How to pack surfboards for Air travel - Advanced

Ok, I have done this countless times so I wanted to share what I have learned with all of you. In advance, I do need to give credit to Stefan of www.ca2pr.com, who taught me some of the advanced techniques.

In my example I will be packing 4 surfboards.

What you will need:

1. Travel board bag (1) with 4 board capacity
   
2. Individual surfboard day bags (2)
3. Blue painters tape
4. Cardboard boxes (bubble wrap works too.. but is expensive, and free boxes work better)
5. Zip ties
   

Step #1
Clean all boards of wax and debris, apply fresh basecoat temp wax in advance if you want a quick strike after landing. Remember basecoat and tropical are the two hardest waxes so you can use tropical as a basecoat for colder temp waxes if basecoat wax is not available.

Step #2
Cut down the corner of the sidewall of the cardboard box, this will make it a long piece of cardboard now with flappy sides where the box used to piece together to form a square.

Step #3
Overlay the cardboard box on the nose of the board so that the nose is in the crease of the fold in the box and so that the box covers about 1ft of the nose on top and bottom. Use utility scissors and cut of the excess box that hangs out from the tapering of the board. You want some excess so that the top and bottom overlap but not too much. You can now tape the top and bottom of the box together creating a cardboard mold for the nose of your board.

Step #4
Do the same thing for the tail of your board but make sure the the entire fin box is protected.

Step #5
Tape the cardboard molds to your board using the BLUE painters tape. The reason you use the painters tape is because when you peel it off it does not leave any residue on the board that you will need to clean off. I lent a board to someone one time and they used duct tape and the board still has that crap all over it.

Step #6
Find a piece of cardboard maybe 1 ft wide and a few feet long and place it along the stringer of the board between your nose and tail molds. Now place your second board on top of board #1.

Step #7
Use left over cardboard boxes and pieces to make a rail wrap, again use the natural crease of the cardboard on the rail so the card board easily wraps around the rails of both boards. You do not need to individually rail wrap the boards, use 1 rail wrap to cover both boards. use painters tape again to tape in place.

Step #8
Slide surfboards into the day bag, you can add additional cardboard to the deck of the top board and the bottom of the bottom board if there is sufficient room in the day bag for added coverage. But generally airlines will snap a nose, ding a rail, or ding the tail/fin box area which we have already sufficiently protected. Keep in mind by using cardboard we are providing cushion for impact but also adding rigidity which specifically helps with the nose snaps. Bubble wrap does not provide rigidity. Zip the day bag shut (if you can) and zip tie the zippers together.

Step #9
Do the same with the other 2 boards as well and now you should have four well packed boards inside of two day bags (that also add protection). Having 2 boards in one day bag also minimizes risk when the airline wants to count your boards. When you open the big travel bag it only looks like you have two boards instead of four.

Step #10
Place the day bags inside the big coffin travel bag, add any other little stuff like trunks, rash guards and snorkel equipment and zip up the big bag. Again use a zip tie to seal the zippers shut. TSA likes the zip ties because they can cut them off if they need to get in your bag, and I use them as an excuse as why I don't want to open my bag for the airline counter agent. I say "oh I zip tied this shut, and I don't have anymore to zip it up or a knife to open it with, can you cut me a break on this one?"

Step #11
Land safe, unpack pristine boards, save your parts for the way home (another reason why bubble wrap sucks), and go surfing.

FCS / Future Fins
This how to is written with removable fin systems in mind. You would be hard pressed to fit two boards with glass ons into a day bag. It's very important to not only remove your fins, but also to be sure to screw the fin screw back into the recess of the fin plug so that the the fin screws do not damage other boards in the bag.