A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Thailand-based producer of composite plastic and fiberglass watersports equipment including surfboards, sailboards, kiteboards, wakeboards, and kayaks. Founded in 1985 by former competitive sailboarder Vorapant Chotikapanich, Cobra International—the world's largest manufacturer of sailboards—occupies a mammoth 180,000 square foot facility in the Amata Nakorn Industrial Estate, just south of Bangkok, and employs over two thousand workers. In 1989, Surftech's founder Randy French approached Cobra International's management and struck a deal to begin producing his epoxy composite surfboard designs at the Thai factory; five years later Cobra International was pumping out 75,000 Surftech boards annually. With material and labor costs far cheaper in Thailand than in most of the developed world, more production deals followed Surftech's lead, and by 2012 Cobra International was making hundreds of thousands of surfboards each year for close to 20 different companies, including the Australian-based Global Surf Industries, which itself controls 15 separate surfboard labels. Cobra International's rise tended to frustrate many traditional surfboard shapers in the United States and Australia, many of whom bemoaned the mass-production of surfboards as an unwelcome and uninspiring encroachment on the hallowed surfer/shaper relationship, though most were simply wary, justifiably or not, of low-cost Asian imports threatening their market share. Eager for a look into the lion's den, 

 magazine sent journalist Tim Baker for a tour of the Cobra International manufacturing plant in 2003, where Baker discovered "the cleanest, most efficient, well-run surfboard factory I have ever seen." In 2009 Cobra International received a major industry award for its use of environmentally-friendly cellulose materials in surfboard construction, and in 2012 Global Surf Industries is set to release the first surfboards manufactured with recycled coconut husks.

Cobra International

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

Encyclopedia of Surfing