Starter Kit. Idea 262 of 500. Cluster 13
Surfboard shaping and repair workshops on the east and south coasts
The mechanism, from the book
An ocean eight times the size of the land, and a fishing fleet that sells its catch on the beach. The Maldives built a tourism industry on water Sri Lanka has more of.
The 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.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether a small workshop shaping boards needs a trade licence.
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask how resin and foam waste from shaping must be disposed of.
Check before you spend
Whether the workshop's fumes and waste meet environmental rules, and whether your landlord allows resin work on the premises.
Find out these three numbers
- How many boards come in for repair in a week?
- What do surfers pay for a new board shipped in?
- What does one board cost you to shape?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.