Sounds like a great day had by all, Photos please

that looks like a great spot and some great waves. just too hung over and a bad back to make it to the coast today . but anti inflams red wine and a new board make it seem possible . is that swell going to continue ?

Phil ,Point Roadknight , hows the tide ?

OG SUP said...

Firstpoint,

Kristiana, Session and I and Petemc's son Kayne had a once in a life time session at secret spot 16 today.

We are all still frothing like grommets.

We all got our asses handed to us a few times, Kristi got smashed twice just getting out of the shorey but wooooooooo hooooooooo man did we have some crankin waves.

No one could believe Kristi went out it was seriously pumpin. She well and truely held her own.

At one point paddling back out I was faced with a 2 x OH+ wave and had to drill a hole through the wave 1m from the top to save my ass.

Just to make life interesting it was blowing 25 - 30kts offshore as well lol.

Petemc got some pics so we might get to see one or two.

Oh ah and PSH boards make awesome submarines when you cant get the nose up on the late late late dumb ass take off PMSL.

Rich told me I had 3/4 plus of the board submerged vertically and was still paddling with my toe nails digging into the edge of the tail glass. I just said man I never give up ha ha ha ha.

Phill.

pretty flat here phil,knee high grovels but no wettie needed,boardies and a vest,annie had a lunchtime surf in a bikini yesterday

Hey Firstpoint,

Kristi also surfed in her bikini, but it wa under a 1m roxy hot top Pink of course and the second layer was an O'Neil 4.3 lol.

So pretty much the same a reckon
laughs.

I woke up this morning to a balmy 6 deg, the boards are loaded and we are off again to search for nervana after I chisel the ice of the wind screen.

Phill.

firstpoint said...

Bnaccas said...

A EPS blank for a 12ft SUP is actually about 4 x cheaper than a surfboard urethane blank. A EPS surfboard blank is about 20% cheaper than an EPS SUP blank here in OZ due to size. In china or Thailand I'm sure all above would be again cheaper.

It's definately not the extra materials that make up the cost. Freight however would make some small difference. A container costing X amount, then divided by the number of boards you can fit in it. You could fit 3 to 4 x as many shortboard surfboards in a container.

If "No name brand" gets the right shape for me at a good weight I would ride it.

edit...My dealings with Bevan at Oxbow were amazing when I had a problem and I would hope all the brands would be similar. Obviously PSH service is great but I haven't owned one YET

i believe Chinese labour is less than $6 a day,so glassing ,sanding,and twopak painting for gloss finish cosy f888all,shapes are off machines and a computer program,a 40 foot container to aus is about $5000 plus gst and import duty and dock charges so a sup should pull up at less than $800 landed about 4 times the landed cost of a 5.9 fish from the same factory.yeah we are paying too much but everyone has to make a living and PSH prices will be governed by the importer/distributor.

Those figures are very close to the mark (slightly under) for a regular SUP board landed in Aus. add in the distributor cut-you'll find wholesale plus GST is in the $1250-1400 range for most brands in Aust-a little more for Naish/Starboard-closer to $1500 full wholesale inc GST.

So, there's not a lot of meat for the Aussie supply side-wholesale and retail.

As a long time surfer who has only had custom boards for the past 30 years, I have been particularly resistant to the Surftech popout line-ranting vehemently against it in defence of a home grown local shaper industry-however, the reality is that for the huge majority of the surfing population a 'popout' is more than adequate and, like say the snowboard industry (there's a reason Burton bought Channel Islands Surfbaords), leads to standardisation and certainty in performance-allowing us to demo a certain board before we fork out the bucks-knowing that when we do fork them out we're getting the same product as the demo-same thing applies to the 'popout' surfboard industry.

I knew when I demoed a 903 Ripper that if I was to fork out the big bucks for a new one, it would ride just the same. Having said that, there's nothing in the current PSH range for me and, unless Blane's new models provide it, I'm likely off to Dale Chapman for an 806 or 808 very similar to Casso's new one-I know what want in a SUP now and the majors with their popouts don't currently have it-so custom I go, supporting the local Aussie industry.

At the end of the day it's all about maximising our enjoyment.

B Chambers said...


We run on a shoestring compared to them. We will never be all over the place like those companies and frankly, we don't want to be. It's just not our thing. We're a small company even though it appears we are big. People think we are a lot bigger than we really are. We're still small and that's fine for us.

Small? In a Time Magazine
www.seabreeze.com.au/News/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/SUP-gets-a-mention-in-Time-Magazine_2670854.aspx article they quoted you as saying "we're shipping 1000 boards a month" .. at ~ $1000 each .. that's a $million / month .. might be different in Hawaii, but here in Australia, the tax department wouldn't classify you as a "small business"!

When Paddle Surf Hawaii started in July 2006, Chambers would sell two or three boards out of his garage each month. Today, after his business grew 900% between 2007 and 2008, the boards are shipped by the container load. Chambers sells about 1,000 per month, including more than 150 a month out of his central Oahu shop.

firstpoint said...
.....so a sup should pull up at less than $800 landed

You can take about 20% off that depending on the finish.

B Chambers said...

"At the end of the day it's all about maximising our enjoyment."

Exactly. I remember a few years ago, long before anyone in AUS was doing stand up I had a conversation with someone on what I thought would happen down there as far this industry etc.
a few years ago,how long have you been shaping blane
I told that person the Aussies will pick this up real quick. The surfing skill levels and shapers abilities are there to make performance boards come out awesome and in rapid fire. I was right. You guys got so many good shapers down there and when guys like DC and the others can build a custom to your liking, that's a good thing. Remember the Luke Egan Vid? He was ripping! Where does he get his boards? If I didn't shape and I was a local in his area, that's where I'd buy my board.

I have plenty sick boards a lot of you would freak over but the chances of them getting to AUS are pretty slim to none. Our line in the future will have some of those models that will suit the below 9' market but won't be out in production for awhile... I'm just stoked anyone down there is stoked on my stuff.. That's really cool... I'm honored!

I'm not here to take anything away from anyone. People want our stuff and that's fine but not everyone has to ride our stuff, or Naish's stuff, or Starboards stuff, or C4's stuff, or Jimmy Lewis's stuff. I'd love to see a Aussie shaper bust it out and go global with success. You guys shread down there and the whole world knows it. Time for one of the Aussie shapers to kick the industry right in the nuts and make it happen. I'll be stoked for him!

Here's a possible future 'scenario'..

SUP as a sport evolves rapidly. That means its highly innovative and risky. On the pop-outs front, it means smaller runs for higher prices (higher fixed cost component, amortised over a smaller run).

As the sport matures we begin to see some accepted shapes/sizes emerge, and bigger demand at those accepted design points. This leads to larger runs at less risk. Price competition on the accepted shapes/size increases markedly (and the performance difference to a reverse engineered Chinese copy becomes smaller).

At this stage of the game, the accepted and trusted 'names' take the opportunity to get bigger, so as to maintain 'minimum efficient scale' of production and their share/control of the distribution chain. To do that, and also to expand the market size beyond just the early adopters, they give the buyers back some of the 'consumer surplus'. Prices fall.

downwind said...

Here's a possible future 'scenario'..

SUP as a sport evolves rapidly. That means its highly innovative and risky. On the pop-outs front, it means smaller runs for higher prices (higher fixed cost component, amortised over a smaller run).

Do you mean same fixed costs spread over a smaller run?
Thats how I would see it.

Yeah, seems like we're big but the guy in the Time article wrote it like we do 1000 boards 12 months a year. Not what I told him. In our busy times we do that or more globally. Some months a lot less. It is very up and down. The rough part is when it's down we are sitting on lots of inventory because we buy for the up times to try and keep up. LOTS of $$$ OUT sitting making you sweat! Then things get busy and we sell out and wait for more inventory which means nothing to sell which brings in no income...

PSH's cut on boards outside of Hawaii is WAY smaller than some of you guys think. I kinda laughed when I read what someone wrote about how much PSH's cut was and thought, "I WISH I made that!"

I started PSH with around 12K and that's all I had. It's been an uphill climb all the way. The biggest misconception is that PSH and especially me make a lot of money. If I made full retail profit on every board sold then yeah, I'd be banking some serious $$$$! I'd already be retired and surf everyday, ALL DAY. The truth is, it is a very expensive business to run in Hawaii. Bills stack up quick. I can assure you that our monthly overhead is well over what a lot of peoples yearly salaries are.

We've had our share of scary financial times even with the crazy growth. We do not have deep pockets like some of the other companies. From the time we opened we were always struggling to keep up until lately where we are now actually growing without holding our asses every single second. But I'm very careful because growing can kill you too. I'll take safe and alive over go for broke and be broke. Been there in my life and I don't want to go back...

We don't spend a lot of $$$ advertising because we don't have it. I spend what we do have on inventory and developing new products etc. Inventory eats up huge $$$$ and a lot of it has to be fronted. Not all is what it seems in this industry. We are not the only ones that have to be careful how we go about things. It is impossible to grow without forking out lots and lots of $$$. It can get pretty freaking SCARY to be honest about it.

I do feel we have turned a corner from being nervous all the time to being strong. What I mean by strong is a happy team of people who like each other and will help wherever needed. People I can count on as stoked as I am to make things work. A welcome change from the first year when I was alone doing this. We have enough sales to grow safely and our position in the market for a long term future is looking good. Heck, I'm writing this in an AUS forum! I can't express how awesome that is. I really respect the AUS surfers and shapers. If you guys saw where I was about 10 years ago... Whew, what a change...

Yeah... It can get crazy... Still, I wouldn't trade this job for any other I've had. I'm just hoping the really tough parts are behind us. If not, we'll just keep trying harder...

"I remember a few years ago, long before anyone in AUS was doing stand up"

I'll re-phrase this to before it became popular in AUS. I'm not sure how long people have been doing stand up there. When I had that conversation no one that I heard was doing it yet. Anyone know when and who was the first to get into it down there?

My point to the person was the shapers in AUS will have no problem picking this up quickly and building good boards. I still believe AUS will be a small market for us. We'll be available there but a true leader will emerge and will be an Australian shaper or shapers. Who will it be? Whoever can design good boards and be good at business.

www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=4524.0

Check the above thread for some of the EPIC new shapes coming out of PSH!

I saw Jeff Sweeney having a crack at Bells and a few other places on a large Mal with a double bladed paddle, that was a out 4 years ago I'd say, but it was well before SUP's were available here or even heard of really; and he was using the biggest board he had.
Wes Greene was the first I saw actually doing it on a 11' NSP Surfing and paddling out and around and catching waves(still not a SUP) and the paddle was one a friend had made out of a snapped windsurfing mast, then graduated to a proper paddle. That was a good year to 18 months before SUP's were reasdily avaiable here.................