Standup Zone Forum
Stand Up Paddle => SUP General => Topic started by: supthecreek on May 13, 2018, 10:04:01 AM
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Sunova is a Standup Zone Sponsor and I am the designated poster for them.
Over the past few weeks, I have gotten to know the Sunova Race Team, at the companies World Wide Dealer Meeting at the factory in Thailand. Completely awesome to be a part of that!
It was great to see the racers families enjoying this trip.
Kelly Margetts from Austrailia and fiancée, Sarah Callaham with Kelly's 2 daughters.
Noic Garioud 16 year old phenom fro New Caldonia, and his father, Olivier
Lina Augaitis and Aiste, the cutest baby in the world, from Canada
Takuji Araki and his 12 year old son "Shrimpy" from Japan
Marcus Tardrew from Australia along with all the associated friends and supporters.
What a very cool group of people.... super fun to be around.
After the meeting, most of the race team plus Tino, took 4 two piece 14' raceboards and headed for Japan.
Stop #4 on the "Paddle League World Tour".... where they finished really well and the boards got a ton of interest.
Two piece boards have been around since the 60's, so nothing new there.... but these look like the real deal!
Sunova has teamed up with the proven system of "the Carbon Compact" from Nature Shapes, Sayville NY.
Ease of transport and results are impressive.
Up close, this system looks beautiful and substantial.
They will be at all major races..... have a look, and say hi to these awesome folks, who love SUP so much!
and, Yes..... you can get ANY Sunova as a 2 piece board :) (I have seen lots of them.... ride report soon)
Some pics of the team and the boards at Japan's "Kerama Blue Cup"
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Looks like everyone had a great time. Should be interesting to see if these two piece Sunova's take off with today's sup crowd.
BTW, thanks for posting all of the photos.
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Creek....what about a two piece "Creek"? Have you ridden one yet?
I am back from the flat water of Slovenia, and ready to try a two piece in Brazil, Samoa and Peru coming up.
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Cool, Rick. I'm sure glad you gave the Sunnova snowball a push from Mt. Cape Cod. Just think, in a 4mil wetsuit in unpredictable conditions, you likely beat out a 20yr old, 150lbs. phenom from 'pick of choice conditions', HI who was reportedly paid a lot money (past tense) by Robbie Naish as 'SUP Marketer of the Year' for the last couple of years - certainly in this venue.
My nose tells me, now the 'Everybody Must SUP' era is well past, those distribution channels bulked with product are not going to satisfy customers or investors. The days where superstars as the only available benchmark is over, now that anybody can ask people just-like-them in the UK, OZ, HI, etc.. "How do you like your board?" You happen to be a level of skill well above most, but you represent real people, not Circ du Solei performers. Cool. Press on.
About those 2pc boards... The scary part was thinking about those dugout rails, packed in cardboard, handed to some of the lowest paid people in aviation... Then the other thought came: check baggage regulations. it would be spectacular to be able to actually check a board to Panama, CR, etc. that you knew you would be comfortable on the second you got there instead of 'rental potluck' or having to take a micro-board. Looks like you packed/stacked two-together, but I would bet two small, padded bags would work better. ..until' one half went to Seattle instead of LA.
'Hear Mr. Whitey is wondering when you're coming back to the Cape?
Jim
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I guess the idea is not new but the execution seems to work this time.
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Regardless of the piece the Allwater prototype looks very nice with the new tail and the new open top at the ont. Hope this makes it to the production one piece model.
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Thanks for the report mr creek and looking forward to hear more stories.
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Bert brought a performance longboard 2 leave to test. He and James Casey are giving it a workout and they report it surfs just like a one peace. Looks like a game changer for traveling.
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crazy the tech came from Natures Shapes right in NY. I havent heard anything about it previously- though do know NS has one of the only CNC Blank machines in the NE.
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Saw this tech at boardroom show 2 years ago. It's really nice. Great to see Sunova pick this up. I never thought of how much this is needed for race boards. Genius
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Cool, Rick. I'm sure glad you gave the Sunnova snowball a push from Mt. Cape Cod. Just think, in a 4mil wetsuit in unpredictable conditions, you likely beat out a 20yr old, 150lbs. phenom from 'pick of choice conditions', HI who was reportedly paid a lot money (past tense) by Robbie Naish as 'SUP Marketer of the Year' for the last couple of years - certainly in this venue.
My nose tells me, now the 'Everybody Must SUP' era is well past, those distribution channels bulked with product are not going to satisfy customers or investors. The days where superstars as the only available benchmark is over, now that anybody can ask people just-like-them in the UK, OZ, HI, etc.. "How do you like your board?" You happen to be a level of skill well above most, but you represent real people, not Circ du Solei performers. Cool. Press on.
About those 2pc boards... The scary part was thinking about those dugout rails, packed in cardboard, handed to some of the lowest paid people in aviation... Then the other thought came: check baggage regulations. it would be spectacular to be able to actually check a board to Panama, CR, etc. that you knew you would be comfortable on the second you got there instead of 'rental potluck' or having to take a micro-board. Looks like you packed/stacked two-together, but I would bet two small, padded bags would work better. ..until' one half went to Seattle instead of LA.
'Hear Mr. Whitey is wondering when you're coming back to the Cape?
Jim
the raceboards in the pics were packed up direct from the demo/meeting.... so taped up on the run..... get to the airport at 4 AM mode.
The 2 piece Dugouts have traveled to many places already.... including to the Carolina Cup, OZ, Thailand, Japan and Hawaii with zero issues.
Yes: Travel board bag package will be available for regular Surf SUP 2 piece.... nice clean luggage style board bag for easy handling. ONE bag makes it a very strong, in a convenient size.
The buzz from the biggest dealers in OZ is super positive about Sunova... they love the product and company image.
The Dealer meeting was about all the different ways that Sunova is connecting around the world.... like featuring Sunova's on the Moon Tour in the Maldives..... a world class surf camp in an exotic location, has used Sunova surfboards exclusively since 2014...... anything but mainstream. The dealer meeting was very exciting.... I learned a ton of stuff that Tino and Bert are doing, and I was very impressed. These guys are very interesting and a ton of fun!
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The Tech is from Carbon Compact in NY, but Sunova converts the boards here in their own factory.
I have seen quite a few of them.
They took a bunch of 10'6 Kids raceboards to Japan, since they had a big kids event included in the World Tour venue.
Including kids at the same event as Elite paddlers is a great way to build a healthy SUP base.
Having their own local Sunova super kid, hang tough with the elite racers, has got to be huge for local paddle stoke.
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Creek....what about a two piece "Creek"? Have you ridden one yet?
I am back from the flat water of Slovenia, and ready to try a two piece in Brazil, Samoa and Peru coming up.
Sorry Davy....no 2 piece Creek around here to try..... in fact no Creeks at all, since the 8'10 went to the Maldives.
I have been riding a 9'0 Flash, 10'2 the ONE and 9'6 Style!
There is an 8'10 Speeed 2 piece, but I have been waiting to ride the Flash for a long time.
So humid that board switching is not happening...... 800 yard paddle in after a session = "give me a cold drink and a nap"
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Shrimpy's Dad just posted this picture..... this kids the real deal. So's his Dad :)
I love this direction for Stand up..... start em' young!
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Nature shape is a great local shop. I have 3 of there custom surf boards. Awesome work!!!
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Cool report Creek - such a great team. Taku and Shrimpy are old friends from ULI Boards. Always enjoy catching up with them when they come to the US. Taku had a top 25 finish in M2O on an ULI 14' a couple years ago winning his division and beating some big names and Shrimpy (Shuri) and his sister Honu are regular podium finishers in the PPG. Also Kelly Margetts was a lifeguard in NJ for a couple summers as part of an exchange program I started on the 80's (along with a guy named Travis). Also good to see Lina back in the game and that Noic just killed is in the last race.
Anyway, glad you're having fun with Sunova and keep up the good work.
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Hi Capo!
Really stoked to run into you at the Expo....great talk!
Thanks for your connections to these folks..... pretty cool how the paddle world is so close :)
Maybe I'll see you in SoCal at some point...