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Why are Surftech boards so expensive?
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Spam...Kook...Troll....
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Hello Chicolini,
What's up ?.....I'm sure we can still be friends.....Let's go surfing sometime.....
See you out in the water...
Ray
Yorky, I’m not an elite surfer and I like to think that I am aware of my shortcomings. However I do consider myself to be competent, experienced and capable of deciding whether a sandwich board or conventional board suits me or not. That sort of statement really doesn’t inspire my confidence in you. One of the things we need to understand is that we all get different experiences - just read the “role of buoancy and paddling thread” as an example. Just because sandwich isn’t to your tastes doesn’t mean it won’t suit others.
My apologies, MrJ. I was wrong to write such a thoughtless statement… Sorry to all offended.
Yes you are %100 correct.
Yorky,
Perhaps our local shapers should listen to their customers. I think people who buy Surftechs are really saying they want a lighter more durable board with a good resale value: epoxy sandwich construction provides this. In the year or so before Bert Burger left WA for Queensland you would have had to wait a year to get one of his boards. To my knowledge no-one in WA does compsand. I posted a year ago for compsand in Oz and only got two replies, both East Coast (see http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1029707).
Dave
Yes I can see why people buy ST’s… They’re light and strong. I don’t know… No point getting angary anymore. Can’t change progression.
Peace
sorry if I’ve annoyed everyone with my passionate defence of all things sandwich and all things Asian. Its just that I’m coming from a different background to you guys - if I shunned working for multi-nationals I would forever be unemployed - I currently work for the Australian unit of a huge French media company - which I might add is billions (yes billions of Euro) in debt and they cut 12% of my salary during the global crisis! - thankfully this got recently restored hence my recent board purchase. I don’t wear a suit but I do need to dress semi-formerly particularly when visiting the customer site - unfortunately I would get told off if I turned up in boardshorts and anyway boardshorts aren’t much use to me in an air-conditioned office.
I am currently trying to get to the bottom of what the different flex patterns do for us on the http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/hard-numbers-flex-demystify-flex-patterns thread, but regardless of what we come up with I am very aware that there are many riders with strong preference to the ride PU cored board. I know I keep going on about the pros all the time but I think we have a lot to learn from them. I really am in awe of their ability having surfed alongside them close up and I do note that with only one or two exceptions that PU is their core.
Mike,
To tell you the truth, after many experiences with ordering customs I don’t really like buying custom boards. I much prefer to buy them off-the rack where I can pick them up, put them under my arm and really get a feel for them. But as I ride McCoys and was quoted a plain PU single fin 7’ McCoy at $1350 including shipping by Geoff, I was looking for a custom compsand for less than that. I spoke to Josh and was really impressed but it was my bad experiences with customs that won out. I actually just purchased a 6’8 McCoy-like PU custom from my local shaper (he also supplies ALL my Surftechs), but it was a custom for someone else that just happened to fit my needs perfectly.
Dave
hey !! some raw nerves hit in this thread............understandably
I had my times with a TF . sure had some good waves I'll never forget.
my loyalty to the soul hand shaped boards made me change my mind and sell it
and probably never buy a popout again from the big industry.
now with the movement to using more eco friendly materials I think that surftech did
a good thing by investing some big money and creating materials that provide the needs
for a good surfboard.
by that , I mean that the fused cell core is good stuff and now that Surftech showed it to the world,
we can use the fused cell to make better hand shaped eps boards that don't suck water .
this idea apllies to any other aspect of life that was stepped up/improved by the big industry
and then used by the small one.
so let us make finer boards using the tech they invented .... although I'm still against soulless products
we can harness their ideas to our own benefits.
see you later guy's , I'm off now to my blue room going to make some foam love.........
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MrJ ........ that attitude (I'll be fine, so stuff everyone else) is the problem exactly . It's a reflection of who you are ,and how you live.........
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You didn't answer my question about where to get the Aussie fused cell EPS, if the source is a trade secret then fair enough, but how about letting us know which manufacturers use it?
[/quote] Many grades of eps are out there , it comes down to how you use it . There's no trade secret
The simple fact is, the reason Surftec boards have prospered is not because of marketing or pricing. Its not because people are kooks, stupid or whatever negatives the haters want to put out there. The reason they have prospered is precisely because of the deficiencies that have existed in traditional hand crafted surfboards since the mid 1980s. I couldn't tell you how many Hand Crafted surfboards I've had over the past 25 years that fell apart, broke or delaminated. Surfers have always wanted a surfcraft that would hold up. Surftec was the first to really go after that surfer who is willing to pay a premium for a board that lasts more than 6-months.
So rather than get pissed off at Surftec and the people who ride them, turn the idea around and look at yourselves and see what you can do to give the consumers a board that will last. Perhaps its not surftec that really is the problem, perhaps the problem is the deficiencies of the traditional board.
Some boards wear like iron… some boards don’t. Some boards come from the guy around the corner… some don’t. Some have three fins… some don’t. Some are red… some aren’t.
Some people have a moral compass… some don’t.
It’s your money. You earned it. Spend it how you like…
…if you can live with yourself and the choices you make.
Do you buy from the local farm market to support the farmer… or a factory farm 10,000 miles away. Because less than a penny on the dollar goes to the farmer if you don’t buy local.
I appreciate everyones comments but feel we are beginning to stray from the original question, Why are Surftechs so expensive? How much does it cost to make them vrs how much they are sold for. Can someone explain the labor and materiial needed to manufacture a ST. What are Surf Techs costs? What is the process of how these boards are made. This is important if you are going to ask a premium price for a surfboard. Durability is not the only reason to ask $1200 for a board that may ride terrible. All I want to know is the price we are paying for a ST a fair and reasonable price? As with any transaction a knowledgeable buyer and a knowledgeable seller is required. Is this the case with Surf Tech? As buyers do we have the knowledge necessary to make the appropriate decision regadng our next purchase?
The manufacturing cost or the dealer’s cost is totally irrelevant. In a free market exchange, where there is no coercion, the price that a willing buyer and a willing seller agree on is the only relevant number. Apparently people by the thousands every year for the past 15 years or so have been willing to pay the going rate, whatever it is, for Surftechs.
Do you know the manufacturing cost for any other item you buy? The computer you typed your question on for example? That information is freely available for most companies (publicly traded). Yet I’ll bet that information played no part in your decision to buy the item. As with most people, you probably shopped the market, decided which one you liked, based at least in part on its selling price and bought it.
It’s the same with Surftechs. If you like the product and you think the price is reasonable: Buy one. If not: Don’t. This is one area of your life where you are free to choose.
It sounds as though you haven’t ridden one. Try riding one. The asking price may be irrelevant at that point. One way or the other.
Thank You BalsaBill. Your comment was a very well thought out answer. It is interesdting to observe the state of the Surf industry and even more interesting to see surfers comments regarding the state of the industry in the sport they are so pasionate of. The end of the story is, it is a free market and it is our choice to buy or not. This fact will not change.
I think surftech offers the average surfer the best bang for their board buying buck. I don't know where you are seeing them for $1,200. My ST 10' Robert August was $950 brand new. Short boards are around $600 to $700 here.
g’day Lee, you are alluding to what a lot of the conflict on this thread is about. So I would like to examine that. Personally I find the concept of a man-made piece of polymer and glass having soul to be rather quaint. I am not here to disrupt your religeous beliefs, but it is a subject I am interested in. So far I’ve read a translation of the Koran, the bible old and new testament, the Baghavad Gita (core Hindu scriptures) and started to read some Buddhist literature before turning my attention elsewhere.
So please tell me why you believe a surfboard made in your country (Israel) would have “soul” whereas one made in Thailand does not?
is the soul housed in the wooden stringer that once grew from a living object?
There are two ways advertising can work. One is to move more units, the other is to support a higher price.
Surftech did more advertising than any surfboard company in history. It's about creating demand, which tilts Balsa Bill's ''equlibrium'' theory toward more $$s.
There is no definition of "the soul of surfing" in the Bible or the Koran or Hindu scriptures ...............................
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Why are Surftech boards so expensive?
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to crate the illusion that they actually worth somt'
:)
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Bingo - Logo maximisation