Ke Nalu board showcase up and running

[stoneaxe]

Well....sorta running...Bill you need to change your provider....slow and a little flaky today! Looks good though...especially the board photo grid...

http://www.kenalu.com/showcase-index/

[Byronmaui]

Just looked and it looks pretty good. On the comments part are you going to list the testers abilities such as beginner, expert, etc and possibly their ages? It might help people get a better understanding of where a comment comes from. Just a thought.

Aloha

Byron

[linter]

love it.  great first ish.  looks like lots of hard work -- and like it paid off.  keep it up!~

[gjbstandup]

That was a great review of the many SUP's available in today's matket. I do agree that more info is needed about the testers; Their Stand up ability, weight, years experience the water conditions at time of test.  Set up more guidelines and controls, I guess...I know every one has their own ability and way of gathering info subject to interpitation.  This will always be a challenge. ( Jusy like food at a taste testing)..
    This first review is the new standard to be measured by and I know it will help others to aide them for their next SUP purchase and/or next review. Way to set the bar...I learned alot reading each boards review.  Thanks for the infomation. I learn something new everyday..   Mahalo 

[stoneaxe]

Not sure if Bill will post more about the individual evaluators or not. He's already missing time on the water for this... , I do know that the boards were assigned according to size, weight and ability...ie: I was in the heavy balance challanged beginner category.. so I tested mostly larger more stable boards. On the other end of the spectrum Slater Trout was assigned smaller surfier boards but I think he actually tried every board on the beach at least once. The kid is a machine. Maybe a good compromise would be to list the average evaluator assignment? He has a little of that in the weight range and skill level but I think that is actually the manufacturers rating. Bill?

Hehe...he probably won't be online much this week....he has some buds out and they'll be on or in the water most of the time and as old as he is he needs his sleep.... . I couldn't resist that dig but the truth is he's hard to keep up with...over the course of 3 days (including the showcase, we paddled about 22 hours...he moaned and groaned 1st thing in the morning but was always game to hit the water. We averaged about 5-6 hrs a day for the two weeks I was out there. My shoulders are still sore.

[StandUpPaddleSurf.net]

Looks really good so far.  It's almost like a whole new media source instantly.

[river]

SO Bill are you gonna do any paddle reviews?

[surfpainter]

Right...paddle reviews, board transport reviews, fin reviews, surf spot reviews....no sleepin'...plenty of time for sleep when we die..jus kidding..( seriously though ) I would like to help with this event next year. I'll be in my 4th year of SUP.

[Paduan Sam]

I can see this being a great source for the beginners out there that hit up this site.  Everything looked really good and the information was great.  Wish I was there to have fun in the waves and an excuse to try out all the different boards!!!!

[paddledaddy]

I want to publicly thank PonoBill for Ke Nalu, the paddleboard showcase, and the Ponohouse Blog. When I first came to the web looking for information about SUP, there was very little available, but his sites helped me tremendously. I bet there are others with the same experience.

By the way the same goes for the creator(s) of the standupzone. I am embarased to admit I don't know who to thank for this site. How about a little shameless self promotion here.

[motopilot]

First off, great job to everyone who did this.  This looks like a lot of hard work and time to get this done.  A lot of great inforamtion out there.  This will be especially helpful for newer people into the sport with all the information all in one spot.  Very nice job!

[stoneaxe]

River...I know Bill will be posting paddle info sometime soon. It was a little more difficult to evaluate since a given paddle length will work for only a limited number of folks so the evaluation will be even more subjective than the boards. I know I had some favorites, particularly the Werner (which I assume you're happy to hear) and the Malama and a couple I found serious issues with but that's just me. As Bill says your mileage WILL vary. I've mentioned before that I think paddles are even more personal than boards so its tough to do an objective evaluation except for maybe perceived quality of construction and even that is difficult without destructive testing. I know that I have a tough time giving advice about them. The paddles I liked I didn't hear any bad comments about...but the paddle I absolutely hated had a few folks (much more experienced than I) that really liked it.

I'm not sure we'll see much of Bill online this week. As I mentioned he has a couple of good buds visiting this week and I'm sure they are keeping plenty busy on the water and otherwise. I can attest that a LOT of effort went into the showcase and getting Ke Nalu launched and I only had a very small part in it. I know Bill was needing a break even before I left and he still had a lot of work to do. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work and done at considerable expense to him and Diane. BTW...kudos to Diane as well. They are both responsible for this...Bill's just a lot more visible.

Paddledaddy....As for the zone...you can thank Randy and Chan for giving us such a great community to share the positive stoke. Great people!

[HaleiwaBill]

Congratulations and job well done Bill!

That many SUB reviews is a massive effort and IMHO the results are excellent. ANY type of review will always be subjective depending the riders height, weight, ability and personal preference and style. However, you can tell by reading each review what a NUMBER of surfers felt about each board. Giving the reader an overall impression rather than a single riders viewpoint.

This showcase will be invaluable to the many people who are thirsty for this info to help guide their own board buying decision. Again, congrats and mahalo for the hard work guys!

[PonoBill]

It has been a hectic week, lots of technical challenges with my totally useless hosting company (GoDaddy) and a very slow internet connection here at Ponohouse. Of course murphy's law--everything went bad at the worst time.

As Bob mentioned--I had friends AND family here this week, and the surf's been pretty darned good.

Here's what I have planned for the showcase--the next round of edits to the showcase will add action shots of the boards (I have some decent shots of nearly every board being surfed) and as much information as I can manage about the testers. As Bob said, we used weight and skill criteria to assign the boards, but in the open choice part of the evaluation that went out the window. I'll add all that stuff over the next week

We have a lot of photo galleries and a few videos to put up. We have 1500 raw shots higraded, categorized, cropped and ready, another thousand or so we haven't had a chance to look at yet.

The paddle evaluation deserves it's own lead article, so we're saving it for the next issue. We had a lot of paddles to test. As Bob said, we found paddles are hugely influenced by taste, skill, body type, use, and which side of your mouth you store your tongue in. at one end of the spectrum are people who LOVE the huge Laird Peahi shovel from Quickblade (which I can hardly use) at the other end is Evan, who cut down his paddle to a hand's width and Sol Morey who built his own adjustable paddle using an old windsurf mast and a paddle blade the size of a pancake spatula (which he calls his "big" blade, anyone who's seen Sol surf knows he's worth paying attention to). Not only will we include all the commercial stuff, but I'm digging up all the weird and highly personalized homebrew stuff as well. (Evan--I need a shot of your paddle blade)

We also have a few more articles to add to Ke Nalu. Should be more or less ready for prime time today.  We should have all this technical challenge behind us and be able to have the second issue come live without this slow staggering to it's feet that this issue suffered from. the coolest part of an online publication is that you can go back and fix stuff. This first issue will be pretty good right about the time it gets pushed out by the next issue.

enjoy.