Macro's thread has been at the top of the charts for while now and on its fourth page, and its not the first time he's achieved such popularity. Is there some sort of Sea Breeze award for that.
New windsurfing equipment reminds me of cars, the stuff looses half its value as soon as you use it..
Summary Of my understanding of previous 4 pages
Expensive ........ Something china built ......something......honeycomb.............somethingsomething............crazy dude........something......something. Whinge moan something something Cyber bullies - something something
Of course, the NASA version will be light, and super strong, but with a budget to match.
Blimey 5 pages! think its gone off track some...
Think what Macro started off saying us that $2500+ is pretty steep for a new board....tend to agree, but what he also is missing is how most retail business works in the world, there are layers of distribution, each having their own costs/margins/taxs that get passed on... if you work it backwards a board ex factory probably is only $500 or less...still I would think $1500 for mass produced and $2k custom is about right, unless factory's start retailing direct.
*Side note, BEST kites did exactly that when they launched years ago, smashed the market, 2 kites for the price of one deals!, even 3!...but once they got their foot in the door, they went back to tradtional distribution systems and prices to match...issue is no one really wants to deal with the end customer!...thats what stores are for!
Rather than OEM, as previously stated your better off getting 100+ people that all want the same board/model, work with a dealer to do a pre pay deposit bulk order, then you will get your price break, !
Everytime I walk into a Wind/Kite/Sup shop i cant fathom how they make a living, so many models choices...stock holdings, cash flow nighmare.
Here is my recent example of why we need stores/retailers...
I needed a new boom, so today I went in checked their 'special price' boom didnt like it, didn't like what else that was on offer, then spotted the boom of my dreams in the corner on its lonesome....just crying out for me, decent fair price, deal done.
Then for more service, they are happily shipping a 2nd Hand sail I sold on SB for me my customer in NSW, and will do for the next sail also....so then when cashed up I will get a new sail from them!
The 2nd Hand wave board I have just purchased from SB is also getting shipped via a shop in VIC, I'm sure those funds will get directed back in to the store, 2 x happy bargain hunters = 2 new store product sales.
The SUP i purchased this year, I did so after test riding several models FOC from local store.
The Kite I purchased last year was the same, several demo's/sizes before I was happy, then purchased from the store that I demo'd from.
I couldnt have done any of the above without my local store/s.
Personally , I cant wait to see the 'Macrosciencewindsurfer deluxe edition V3' sometime soon...he may be on to something with at least one of those fancy high tech thingy fibre gel pva air inplate super laminate cyber cell concepts....I bet 1$ one day there will be a different way to build boards,
let me know when its here,.....
Yeah most boards were made out of plastic in the 80s and some of the 90s. Either blow moulded polyethelene (I think) or rotomoulded. I miss those boards as they were so tough.
When I got back into windsurfing in 2007 it was so surprising to find out almost all boards were made in one Thai factory owned by Cobra. I remembered Cobra as one brand amongst many in the early 80s. They had their epoxy boards. Somehow they've worked out a way to out compete all the windsurf board factories in Europe, America and Australia. No more Mistrals or F2s made in Germany.
As I mentioned before it would be great if there was a modern equivalent of the Bomboras from the early to mid 90s. Modern fast shapes built to take into account their weight and flex. Tough boards that don't crack if you drop them. Also selling for about half the cost of lighter boards.
On the other hand if you take into account inflation and the rising costs of living, $2500 or so for a top of the line board works out quite well to the equivalent boards of 15 or 25 years ago. So the real cost of boards has gone down over time.
This thread started with an obvious complete lack of knowledge in board construction and is now at a point where we are being "educated" on how it could be done better. Macro, if you want a blown plastic board go ****ing buy a second hand on from the 80s ( you'll pick on up for about $2 on eBay) waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than the $ 500 your talking about.
I saw a Bombora 260??? (Long skinny one) last weekend and i know why we don,t still use them and build them that way. THEY WERE CRAP!. This one had 1000mm worth of neg tail rocker which would change as you steped on it. The nose rocker did the same. But!!! it was still bullet proof CRAP.
I like a board that is well designed and built and the shapper deserves to MAKE a living. The quickest way to kill any industry is to choose stuff on price alone, have a look, Macro at what goes into making your board and the time to do it.
Come on down and I,ll teach you how to shape, then have a look at how much you collect for your job.
Better still just buy a well built second hand board
This page has gone on for long enough
The Bombora 260 is crap. I have one under the house and it's unsailable due to being bent out of shape. However the 270 which was released about a year later was better built. I sold mine in 2008 and it still was in good condition.
So not all Bomboras are crap.
BIC Techno E-Large was plastic foam. Had one and it was bomb-proof, but heavy! Didn't go half bad either.
I do think that we have moved on from this though.
Macro, the idea is bizarre and shows a basic lack of understanding of the forces and physics involved.
So you are simply going to get some "pepsi bottle plastic" and fill it with "super strong but cheap foam", are you?
For a start, those simple plastics are neither light or rigid. Secondly, do you really think that there is "super strong but cheap" foam around that you could find but that the current industry is too stupid to use?
If you showed some respect, you would actually have checked the cost and materials characteristics of foam and found that there is no such miracle product. THAT is why the industry don't use it, not because they are too stupid to think of looking and just needed the great Macro to tell them they should look!
Furthermore, if knew anything about the production of such boards you would know that high-pressure moulding of large objects requires extremely expensive moulds and complicated machinery - equipment that cannot be easily paid for if boards are to be sold cheaply. Getting plastic and foam to easily flow from end to end in a board mould is not a trivial problem, as you would know if you did some homework.
The most basic physics - if you knew it - would indicate that the stiffness of the foam is not the major thing in creating fast boards because most of the foam is too close to the neutral axis. The skin rigidity is what it critical, and pepsi bottles are not rigid. That is why old-style boards are so floppy.
Your attitude towards shapers and materials scientists is extremely arrogant. Your comment about an inflatable board doesn't just show that you completely fail to understand the issues, it also shows that you don't look at things around you. Go and feel the tyre of a racing bicycle - even at 150 psi pressure and in an object with as little volume as a tyre, the skin is so soft that you can easily flex it with your hand. A 150 PSI tyre is much softer than even the softest old board. And yet you want this to be rigid enough to perform AND to somehow handle the stresses, strains and point loadings!
It's one thing to have no idea, it is much worse to be so arrogant as to assume that you know more than all the current people involved in the game.
On a more positive note....
Have we really "moved on" from the heavy but tough plastic boards? Compared to other more popular consumer/sporting goods, aren't modern windsurfers quite light and pretty fragile for their size?
As a comparison, the vast majority of sailing dinghies, kayaks and bicycles are built from fibreglass, polyethylene and similar plastics, or alloy. Those sports are much more popular than windsurfing and have either declined much less or grown much more, so there's no evidence that windsurfing is doing it better.
New materials are being made all the time,
A team of scientists from California has created the lightest material in the world, which consists of 99.99 per cent air and is only a hundredth of the weight of styrofoam. The scientists poured a liquid mixture of several materials, including polymers and ceramics, into a microlattice and exposed it to ultraviolet light to harden it.
Macro, FFS.
What is a soft drink bottle made from?
Last time I looked it was HDPE, not polycarbonate.
Secondly, you can look at carbon nanotubes all you like but I don't think a new product like that, used in a totally new way, moulding with LDPE or HDPE or bloody melted candles for that matter, is so NEW that will not achieve your $500 board.
For a 10mil investment you MAY make a superior board with a faster process and cheaper materials but then you need to sell a load of boards to pay off that investment. Windsurfing is small, so in reality if your carbon nanotube infused moulded polycarbonate thing works you'd be better off moulding aircraft parts or bikes.
And whilst I typed this I see you are back to getting non-windsurfing materials people to design it. It has been done, Nomex and aluminium honeycombs have been around for ages. It is superior, but it costs too much, the process of laminating it into a sandwich structure is different and more labour intensive. Currently we have a perfect blend of lightness vs strength with relatively easy manufacture as PVC foams are easy to vacuum onto a styro core.
If you want a 4kg board with 10x the strength you go for it. It will be a $10K board.
Short version:
You can make a $500 board and it will be sh!t
You can make a much better board and it will cost too much.
Analogy: There is a reason we have an established method of construction and it is the same reason your house is not made of paper, and neither is it made from gold, platinum or carbon nanotubes.
