Introducing Grain Surfboards

York, Maine - a quaint beach town located at the southern tip of the states coast rife with a maritime history that, like most things in Maine, is unique only to it. It is home to a tight-knit community of artists, surfers and craftsmen alike, all of whom are tied together by a passion for the sea. There is a local figure who represents all of the aforementioned qualities in one; the artist, the surfer, and the craftsman. They are a staple of this ocean obsessed community, Grain Surfboards.

Just up the road from York Beach is Grain's HQ - a full-scale board production facility, surf shop and classroom. Grain's mission in production and in concept is to design and build truly sustainable surfboards. Truly sustainable as in sourcing materials to shape from local softwoods, blowing the idea of foam right out of the water, no pun intended. More significantly, though, it keeps the idea of riding natural boards in your natural habitat alive in an industry that too often looses sight of that message. It is an understandable but ironic diversion from the origin of surfings history to shave a styrofoam mass, glass it, put a plastic tail on it then take it out to sea. Granted, all those materials are to thank in many ways for progressing the sport and legitimizing the industry, they are often the same pollutants that take from the health of the same ocean we want to protect. Modern boards have allowed surfers to unlock movements previously thought impossible, but as Grain goes to show, that is just one part of the act of surfing. Grain empowers anyone who becomes interested to take on the challenge themselves by offering DIY kits along with in-house workshops for amateur board-builders. New shapers go step-by-step through the time honored process of crafting their own rideable work of art. Grain believes that crafting your own wooden board by hand is the ultimate experience a surfer can have.  

Grain's board building methods uphold the highest standard of sustainability. Their new Green Rail construction technology utilizes high-density recycled #1 PET plastic as rail materials with each board keeping roughly 33 plastic bottles out of the environment. Our initial offering of six Grain boards at Neon Wave are all made with this Green Rail technology with shapes ranging from small fishes, midlength twinnies and pintails to classic longboards.