i left the StandupZone years ago exactly because of those 'persistent personalities', so for me, that was the worst thing about that forum. if you had an opinion in opposition to those personalities, you were crucified. don't find that to be true here.

It was slowly dying for some time now. I enjoyed the sharing of information especially on the board building. I got inspired to make my own and haven't bought a new board since. The threads got more and more diverse as new sports came into the picture. I also think the health of the founder may have come into play. I will miss Bill Boyums' "Smokin Maliko Thread" and Pono's constant know it all imput. Both were good people if you ever met them.

SupMaui said..
It was slowly dying for some time now. I enjoyed the sharing of information especially on the board building. I got inspired to make my own and haven't bought a new board since. The threads got more and more diverse as new sports came into the picture. I also think the health of the founder may have come into play. I will miss Bill Boyums' "Smokin Maliko Thread" and Pono's constant know it all imput. Both were good people if you ever met them.

Are Pono and Bill Boyum still alive? You speak of them in past tense. I am a big fan of both. Love Boyums surf book.
I also had spent a lot of time on the zone. It was cutting edge when sup came out and the same when foiling started. I started riding Axis because all of Admin's frothy posts about each new wing that went on for years. I felt bad for those that never took up foiling and had there sup forum destroyed by it. And of course the Zone was my introduction to Beasho and all of his data driven Mavericks froth. You can't replace the days of being on the frontier of a new sport and interacting with other early adopters on the Zone. Now everyone is dispersed to seabreeze, progression and facebook. RIP SupZone! And Thanks.

Sad to see it gone, so much wealth of information for SUP & Foil, now gone.
Beasho thank you for all of your posts on standupzone over the years.So many gold nuggets that helped me: (SUP porting straps, Oneil Impact vests, Body Glove PFDs, waist leashes, DIY hand tied leashes, gorilla glue foam, board size for wave height, tail handle, removing water from boards, hydration packs, shoes for XXL waves, SUPreme, PSH, L41, Clark, GoPro shaft mount, foilbox construction & placement, XPS board building & design, foiling waves. and last but not least "Climb Every Mountain.", . . . . . . .Guessing standupzone wasn't getting as many eyes as it used to, which didn't generate the ad revenue to cover operating costs.
I do think it was lame that people in the industry had to pay to be part of the forum. I know Robert at Blue Planet was a contributor. But then besides Colas, standupzone lost SUPtheCreek due to his affiliation with Sunova.
Long LIve Seabreeze...

Totally missed the closure. I Met PonoBill in 2012 at Maui and bought a paddle from him. Really nice guy. Givven his each back then I can imagine that he might be out of watersports by now? When I was still supping a lot I was reading there frequently but as mentioned earlier some caracters and the quite strong blak-white opinions made me visit it less and less. That said, I cant believe that operating costs are the reason to shut it down. an Php forum is relative cheap and if the funding was an issue i,m quite sure plenty of people would chip in a few bucks to keep it running.

I happened to go look for the zone for a bit of old info and found this post instead....🙃

Both Bill's are very much alive. Pono just had a knee replaced and is itching to get back to everything including wing foiling which is his most recent passion. He still goes back and forth between Hood River and Maui. He does spend more time in his shop inventing and building stuff. His shop is nothing short of incredible. If he isn't on the water or in the shop he's usually on his bike trying to break himself. He turns 80 in January.

Boyum is still getting out there, swimming, OC1, whatever. He can do it all. He's writing more stuff, he's sharing some screenplays with me that are incredible. I truly hope he finds a deal.

I left the zone before it closed. I was there from the start and was sad to see the change in how it ran even if I did understand some of the reasons. Randy and Chan, the owners of the zone are good people but the zone was always a business idea.

To most of us it felt like a place to hang and talk story for a long time, then it became a place to gorilla market, then it was monitized. The domain name is dead. The Wiredsports link is Randy and Chans primary business. Though I think he may have retired. He now has MS and time is precious but still charges hard in every way he can still can.

I think some of the change came when a single post about Ke Nalu paddles basically launched the brand. The potential effect the zone had for business became obvious. After that there was some shady stuff being done by manufacturers using fake names and pumping fake reviews but Randy could see their addresses.

I didn't care for the changes. Between that and health issues that had me paddling a lot less I just didn't feel like I had much more to share. A bit depressed too but that's another story.

It always felt strange to me being the No1 poster on there for many years. Especially considering I'd originally joined only to get info to build a paddle for Pono ( before he became Pono). I never thought I'd be able to do it. But then it changed my life and I had a lot of new stories to share. And it felt like just hanging with friends. Talking story, laughing sometimes arguing.

There is some good news regarding the zone. The Cape Cod Bay Challenge that was born on the zone when I asked if anyone wanted to help me organize a SUP event way back in 2007 will be celebrating our 20th anniversary next year. We've raised $1.5 million in support of families of kids with cancer that come to Boston from around the world for cancer treatment.

I may stick my nose in here to chat occasionally. I've accepted the fact that my abilities are shrinking fast instead of growing so not much in the way of new stories but even this little but of nostalgia was fun.