Hey Crew
Just wondered if anyopne had thought about the upside of this for Australian board makers our exports to the rest of the world will surely be in demand. I know myself because I deal with a couple of american companies every shaper I know wants to know if we can hook up with american distributors for our boards. Not saying that it will happen but there is definatley a chance if the US foam debacle can’t be sorted.
Cheers
PoorboyOz
The Goldy gets the spoils for the US turmiol. No one doubts it. More and more evidence is that nothing will be sorted soon. Right now only EPS is a lock. There’s also new estimates from newly released inside sources (ex Clark employees) that the Clark numbers were actually higher than previously estimated. 1000 a day is a very low guess.
Aussie boards manufacturers are already putting pressure on their blank manufacturers to keep the blanks at home and help to build their domestic and export biz. Some Oz blank makers have taken orders from the US only to call a couple days later to cancel. You guys should have some fat years in your future.
Short to Medium term good for Australia yes, but long term? Everyone will be so busy pumping out PU/PE here, they won’t be looking at alternatives, whereas in the US shapers will be forced to. The US shapers that are committed to the business in the US and have the resources to ride out the lean times, will get their heads around eps/epoxy pretty quickly and then they’ll start pushing the design envelope with it. To run with Bert’s evolution metaphor, the dinosaurs grazing in the newly lush pastures of the Gold Coast will eventually have to contend with a much smarter species from across the ocean.
Fair enough comment i think other than some of the worlds best pioneers in the new technologies live and work in and around the Gold Coast and it would be foolish to think that they will stop their development programs. It is true the PU board market will be stronger and I think it will always exist until you see the top 44 riding EPS boards. And so far no ones won a world championship or a world championship tour event on an EPS board. So for now its business as usual for the Aussie board manufacturers. Anyone wishing to import some boards???
Cheers
Leigh
sorry leigh but kelly won a wct in france on a s-core. and i believe was scolded by his clothing sponsor for supporting the rise of a rival brand! i may be wrong, it may be hearsay?
sunny garcias world title was won riding bamboo over eps with epoxy …
the biggest reason pros arent on it , is because to date everyone building with it has had more than enough work and hasnt had the need to give boards to pros …
pros dont like paying big dollars for boards , which doesnt make sense …
because so many get 10 boards at a time from anywhere between 150 and 300 dollars , then just snap them in a few weeks …
it would make way more sense to get new tech and just pay the 1000 for each one and have 3 boards last the year …
giving or discounting boards to pros is what you do when you have a mass produced product that you need the masses to want …
having pros ride your boards is basically an advertising write off …
most eps board builders make boards that are such good value , there customers keep coming back so there is no need for advertising …
because eps has been on the fringe for a while and guys building them are still in growth , you just wont see masses of them being given away or discounted …
this will change as more crew start building them , and if they want to gain mass market appeal , then its time to buy your pro …
seems there could be a few cheap ones on the market in the states right now ???
there are so many reasons why to date the pros arent riding this tech , but all the reasons have more to do with economics of business than they do with the performance of the boards …
i do agree with pinhead to …
board builders in the states are in a frenzy looking at every possible alternative , the outcome of this could well put oz in second place in the space race …
yes oz is benefitting right now , but when U.S. pros start winning due to the fact there board builders were forced to look at alternatives , then the focus could shift back to america , this is a real possible outcome , but i seriously think its 5 years away …
if everyone changed tommorow and commited to alternatives , there is so much R&D involved to tune it to pro level …
even tho the bulk of the U.S. surfboard industry now has the potential to move forward as a whole , both the volume of existing p/u and the latest tech is coming from oz …
so once the U.S. starts to make its presence felt again , theres plently left down here in reserve to keep up the challenge …
maybe after the aussies have milked the current situation , when the U.S. starts making ground with new tech , then all the aussies have to do , is go knock on someones door , make an offer and start putting the stuff into production …
no wonder its called the lucky country …
while im here ,
any sanders or gloss and polishers out there looking for work ???
pm me …
what would happen if the wct boys had thier yearly meeting to decide the judging criteria for next year and decided that they would go against all thier top three sponsors current market direction of pu boards and let the new criteria allow epoxy and sandwich board performance characteristics to shine?
what would happen if the public believed that the top pros were paying $400 for each of the boards they keep, from the 10 plus they are given at a time. and the ones they give back that didnt go any good were sold by the manufacturer for higher than normal retail! and what do you think of the publics perception of the top shapers if the public thought that the pros are offered big cash bonuses by shapers to win on a particular shapers board (not his actual board sponser)
bert how about getting one guy who is struggling at 100 on the wqs right now gets the new tech and wins all before him next year to qualify on the wct! then its amazing new tech. right now the amazing new tech that has been used for 10+ years and we are yet to see any major wins on the wct.
im have been told that most of the year sunny won he was not on the bamboo tech. i know he wasnt riding bamboo when he was here that year as i did some pu repairs for him.
i have been told that when he was here last year some of the pu boards he had from popular local shapers made him actually say that if he keeps getting boards like that he would quit surfing. maybe thats why he tried to get somewhere on a surftech at snapper.
just all too many opinions, claims and hype at the moment… i dont doubt the merits of the non industry standard methods. in fact im really enjoying learning about there strengths and shortcomings! but i wanna see regular evidence here in the water. and in the contest results in the paper
dave , a lot of your comments back my earlier statements , that the new tech isnt making headway because its more to do with economics than performance …maybe some good old industry politics as well , maybe australias capital should be coolangatta instead of canberra …
there has to be more political action in cooly …
one retailer i dealt with a few years back , was fully hyping the sunny /bamboo board world title angle …
i had read comments from sunny about the eps/epoxy boards he rode , they lined up exactly with feedback about how my boards work , so i took them to be true …
also if you look at gary youngs story surrounding the bamboo boards , youll realise , sunny was left without regular , easy access to those boards , so he would have had little choice but to go back to p/u , hence his comments you made …
its early days dave …
if your waiting to see what the perception amongst competition surfers are before being willing to do further R&D , thats good …
for us …
i think your saying that when one brand starts to stand out in the winners circle , then youll consider the alternative systems to be valid ???
ive already seen that happen 3 times …
once at a local level , second at a state level and third at a national level …
why do you think im here now dave ???
its the only place in australia you can take it to a global level …
nev has a number of qs and ct guys that are banging on his door again , so im positive something and somebody will emerge next year to hopefully start making a difference … i say hopefully , because if the goldy is anything like west oz then politics can get real dirty when team guys want to start changing sides because there really is a difference in equipment …
i think some of your associates could probably back that up …
(the guys you know from west oz )
i reckon your in a good spot dave …
you run a good business , good service , unique boards , with art and variety of shape , youve got a foot in the door in the direction of alternate materials , i think things will take there coarse with you …
your on the cutting edge in many facets of your business , i would see you as the last person to be fully negative towards emerging tech …
but on the other hand being to far ahead of the pack often has commercial disadvantages …
i think youll be like a lot of others who will want to step in when they see real profits become blantantly obvious …
as for me , its not the dollars , so it doesnt bother me to be off spending time and effort on the next search …
either way the next few years will be interesting …
unless a cyclone wipes out the goldy , then the crew down in sydney will be celebrating …
either way , the board industry in the states are still going to be feeling the impact of this for a long time …
so hopefully if were all busy down here , then politics will take a back seat for a while …
regards
BERT
Interesting to say the least you two. And i think it would be ignorant to assume that alot of this countries shapers aren’t doing R&D into alternative tech. I think they probably are its just like Dave says a performance issue I think.
I have recently been surifng some of the sample boards from Resin8 shaped by Sam Egan. The performance is kinda there but their construction is still being worked on. As you know Dave i’m a heavier set bloke and am very hard on all my boards and i’m only a better than average surfer so for me the emphasis has to be on product longevity and consistency in manufacturing techniques. Mind you I don’t think its going to change overnight anyways so the ride into the future is certainly not going to be boring.
PS Dave do you also keep an eye on the Realsurf Forums?
In the shortboarders only forum I have a Bonzer thread with some development I have been working on with the Red X Bonzer setup. The board goes unreal and everyone that has been surfing it has been blown away at just how good it goes.
Cheers
Leigh
"but on the other hand being to far ahead of the pack often has commercial disadvantages … "
you right there, thats why i still struggle as i keep putting any money into new directions! i just want to see some results of my and many of you other guys hard work than can be recognized by the public.
heres a pic of my 10 month old girl working on here first sand-witch construction…
This is off the epoxysurfboards.com website, it looks both the Irons brothers have been using some epoxy EPS boards.
“Probably the fastest, most responsive board ever. I need more for Europe” - Andy Irons (in a message to Matt Biolos)
“I have a secret weapon. The super light XTR Epoxy board, shaped by Matt Biolos” - Bruce Irons (after winning in Japan)
The Australian board builders ill probably do O’k. The blank manufacturers will do better I reackon.
With the epoxy vs poly thing, In my situation I do around 20 boards a year when in full swing I do 25, poly is what I know so I stick with it . In the larger factories I suppose they have to do the lot to cover a market.
Then there are the wooden paulonia and balsa guys, they do there thing and that is their craft. I use epoxy for repairs on boards and boats but carry the minimum amount usually around 4 lt, that I get off a boat builder.
I found epoxy boards (repairs soaked up a lot of water) although were a lot harder shell.
Me I’ll stick with what I know and plod along.
Hey Crew
Just wondered if anyopne had thought about the upside of this for Australian board makers our exports to the rest of the world will surely be in demand. I know myself because I deal with a couple of american companies every shaper I know wants to know if we can hook up with american distributors for our boards. Not saying that it will happen but there is definatley a chance if the US foam debacle can’t be sorted.
Cheers
PoorboyOz
we need blanks, not boards.
You should post your bonzer in the general discussion forum here poorboy.
Autralia don’t export boards, Thailand do for them
cleaner and cheaper.
Bruno
Yeah it is true a lot of Aussie crew have turned to Thailand for cheaper boards but I find it hard to take as I’m sure our shapers will that they would be cleaner and cheaper than our home made product. I think before you throw stones maybe you should check out the board makers that I represent all of which take great pride in their aussie made product. I still believe we have a product worthy of export and I can’t wait until someone realizes this.
Cheers
PoorboyOz
www.chaossurfboards.com just for starters…
What more can a poorboy do?