Last Surfboard Manufacturer to Leave Imperial Beach

Over the years of Imperial Beach's short existence since the 1950s, the city has become known for its surfing community and surfboards.

Shapers like Michael Richardson, Dempsey Holder and Richard Joly are recognized at the and Outdoor Surfboard Museum on Palm Avenue helped put the city on the map. 

On Oct. 1, part of that history will leave town when TNT Surfboards leave their location in a warehouse on 13th Street and stops manufacturing surfboards in IB.

Some shapers may continue to work in their garages or homes, but it means officially surfboards will no longer be made in IB.

Owner Tim Townsley said he is currently looking for new locations in nearby San Diego or Chula Vista.

"I've been open just for the sake of my employees and my shapers, but I'm working myself into debt, debt I may not be able to recover from if I don't just stop now," he said.

Though the company's manufacturing base will move, his that opened two years ago isn't going anywhere, he said.

"No matter what happens, I'm still making surfboards, and I don't know who will be involved but TNT Surfboards will still exist on some level. People will still be able to get American made custom boards," he said.

At its height in the 1990s, TNT was making eight to 10 surfboards a day. Now it's more like four or five a week. Most shapers have been let go, except for Jay Novak and David Craig.

Both men have their own spots on the Imperial Beach Outdoor Surfboard Museum Hall of Fame for their Swallow Tail and Squash Tail boards.

"There was a time where there was an individual in each room working, making money, paying taxes," he said. "Back then the economy was fluid. Now it's just stale and the future is just difficult."

Townsley compared losing the manufacturing center after almost 20 years to losing a home.

"You get used to walking into a place like that and now part of your life is gone. I can remember back to 93 when i first moved in," he said. 

"I was skinny and had all kinds of hopes and dreams. You feel like didn't fulfill anything cause you have to shut it down but you know what, I gave a lot of people jobs, a lot of people were able to buy their cars, a lot of people were able to buy their homes, a lot of people got their start there."

Townsley said he is moving out because things are "upside down in the economy" but also because he has been asked to move by the warehouse owner ahead of an Imperial Beach Redevelopment Agency project to turn the area into a Bayshore Bike Village. It will include commercial shops to cater to bicyclists at the southern tip of the Bayshore Bikway that loops around San Diego Bay.

"There's nowhere else in IB that the city is saying to me that you can make surfboards here," Townsley said.

He thinks his being asked to move is the start of something much bigger. When the economy improves, he thinks similar development will spread along the water from 13th Street to the city's northwest corner near State Route 75.

"There's going to be a road, there's going to be a promenade or something that links it all together and it's going to be like Embarcadero South," he said.

Still, he believes the move could be a good thing.

"Motion like that is good for the economy too though. Something busts up like that and things get spread out, something happens from that. Something good will come from it. Other people will get jobs somehow. People get creative. They get ambitious," Townsley said.

For example, materials he threw away ahead of the move created opportunities for other surfboard shapers.

"For every bit of trash I shell out, four other dudes are off with it and doing something with it," he said.