minute to drop us a vote.
