Entropy featured in Forbes Magazine

A writeup about Entropy in the Entrepreneur section of the Sept'08 issue of Forbes magazine.

http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2008/0901/058.html

Bioboard put to the test in Tavarua

Here's our take on the ever popular bat tail quad.....bioboard style!
Dims: 6'5" x 19 1/2" x 2 5/8"
Weight 6.5 lbs.

Ice9 Cane Formula foam, Hemp deck patch, Bioepoxy lamination. We installed the Pro-Box fin boxes (w/ adjustable fin cant) setup with Futures Vector II's Scimitar 451 fins (Thanks to Larry Allison).

This board wound up going with our friend Jay Robertson from the Big Island of Hawaii on his 2 week jaunt to Tavarua. Although this shape was more geared toward mushy, smaller wave punting, it got put to the test in heaving overhead barrels anyway. Jay said he was really amazed by the board's durability and passed it around to friends. Lucky for us, prolific surf photog and Tavarua pioneer, Tom Servais, was there to capture Jay getting some insane cover-ups (see above photos). 

Here's what one of his friends from Oahu, Dolan, had to say about it:

"..... I rode the quad fin you gave Jay and was impressed with the construction quality and design. The board was a bit wide in the tail for me and the barreling waves we had but rode fast and was able to turn it in the critical turns, again the tail made hard turns a bit difficult but that may have been because we had such good fast waves....What I can tell you is my overall impression of the materials. I am very impressed with the materials you're using and was talking it up within our group. The board was light and stiff and had a overall good aesthetic appeal. I recall seeing absolutely no deck pressures after a week of surfing hollow waves and hard turns. The material is strong and light. As an environmentally-oriented person I am willing to sacrifice a little bit of flex in the blank in order to have a more environmentally sustainabale board that is not toxic and will last longer than the typical polyester board. I have a bunch of old boards under the house I never surf because they are old beat up and have huge pressures on the deck and the like. I would much rather have a couple of good boards that last a long time. "

Bioboards for Dave

We recently built a couple of bio-boards for pro surfer and enviro-activist Dave Rastovich. These swallow tail quads were hand built by shaper/glasser DJ Dreiling and myself, specifically for Dave's recent trip to Indo where he really gets to push the limits of shapes and materials. Both boards use Ice9's Cane formula foam, and Pro-Box boxes. The one on the left was glassed with our bio-epoxy and fiberglass (2x4 oz glass deck, 4 oz glass bottom). The one on the right (green laps) was glassed in our "Eco-System" style of board building (vac bag 4.7 hemp + 2x4 glass deck, 4 oz glass bottom). Chris and I personally met up with Dave to hand off the board and share ideas about surfboards and sustainable materials. Dave was really gracious about our efforts, and we hope he'll give us some good feedback upon his return. Stay tuned.

Bio-Epoxy Resin now at www.entropyresins.com

UPDATE: We are now selling our bio-based epoxy resins through WWW.ENTROPYRESINS.COM . Please go there for more information on our sustainable epoxy system.

Thanks!!!

-Rey Banatao

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bio-epoxy, bio-based resin, eco-friendly resin, green resin, eco-friendly epoxy, surfboard epoxy, sustainable epoxy, green building materials, eco-friendly materials

9'1" Bomber Bioboard

Brought the 9'1" Bomber Bioboard up to Ventura while a little south swell was in town. Tom Jina took her out for a spin and got some fun waves.

6'3" Bioboard

6'3" version of "the One" shape in our Eco-System construction. An all-rounder performance board glassed in our Hemp & BioEpoxy formulation.

Aron took it out today on a mushy, grovely morning in 1-3 ft El Porto. Not ideal conditions for a shortboard, but he still caught a few waves. The Eco-System construction is more flexible than regular EPS/Epoxy boards. Aron's feedback was that the board has plenty of drive and was lively.....more to come.

Aron on 6'3" EPS/Epoxy "the One"

A small, mushy day at Sunset back in March. Aron putting his 6'3" to work.

1st Annual Entropy Camp & Surf at Jalama

A killer springtime drive up the 101 led to a weekend of camping, surfing, grilling, eating, and dodging 30+ knot winds in Jalama Beach, CA. Thanks to everyone for sticking through and testing the Entropy boards in some of the worst conditions possible. Definitely a memorable weekend, but fun nonetheless. Thanks also to Luki and Brian for braving the wind, cold, and sandblasting to snap many of these shots.

the 6'6" Utility

Recently built 2 versions of the Utility shape. An EPS/Epoxy version, built for Wil of OneL Productions, uses our latest carbon-fuzed epoxy resin. As you can see, we are now able to get the resin to be bright white, rather than the previous black.








The bioboard version is glassed in 100% organic hemp and a bio-epoxy resin partially derived from plant materials. Given the camo look, I'm calling this one the "Eco-warrior" in honor of Suneil who we originally designed the shape for. Suneil also happens to be a real eco-warrior for The Nature Conservancy.




Dims:6'6"x20_1/2"x2_5/8"

My Homebreak away from Home

There's nothing better than surfing your homebreak on a good swell. Yeah, other spots may be bigger, more hollow, less crowded .... whatever. There's a spot in Hawaii (sorry I can't say exactly where) that we've been visiting for the past few years and there's this super-fickle reefbreak that only goes off on a BIG swell and in the narrowest of swell windows. In the years past, it always seems we just seem to miss the swells that make this place go off, so we usually have to find other spots to surf. Well, this time we finally got lucky and our visit was timed perfectly with a nice sized Hawaiian swell (i.e. North Shore was double to triple OH). This swell was able to wrap through for some fun-sized shoulder-head high surf, all day on friday.

I was able to test our 6'8" bio-epoxy/hemp board which made the quick pitching drops nicely. The EPS core keeps this board fairly light given the bio-glassing treatment and was super maneuverable and loose. Being a regular foot, I'm never great at surfing backhand. So we left this board with some friends who are full-time watermen and truly believe in the boards we're making. We're hoping they can give the bioboard a run for its money in some pure Hawaiian juice. Looking forward to hearing what they have to say. Thanks to the O.P. crew for helping us out with some R&D!
Saturday, the swell declined fast so we took to the SUPs for some fun, knee-high lefts. We rode the S.O.S. (Sean Ordonez Shapes) 11'11 and 10'10 Big Red and Big Blue shapes. Really versatile SUP shapes that can be surfed off the tail. http://www.sosshapes.com/2006/home.html


By Sunday, it was flat, so we took to the 6 man canoes, and were able to see and HEAR a group of humpbacks who had been hanging out off the coast for the past few weeks. Truly an incredible experience, especially to hear them communicate. Here's one our cousin Pete caught on his camera. Thanks to Danny for the paddle out.

Bioboards at ISPO 2008

Got back last week from Munich, Germany where I spent the week at the ISPO 2008 Show to represent the prototype bioboards we designed and built. We're happy to say the boards were a hit and were nominated as a finalist for two awards, the Brand New Award and the Volvo EcoDesign Award. ISPO is pretty much the biggest sporting goods show in the world.... kinda like ASR on steroids. Everything and everyone in the action sports community was there, from pro-athletes to manufacturers to brands to concepts, complete with Euro-style fashion shows. Got lots of good feedback from the European action sports community, including many German river surfers. Even pro-snowboarder and new enviro-spokesperson for Rossignol, Jeremy Jones, stopped by and wished us luck. The Volvo EcoDesign Award was an impressive all-day event, with seminars and an Oscars-type awards show. We were honored to have been nominated for the boardsports category, alongside well-known brands like Arbor and Salomon. Below, you can see our board sitting atop a Firewire board. We were up against big companies with big budgets, so we really appreciate the ISPO and Volvo committees for recognizing our effort.

http://www.ispo-sportsdesign.com/award/categories/board-equipment.html

The reception for the concept boards was great and I got to hang out with some really cool folks, especially the guys from Finisterre, Folha Seca, and Kapitol Reef who were also nominated for the same awards. Finisterre makes some dope eco-conscious technical outerwear geared for the surfer. Cool vibe to their brand as well. Folha Seca is a Brazilian crew who designed a biodegradable skateboard using an open source approach to ecodesign.

Stay tuned!

Hello World Wide Web. 6'8" Riki Pro

The Riki Pro 6'8" was hand delivered to me personally by Rey back in may of 07'. Since then it was force fed to the open water's of ocean beach. The board handled the power of the beast that is O.B. (a few scar's and grazes tell a slightly different story for me however).

P.S Just got the 7'6" from Suneil yesterday and had fun at Fort Point.

Go Bears