Rusty Flexlite?

I bought the latest Tracks mag to read a design article. The mag was in a bag to stop people stealing the worthless freebee bundled with it, so I couldn’t read the article in the shop. Tracks is aimed at the 12-18 year old audience, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that the article was utter garbage. However in the same mag, Rusty had a pamplet advertising his new range including PU glassed in epoxy, tufflite, Aviso and something called “flexlite”. I suspect from the spelling of the word light (lite) that flexlite is a new Surftech product. Is that right? does anyone seen or surfed one of these?

I have heard that they (Surftech) have developed technology based around the standard PU board rather than ruining good PU shapes , curves etc with different materials. But with the marketing hype based around strength etc of the surftech label.

I think it was actually Proctor that was one of the first that investigated the technology and materialswith a view towards making boards that weighed, flexed and surfed very simirlarly to a 4 ounce performance board… BUT lasted much longer. I read a good article about him somewhere.

I hope they (surftech) havent got it too right or it could be another oppurtunity to defend domestic production squandered.

Indeed,

It is depressing to see surf mags trot out the same tired “Design” features…

The same list of shaper/advertisers …

The same pieces of foam with a bit of wood down the middle…

Substituting the materials for others while maintaining the exact same basic construction? Rusty, HO FUCKEN HUM!!!

Hungry for the true newness…

Speedneedle

Gumby- Proctor has a bit of info on their “flexible epoxy” line at www.proctorsurf.com

flex lite, speed tech, air boost, pump model, vector rocket… I’m coming out with a new board,with performance that surpasses all others, called the “marketing hype” (tm and patent pending by the way).

im going surfing …

as thats the only place my prefered inspiration comes from …

hope things work out for rusty …

im sure they will , as long as there is a new concept and someone to show it to him …

rusty will be right there ready to brand and market it …

i was inspired by rusty as a grom looking in the bay watching him shape , seems im still learning stuff from him …

now im wondering what i can call my boards to imitate rusty ???

he seems to be onto it …

regards

BERT

Bert,

it doesn’t matter what you call your boards as long as they follow these rules:

  1. must have prefix: X-, X-treme-, speed-, flex-, boost-, surf-, wave-, hydro-, fluid-, hyper-, lightning-

  2. must have suffix: -lite, -light, -tech, -streme, -pro, -stick

Rio

This is genius…

I’m starting a “new” model called the ‘Speed-streme Pro stick’.

Now to find me a massive Japanese wholesale distributor that I can make some glossy catalogues for that he can sell boards to sit in someones bedroom in Inner Tokyo. Doesnt matter if it doesnt really work, may not even get used…

The distributor might even want to pay some WCT guy $20,000 a year to ride one (or at least ride someones elses boards with my stickers!) and boy oh boy I will be a shaping legend overnight.

COOL!

Seems to be a little hostility in the room …don’t we need this kind of stuff to reject?, if it wasn’t there what could we rebel about?..seems to me that in the early 60’s we were disappearing from classes, work,church maybe and we all knew each other from the beaches, we knew when to show up somehow without the hottest quickest pay per view forcasters … word seemed to get around somehow, i don’t remember what kind of clothes we wore… didn’t seem to be too important, maybe it’s just that we’re starting to disappear again and it’s a little scarry this time, i’'m looking forward to riding sound waves in eternity,when i get really good , i’ll paddle out into some light waves…can’t wait!..God bless … danny

Two things are appearent.

  1. Big business will have their effect on the market to the detriment of the domestic industry.

  2. New tech is here and the demand for that grows everyday. The big business interests are aware of this and are looking for tech to invest in. Being part of a hardgoods scheme is no longer being seen as a loser in business. In fact those that don’t involve themselves will be seen in the future as soft core. Their image is all they are. This will drive the change.

Times are changing for better or worse.

That’s the best succinct explaination of everything we need to know that’s been overly hashed out here the past year or two…

Very well said Greg.

That is really it in a nutshell, like it or not…

Best post in a long long time

Yes thanks everyone - I take then know one knows whether this is something genuinely new and worthy of examination or the same old with a new name.

The name I couldn’t give a rats about, Rusty could call it the “flying turd” and if it sold in the thousands I wouldn’t care - What I want to know is: is Surftech waking up to the fact that surfers know flex is an issue and are now trying to reproduce the flex characteristics of the original PE/PU plug rather than just the shape. And if so how are they doing it? Airex instead of d-cell? different glass schedules? flexiblisers in the resin?

going back to the original question …

i cant remember who told me this , but the story was rusty had made an alliance with a guy who had long time experience making custom sandwich sailboards …

i can only assume , that could be the source of the product in question …

i have someone in rusty’s management team who orded a board a while back and im due to ring him soon , so i will ask some direct questions (one being if the board will actually remain in one piece ??)

na not really …

but i will ask about the flexlite …

actually now that i think about it , ordering a board and getting a lot of design questions answered is a cheap way of finding out what the latest design tech is , to incorparate into your companies latest advertizing blurb …

hey pinhead !! i heard a rumour speedneedle is a pro vacuum bagger these days .

any idea what hes up to ???

10 boards a day was the last i heard ??

thats insane …

branding , its all about branding these days , not actually getting your hands dirty …

over branding is about as cool as putting your label in a supermarket or branding an energy drink …

to add to gregs comment earlier …

the corparate world has its attention fixed firmly on the surf industry , because of the success of the first public surf companies …

cobra and rusty are next on the list …

increasing your public profile and hyping up your product line and business aliances ,plus running adds in everything that flicks , folds or clicks ,makes perfect sense if your about to offer the public a slice of your company …

i think in hollywood they call it special effects , smoke and mirrors …

boy its all getting way to complicated these days …

regards

BERT

Quote:

10 boards a day was the last i heard ??

thats insane

I think a board should take at least two weeks to build to have any soul.

Quote:

the corparate world has its attention fixed firmly on the surf industry , because of the success of the first public surf companies

It’s not just the surf industry - the world’s equity markets are awash with retirement fund cash. All that investment money has to go somewhere. IPO’s are an industry on its own. A lot of companies are going public just becuase they can, and sure, that means hyping yourself to convince the investors. But with the surf industry you still have to be real - look at all the branding, its all trying to convince buyers that the company in question really understands that special feeling you get from surfing. If they don’t, the hype won’t help. I don’t think surfers (of whatever demographic) are as plain dumb or superficial as the advertisers take them to be. If you know the feeling and you can communicate it, you’ll survive, if you don’t know the feeling or if you do and you can’t communicate it you’ll ultimately fail. The technology is still all about giving people that feeling.

Quote:

i think in hollywood they call it special effects , smoke and mirrors …

boy its all getting way to complicated these days …

Hmm, that is a true comment.

without picking fight, why does the amount of time affect the soul of anything? isn’t it the touch of a hand that gives an object its soul/mana/energy?

Imo, if you slow down and take your time, you get to be intimate with it. You know all of its curves and how it reacts to your hands. You see and love all the flaws and imperfections that give character to it. Just like a girlfriend (or boyfriend), your not going to get intimate on the first date. and for clarifaication, getting intimate is not the same thing as sex, although they can involve each other.

i am not necessarily saying i’m trying to get laid on the first date either, but isn’t time arbitrary? who is to say how long it takes to infuse soul into an object? jackson pollock, basquiat, jack johnson, dylan, etc, can make art on the fly that noone would say is lacking soul. why should a board be any different?

maybe this should be in a different thread…

coments moved to new post

But with the surf industry you still have to be real - look at all the branding, its all trying to convince buyers that the company in question really understands that special feeling you get from surfing. If they don’t, the hype won’t help. I don’t think surfers (of whatever demographic) are as plain dumb or superficial as the advertisers take them to be. If you know the feeling and you can communicate it, you’ll survive, if you don’t know the feeling or if you do and you can’t communicate it you’ll ultimately fail. The technology is still all about giving people that feeling.

definitely demographic dependent pinhead…most aggro juveniles dont care much about feelings…but the 25+ crew do…

branding…yeah its about repetitive messaging…here in the states it always amuzes me how companies like McDonalds and Coca-Cola spend so much on TV advertizing…geez man, you either gonna drink coke or your not…a TV commercial aint gonna get me to buy a product…if i like the product i buy it…

but the messaging is constant…

and the message is the brand!

the world is full of sheep ready to support it if they are told often enough to support it…

just my opinion…