![]() “It’s like a tennis match - it goes back and forth, but probably it’s about neck-and-neck right now,” says Dahl.īut the surf wax industry is in the midst of a sea change. The two companies vie for the top spot in the $20 million-per-year industry. According to Dahl, depending on the time of year, anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 bars of wax are produced each day at the Carlsbad facility. Sticky Bumps is now one of the largest surf wax manufacturers in the world. Dahl has been making surf wax since 1972, when he set up a makeshift factory in the back yard of an old house next to Swami’s surf break. John Dahl owns Sticky Bumps and its parent company, Wax Research. The wrapper read “Sticky Bumps.” That bar of surf wax was made on the other side of I-5, less than ten miles away, at Sticky Bumps headquarters in Carlsbad. Now I use…” he sifted through a backpack he’d taken from the rear of his gold Lexus SUV, “now I use this.” “When I first started surfing, 40 years ago, we used straight paraffin wax,” he says. ![]() The more bumps of surf wax, the better the traction for the surfer.Īrtist Wade Koniakowsky, 53 years old, was waxing his 7-foot, 6-inch old-school tri-fin. They applied the wax in a circular motion, the better to get bumps to form. ![]() While some hopped about, shoving a foot through their wet suits, others applied sunscreen to their tanned faces.Įventually, all grabbed a scented bar of wax and rubbed it across the top of their surfboards. Surfers opened trunks, hatchbacks, and tailgates and ransacked through gear for surf accessories. To add to the near-perfect conditions, only a dozen surfers were in the water.Īs serene as the conditions appeared down below, the vibe in the parking lot was intense. The waves were chest high and clean, with not even the slightest breeze present. On the afternoon of April 3, barefoot surfers ran down the concrete steps at Swami’s in Encinitas toward ideal surf conditions. ![]()
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