I'm considering the new Maliko so have been keeping an eye on the ISA Champs to see how team Naish is doing. Well its not hard to see why Starboard has such a massive following!! both the male and female 200m sprint gold medalists were riding Naish boards yet i couldnt find a mention of it anywhere??, not even the Naish Australia Facebook page made any mention of it??. Meanwhile Starboard have released several videos and updates showing their team riders riding their 2018 boards during the event. Am i looking in the wrong places or are Naish simply behind with their marketing???

DavidJohn said..
I think it's HUGE that both the men and women's sprint races were won on Naish Maliko's beating the more flat water specific other brand boards.. and not a bump in sight..

Yeah i was very impressed with the result too DJ, just thought Naish would have made a bit more of a deal about it on social media. Results like these help to sell boards, they wont sell many if no one knows about it!!

Aloha all,

sorry for the the lack of comma on this awesome result. USA have a holiday today and I am traveling on the road driving for the last two days. Thank you though for your post. It is very clear that the new 2018 Naish Maliko means business and is pulling results in every race so far. Stay tuned for some massive marketing from Naish and Naish Aus to come.

P.s. Please excuse any auto correct or spelling, I hate using my phone for web/internet stuff.

Ride safe,

JB

Well, I am not worried about the lack of marketing. It is actually a good thing in my mind and let the product speak for himself. I am a lot more interested in the testing by fellow non-pro paddlers (which so far looks very positive) and good results are just the cherry on the top.
The show stopper is more the lack of availability/distributor in Canada and the price. That said Naish might be in the enviable position of having their whole production sold as delivered and never have to carry stock :-) albeit in smaller quantities that they could achieve.

Carvers said..
I am more interested if they get their quality done right. We have three Javelins 2017 14 x 24 here with problems of the bottom.

Amen to that on a $4,500 board.
2018 is supposedly improved. I can't directly comment as my last Naish boards were the old 2011 carbon - superb quality - and the 2013 wood/fibreglass or something like that. Heavy as Hell but sturdy.

On face value it seems Naish have managed to perfect the "sprinting" board which allows a (strong) paddler to lift and accelerate the board up on the plane and keep it there for some considerable time. This also translates into a great downwind board as it allows it to to catch bumps and stay on bumps longer. It is clearly not as great in displacement mode where Starboard seems to have a clear edge winning every longer major flatwater race i recent history.

I was told that the design was a result of the desire to design a board which would make it to the first buoy ahead of the pack as being in the front pack is the only way to be in contention - it clearly worked. But if the race stretches over more than 30-45minutes then the extra drag in displacement mode will make it very tough to stay with the very top guys on good displacement boards such as the Starboards. Results from all of this years major races seem to confirm this observation.