THE HISTORY OF ESTRADA

Mike Estrada has been riding waves since the age of 5. During his teen years he surfed competitively and travelled extensively. It was his love for surfing and his fascination with the board under his feet that motivated him to channel his energies into designing surfboards.

Mike started designing and shaping surfboards in the late 1980′s. At first he was shaping boards for himself and his brothers who were also travelling and surfing competitively. From there his reputation for building quality surfboards grew. In 1990 he opened his own surfboard factory which is known today as Estrats Board Manufacturing Company. Since 1998 Mike has worked closely with Town & Country Surfboards Hawaii and is producing surfboards under their label for the West Coast.

Through the course of the years shaping, Mike has gained valuable experience working with and learning from other veteran shapers such as Bill Cilia of Nirvana Surfboards (AUS), Ben Aipa (HI), Dennis Jarvis of Spyder Surfboards and more recently Milton & Wayo Whilar (Peru).

Mike’s main objective for both himself as a shaper and his factory is to continue to improve board performance and maintain the consistency of his shapes and the quality of every board that goes out the factory door. Mike, along with the factory team riders, continues to test current board designs in the waves around the world.

Innovative thinking and design is also a high priority. Keeping an open mind to alternative surfboard designs and construction such as parabolic (rail) stringers, stringerless technologies and EPS/Epoxy has enabled Mike and the team to stay on the cutting edge of surfboard design.