Test Bufo Surfboards at 19. + 20. September 2009 in Cadzand (Netherlands), not far from Belgium. Tobi is our local, he will answer you all questions about Bufo and Hydroflex Surfboards.

More Information and a Road description…

Michael Schmitz had a testing session… he was surfing the Bufo Hydroflex Enterprise 9′1″ in Domburg, Netherlands. We found some pics of an aerial. Done for the preparation of the Domburg Classic 09. Thanks to Photographer: Arthur Lavooy

Michael Schmitz is a exceptional longboarder. He hails from Scheveningen and is a pro surfer, who won nearly every dutch competion during the last 10 years. Actually he won his 9th title of the dutch championships. Again on a Bufo Surfboard. 

City: Den Haag (Scheveningen, Netherlands)
Day of birth: 17th of May 1982
Surfs since: 1996
Lenght: 198 cm
Weight: 86 kg
Shoe size: 13
Stance: Regular

Michael was able to beat Renz van Baalen in one meter waves and nice conditions and the 3rd and last stop of the dutch chmapionships 2009 in Wijk aan Zee. “It was very exciting. The level of dutch longboarding is very closely, ” told Michael.

He has decided not take part in the Dutch Championships 2010. He will concentrate on international competitions, where he will surf his new Pro Model he had developed with Bufo. Additionally there will be more photo shoots and a surf video.

Surfstyle: Mixture between high performance shortboard tricks and old school longboarding.
Favourite tricks: Tail 360 and Noserides
Favourite waves: Between 2 - 2,5 meter with long faces and barrel sections.
Favourite spots: Newpier (Southafrica), Malibu (USA)
Favourite Bufo shapes: Enterprice 9′1 // Michael Schmitz Pro Model 9′1 // Boogie-Fish 5′11
Next Surftrip: Bali (July 2009)
Idols: Mathew Moir and Josh Mohr

Michael about Bufo:
“Bufo has very good ideas and works with a lot of passion. Respect!

Portrait Foto: Marinus Joris

Bufo team rider Roy van Eijk just returned from his latest trip to Australia. He spent an entire months on the Gold Coast accompanied by his Bufo Boogiefish 5′5, MK 6′0 and his third companion, Paul Sargeant, one of the best surf photographers in the business. Together they checked out everything between Burleigh-Heads and Byron Bay…

City: Ter Heijde (Netherlands)
Day of Birth: 25th of  April 1990
Nickname: -
Surfs since:  2002
Length: 179 cm
Weight: 81 kg

Shoe size: 10,5
Stance: Regular
Surfstyle: Powerfull
Favourite maneuver: Clean barrels
Favourite waves: Righthand reef breaks
Quiver: Bufo Boogie-Fish 5′5  //  Bufo MK 6′0
Idol: Kelly Slater

“My favorite spot was Boiler’s! One day the barrels reached almost ten australian feet high! There were several tow-in surfers but only a few who paddled into the big waves, myself being one of them later on. That session was unbelievable, the biggest barrels I’ve ever surfed!”

The most drastic encounter Roy had was with a shark. “Tallose is known to have lots of sharks. As I was sitting on my floating board I saw a 9 foot shark just 15 feet away…pretty much scared me shitless!” Checking out the Quick Pro 2009 at Snapper, he had a chance to meet Kelly Slater:”It is really unbelievable what Slater does on only a single wave.”

Roy is a believer ever since. “Australia is a great place to hone your skills, meeting lots of great surfers to learn from and ride waves one can only dream of.”

Favourite-Spots: The Boiler (Australia), Bingin and Shipwrecks (Bali), La Piste (France), Praia do Casteligo (Portugal), Ter Heijde, Hoek of Holland, V-beach (Netherland).

Quote about Bufo: “I love Bufo’s shapes. Most notably the Bufo Boogie-Fish.”

Sponsors: Bufo Surfboards, Protest, Reef, Neilpryde, Dreams

Photos By: PAUL SARGEANT

You should not try to repair big damages all by yourself. You could make it worse. You want to give your surfboard to someone who knows what he is doing.

If you still insist to repair your board by yourself, you should at least have some experience with composite materials and their utilization.

It’s your first time to repair a major damage on a surfboard? Please ask someone who has done it before to help you.

Everything said in this blog is valid for Surfboards built with Hydroflex Technology™. Please check the stickers on your board to make sure your board is a Hydroflex surfboard.

If you don’t understand any passages in this blog, please contact me. I will update my blog due to your feedback.

Step 1 - (Analyse the damage)

Let’s see how bad it is. Often enough damages to a surfboard look worse than they really are. Normal pressure dings do not matter at all.
The Hydroflex blank does not suck any water, so you do not have to care about tiny white pressure cracks. Check the ding once in a while – only if it gets bigger you need to do something about it. Check out the rail damage shown on the pic - this one should definitely be repaired. Click on the pic to enlarge.

Before getting to it, you should keep several things in mind: how big is the damaged area? What do I need to repair it? Do I have everything I need?

This is what you need:

* Repair kit
* Measuring Cup, scale if necessary
* Instructions
* gloves, goggles
* cup for mixing, something to stir
* sandpaper and wheel stand, rasp
* fibreglass cloth, scissors, fibres to fill up holes
* tape

Make sure your time window is big enough. Once you mixed the resin, the clock is ticking and you can’t stop the hardening process. According to the resin system, you have about 30 minutes to get the job done. Please check the resin system’s hardening time, to make sure you are ready before the resin has completely hardened.

Step 2 (Clean and dry the damaged area)

Clean and rid of the wax in and around the dinged area on both sides of the board. You want to make sure that the tape sticks to the board. Resin and tape do not stick to wax!

The area has to be dry before repairing.

Step 3 (Sanding/Polishing):

Sand all loose laminate with sandpaper (120 granulation) down to the foam. You want to use a block/wheel stand for this.

If possible, try to spare the foam, so the rail outline is preserved.

This is how the area should look like after sanding. The loose laminate was sanded down all the way to the foam. Most pressure dings have also been removed (milky areas) as far as possible. This prevents the area from looking milky after the repairing job.

Step 4 - (Cut the fibre):

Cut the fibreglass cloth: Once the resin is spread onto the damaged area you need it right away. You will need two identical pieces.

Step 5 - (Mix the resin):
When mixing the resin components, you should stick exactly to the
indicated mixing ratio. The tiniest variance will have the effect
that the resin does not get hard at all.

After adding resin and hardener to the cup, mix it up with a spatula. Do
not mix it to fast in order to get rid of all the air bubbles.

Do not mix it up too strongly either, otherwise resin bubbles may soar up just
like soap bubbles. Make sure you do not inhale these bubbles. Protect
your eyes!

Do not use too much resin! Big leftovers, more than 50 ml, can get really
hot due to exothermic reactions. Fire hazard! Remedy: Spread
the leftovers out over a large area on fire proof ground.

Do this in room temperature, if possible.

Please notice: the higher the room temperature, the shorter the
hardening period. The colder the room temperature, the longer the resin
takes to harden.

Hydroflex Technology Surfboards may be repaired with any Epoxy Repair
Kit available on the market.

Never use polyester for your Hydroflex Technology Surfboards! The used
thinner can damage the foam tremendously!

Almost all Epoxy Repair Kits change color to yellow, which looks terrible. Make sure it’s a good Epoxy System before buying it.

Step 6 (Spread the resin onto the ding):

The easiest way to do this is using gloves and your fingers. Make sure
no hollow areas are left.
When filling in big holes, you should add little fibres to the resin. Add
fibres until it gets rather thick, so that the resin does not drop
out of the hole.

Step 7 (Apply fibreglas pieces):

When you have spread out enough resin, apply the cut fibreglas pieces.

Step 8 (tape the area):
To make sure the fibre covers the rails closely so that the outline of
the board is not changed, tape the area with paper tape. Do not use
PVC-Tape or Scotch tape, this sticks to the resin.

Make sure the tape covers the fibre really tight. This makes sure that
the rail outline is preserved and not much sanding is necessary later.

This is how the taped area should look afterwards.

Step 9 (hardening time):

Allow the area to harden for 12 hours. After that you may continue.

Step 10 (Get rid of the tape):

Step 11 (Sand the area):

Step 12 (if necessary, repeat steps 2-11 on the deck):
As you can see, the damage did not only affect the rail but the deck also. In this case steps 2-11 should be executed on the deck as well. Both repair areas may overlap, but that’s ok and the way you actually want it. So don’t worry and feel free to put the fibre on the repair area you worked on the day before. You get 4 layers and gain more stability.

Step 13 (get rid of entrapped air):

Step 14 (Sanding):
Both sides should be sanded again.

The weel stand should be moved with a big curve radius to get best results.

Depending on the damage and the boards deformation, irregularities may still appear within the rail line. You get rid of these in step 16.

Step 15 (Mix resin with filler)

Fibres with resin are spread onto the repaired area to eliminate last irregularities. Please mix the resin as described in step 5. Add the little fibre pieces slowly until it gets pasty and can be piled on.

Step 16 (Spread the resin onto the repaired area):
All irregularities can now be eliminated with the pasty resin mix. You want to make the resin layer thick - that enables you to sand and shape the  board easier after hardening.

Step 17 (hardening time):
As described in step 9, allow the area 12 hours to harden.

Step 18 (Finish):

Sand the area until there is no difference to the rest of the board.

Flex does not mean flex

Surfers will be demanding high performance shortboards with more much more speedpotential and drive more and more in the future. This progress is beginning right now, but surfing will develope into an even more extreme and faster sport. That’s why we offer a bigger variety of interesting shapes now.

On the contrary retro shapes with optimized streaming and floating performances are still requested. And with our technology those boards are really light. That’s where a classic style meets unknown performance. Surf our fishes - your surfing skills will tell you the difference.

Usual materials, production and manufactoring methods are pretty much done. New materials and new construction methods are the only way to build next generation surfboards and improve the surfboard performace.

Nature is key, because nature always solves problems easy, logic and efficiently. We build surfboards like mother nature tells us. We enroot fibre and the water resistant core with a special technique that makes the board and glassing much more durable. Better performance, almost unbreakable and environmentally friendly boards with lesser weight are the result.

Talking about surfboard performance means talking about flex also. But be careful - flex does not mean flex.
In order to gain highest and fastest restoring forces and therefore an “active” surfboards that really kicks your surfing to the limits a surfboard designer needs the efficient materials and the technology know how. But this would not work without finetuning the flex of each board for the surfer’s needs and the shape’s requirements. Combining all this means “modern surfboard design”.

We are increasing the surfboard performance with a high precision customization just yet. And for the future we are developing a formula that enables us the best possible power transmission of the surfer.

This so called PTI (power transmission index) will revolutionize the customization of surfboards.

Hey everyone,

me and my brother will be in Cologne on december 2nd moving our feet on the dance floor at the annual dwv party. We will bring some boards, so there is your chance to check out the new technology and shoot critical questions about shapes or technology at us. Hope to see you all at the party,

bufo

Our new surfboard version designed for river surfing is ready. The testing session in munich with the locals was succesful. The board is now available in the online shop. Shaping/Designing the board was much fun. See the board inside the shop here. Watch pictures from the Eisbach session here.

Did you know that many pros are surfing a usual polyesther competition board in only two heats max? After two heats the board’s pop is gone and the board is not used anymore during the competition.

That’s another reason why our riders love Hydroflex boards. The pop never stops, although the Hydroflex competition lite boards even are lighter than the usual polyester competition boards. Plus, you can make footprints in the deck, without getting delamination or foam problems. The more pressure on our special foam, the tougher it gets. Our riders love to get their footprints on the deck, in order to lower their stance, be closer to the water surface and get more control.

BUFO