Making a big splash in Scarborough

The Black Point Surf Shop, touted as the state’s ‘first full service’ store, will celebrate its grand opening Saturday

SCARBOROUGH — For a trio of Scarborough surfers, a class project has turned into a going concern as a full-service shop dedicated to the sport they love.

While some stores sell boards and surfing supplies, and others make custom equipment, Brett Dobrovolny, 23, says Black Point Surf Shop in Scarborough, which he opened with brothers Andy and Ryan McDermott, is the only place in the state where almost everything happens in one location. Only the fiberglass application on new surfboards takes place off site, at an environmentally safe location in Freeport, under the direction of Ryan McDermott, 25.

Otherwise, customers can buy new surf boards, get old ones repaired, buy supplies to make their own, or watch through “the fishbowl” as Andy McDermott, 28, shapes a board from foam templates to a user’s exact specifications.

“I can honestly say we are Maine’s only full-service shop,” said Dobrovolny, a 2007 Scarborough High School grad who describes himself as “the business dude” of the group, in advance of the shop’s June 23 grand opening.

Dobrovolny met the McDermott brothers barely five months ago on Higgins Beach, where they bonded over the shared interest that brings only the most die-hard fans to the ocean’s edge in the dead of winter. The future partners also crossed paths at Alberg Ski & Surf Shop on Route 1 in Scarborough, where Dobrovolny manned a register and the McDermott brothers picked up work repairing surfboards.

The McDermotts offered to fix a few dings in Dobrovolny’s own board, but because it had been made from “bogus foam,” the repair did more harm than good.

“Whoever made his board used bad foam, and when we put it in the sun after the repair the gas inside it just compressed,” Andy McDermott said. “When it got cold again, the board just imploded on itself. I was like, oh, hey man, I guess I owe you a board now.”

So, the brothers set out to make their new friend a board at cost. It was a job they were well practiced at, having learned the craft seven years ago in the best tradition of the frugal Maine Yankee.

The brothers were introduced to surfing while in Nantucket, Mass., and brought their new pastime back home to Freeport, where they’d been raised. But they found the cost of entry into the sport prohibitive.

“I needed to get a board and they were way too expensive to buy,” recalled Andy McDermott. “But I’d been working at a marine shop, and I’d been working around docks my whole life, so fiberglassing wasn’t foreign to me.”

The brothers also had the experience of their father, sculptor T.J. McDermott, owner of Portland’s 9 Hands Gallery, on which to rely. So, the family bought 15 “blanks” – the foam templates from which most modern surfboards are built – and went to work.

“I actually carved my first board with a belt sander, man,” said McDermott, with a laugh. “But we just made a big project out of it and had a blast. I still surf the first board I ever made. In fact, all 15 are still being used.”

Eventually, the McDermotts began to answer inquiries from fellow beachgoers about their boards with a cheery, “Sure, I can make you one, too,” launching a more-or-less full-time hobby to augment their landscaping business and work in the boatbuilding trades, where they “bounced around wherever the work was.”

The brothers became more and more practiced, finally capping their experience last year with eight-month apprenticeships with master craftsmen in Southern California, where Andy honed his skills as a shaping boards and Ryan practiced applying the fiberglass coating to the create a finished product.

It was shortly after they returned that they met Dobrovolny, and the University of Southern Maine marketing student had an inspiration. He had needed an idea for a capstone project for his degree. Why not create a business plan based on the idea of a surf shop, he thought.

The McDermotts agreed, but didn’t give the project a second thought, at least not at first.

“It was like the fifth time someone had done that with is, so it didn’t faze us,” McDermott said.

But this time, something clicked, in part because Dobrovolny was not treating the business as a hypothetical to earn a grade. He actually went out and scouted a location for the shop– 134 Black Point Road – running all the numbers as if the thing were actually going to happen. Barely a month later, Dobrovolny, now with a college degree fresh in hand, along with an ‘A’ from the final project, was sitting down with his new partners, signing papers to create an LLC.

“It was really crazy how fast it all came together,” Dobrovolny said last week, as he prepped for Saturday’s grand opening. “But, so far, everything is working out just like I thought in the plan.”

With the McDermotts making and repairing surfboards, and Dobrovolny running the retail shop, the trio expect to make a big splash, at least if initial public reaction from their first few weeks in business is anything to go by.

“It feels great,” said Dobrovolny. “We’re just passionate about doing the thing we love, but I really I love seeing people come in here and how stoked everyone gets, especially little kids. They get super pumped.”

“I feel like we entered this right at just the right time for Maine,” said McDermott, noting that he could not wait to return home from his California sojourn. The waves may be bigger in California, but the smiles are wider here.

“Everyone here is friendly in the water,” he said. “Out in California, it’s like everyone’s upset, everyone’s ‘dropping-in’ on each other and each wave is a big competition. This is the surf scene I like.”

Saturday’s grand opening will feature catering by Buck’s Naked BBQ, a graffiti artist spray painting the business van, and a dunk tank set up to benefit the Susan Curtis Foundation, along with other events, including a board-shaping demonstration by McDermott.

The idea, McDermott said, is to not merely show customers how it’s done, but also to show others that they can do it, too.

“Mainer’s are crafty people,” he said. “I’m convinced everyone wants to make their own surfboard, at least once.”

But whether local surfers buy a factory board, parts to make their own, or a McDermott Shapes custom board, the business is all about sharing the joy of catching a wave.

“I just like getting people psyched to get in the water,” said McDermott. “Spreading the stoke, man, that’s what makes this the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.

“When I made my first board for someone else and saw the big smile that came back up onto the beach, I was, like, God, this is the best thing ever.”