2015 Starboard Airborn 8'8 x 31"5

Hi guys,

wont this actually be a bit of internal competition for the widepoints?

it looks more "extreme" then the widepoints. For me, who my go-to board needs lots of stability, this outline looks cool.

I was getting all excited until I noticed it only had 111 lts of volume in it

Looks good to me.

There will be one available for Demo in the Starboard demo trailer from about the end of September contact your nearest Starboard dealer to arrange a demo day ????

$2850 US = $3059 Aus.

Plus tax and another 30 for a leash.

Plug and Play.

The 8'0" x 29" at 110 litres is a new pro model. The 7'7" x 27" and the 8'0" x 28" are all new shapes.

Any of you lads know the specs on the new Pocket Rocket? Radio silence here in US!

That's why we buy GONG

It's hard enough to get a Gong board in Europe. They are the quirkiest outfit to deal with you could imagine, in my experience. I've had three Gong boards and still have one. They are a really innovative outfit and Patrice is a fantastically skilled SUPer. But I don't think I can face dealing with them any more. Maybe they've changed recently: they have had production problems in the past. I can't see Gong and the US being a good fit in terms of shared cultural expectations.

cbigsup, Gong has a hard time producing enough for the French market, so they are not actively seeking distributors abroad.

Area10, yes, this was in 2010 and before, where Gong was using a factory in tunisia that was run by its hostile competitors. Basically, H20 (the group owning Gong) went bankrupt in 2008, and Patrice bought Gong then. But the deal left a lot of bad feelings and resentments, and the factory played a lot of dirty tricks to Gong, such as not even telling Patrice when the container were shipped or even what was the contents. So Patrice had to discover that a container existed when it arrived at port... Add to this banks not lending money anymore to small businesses after the crisis, some rough edges to Patrice personality (he didn't gain his nickname of "The Bear" for nothing :-), some paranoia due to the latent guerilla with his ex-associates, that made him not disclose these problems to customers, and so before 2010, delays to get a board were unpredictable, even to Patrice himself. I myself waited more than a year for a board model that ended up being cancelled.

To get an idea of the problem, Decathlon, the major French sport brand decided to get their boards made in this Tunisia factory, I even got incredible hate messages from Gong competitors in the tone of "Ah Ah we will now swamp the French market with thousands of Decathlon boards next month, Gong is dead!"... and guess what happened... Decathlon boards got delayed by one full year while the plant guys were bragging to me they were shipping next month.

But since 2011, Gong switched production to China, and being there quite often, he is able to manage the production properly as he has a lot more control, and 3 employees to help him (he was alone before). And he has now "opened up" a lot, and discloses freely the production schedules, what boards are planned in which container, delays, etc... on the Gong forum. See www.gong-galaxy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2567 And dates of shipment are now in the shop...

So yes, there was a lot of production delays issues before 2011, but it is over now. Production problems can still happen but at least they are dealt with openly now.

Harrys. I will have a demo in about 5 weeks give me a call then and I will bring it down for you to take for a surf

Colas - thanks for that. I do feel sorry for Patrice, and there has to be a place in the market for such a fun and innovative company.

But those production issues...they didn't stop with Tunisia. Two friends of mine bought Gong surf SUPs when the new factory started to produce them. And the finboxes fell out of both of them. They had not been set in high density foam. But as you say, every brand has problems. It's how you deal with them that matters. And it is there, I think, where Patrice and his crew could learn a thing or two. Sometimes Gong have seemed to me to be almost deliberately trying to act up to the stereotype of the French that some foreigners have (and that understandably so frustrates the excellent French people I employ). But it sounds like Patrice has been on a steep learning curve the last few years and maybe now things are on a more even keel. He came over to my local beach a few years back and gave the most incredible demonstration of freestyle SUSing, pulling big moves on waves so small most people couldn't even turn. That's the measure of a good surfer IMO - we all feel like heroes when the surf is excellent, but if you can still look great when the surf is completely hopeless and everyone else is floundering, you know you have skills.