Surfboard shaping and repair workshops on the east and south coasts

A first step

Put a sign up at two surf schools on the east or south coast offering ding repair with a 24-hour turnaround and a price list. Keep a notebook of every board brought in, the damage and what the owner paid, and ask each surfer where they bought the board and what it cost. A month of repairs shows the volume, and the answers show whether a locally shaped board would sell.

Who pays first

A visiting surfer with a cracked board and a week of waves left, who will pay well to be back in the water tomorrow.

What leaves today

Boards arrive from abroad and damaged ones are flown home or thrown away, so the shaping and repair trade sits with workshops elsewhere.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
  An ocean eight times the size of the land

More from cluster 13

• 251Sailing charters and a yacht marina at Galle or Trincomalee, with the crew trained here
• 252Diving schools at the wrecks of Trincomalee and the reefs of the east, certified to international standard
• 253Sport fishing charters with catch-and-release, sold to the Gulf and Europe
• 254Sea-cucumber and seaweed farming in the northern lagoons, which Japan and Korea buy
• 255Tuna graded, loined and vacuum-packed at the harbour for the sashimi market, not sold whole
• 256Crab and prawn from the lagoons as a branded chilled export, with the lagoon's name

All 20 ideas in this cluster