The Surfrider Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to ocean, wave and beach protection, will debut the Smartfin, a surfboard fin with data-collecting sensors, with a pilot program launch in early 2017. By outfitting surfboards with the new technology, Surfrider hopes to turn surfers into “citizen scientists” actively engaged in ocean and climate research.
The foundation will encourage the community, specifically surfers, to use the Smartfin to measure ocean parameters including salinity, pH, temperature, location, and wave characteristics. The data surfers acquire while in the water will become accessible in near real time to the global scientific community.
“Smartfin is not only about the data. It’s also an effort to connect surfers and their communities to larger issues affecting ocean health,” said Surfrider Foundation CEO Chad Nelsen. “Using the data collected with Smartfin, we can better understand trends in ocean warming and acidification and mobilize our communities to take action to combat these problems caused by climate change.”
Smartfin is the result of a partnership between non-profits, engineers and the scientific community, developed by Dr. Andy Stern of The Lost Bird Project and engineered by Benjamin Thompson of BoardFormula. The Surfrider Foundation will provide logistical and outreach support for the distribution of fins to its network of surfers worldwide, and joins a long list of collaborators that includes Futures Fins and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, one of the world’s leading institutions for oceanographic research.
“Smartfin is an incredible tool to raise awareness about the urgent environmental challenges of today that we all face together. Surfers are an amazing bunch — passionate, connected to the ocean, and committed to a healthy way of living and a healthy earth,” said Stern. “To see how surfers are so enthusiastically embracing Smartfin, and stepping up as citizen scientists as a way for them to contribute to ocean and climate change scientific research, gives me hope that what we need to do, we can do.”
Beta testing on the fin has been underway for several months. In early 2017, the Surfrider Foundation will begin distributing Smartfins with a Surfrider Foundation San Diego chapter pilot program. To find out more, visit www.surfrider.org.
