With all the hype about low supply of carbon for coming season, and the indication of a price rise to compensate (now there’s a unfamiliar sales pitch)on any item that takes some level of carbon for manufacture of masts, booms and such, makes me wanna just throw up.
What? they think we never heard of "forward selling of commodities, at a set price"
This type of marketing price conditioning increase scenario just pisses me off

Ill get of my horse now, feel better now I have added my sook.

So where do all the major boards come from? Would hazard guess that maybe just one or two major manufactures?
Does anybody know?

And yep no squashed air to play in

yep agree mk

i think Neil pryde is like that....

it is there recreational masts that are made in italy, i think?..

there are lots of opinions about gear and quality etc.

i was talking to a local yatch sail maker that does everyones repairs. he said to me that sailworks in his opinion where totally overdesigned. stiching and seems etc. I can only see that as a good thing myself.
he also said that the average 6m sail had about $150 worth of materials in them. that doesn't include construction labour/transport costs or race tuning like carbon battens, cambers, GST or design.... so $500-600 for your average sail seems ok.

quote:

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he estimated it cost $500 for materials and labour for a 5-6m sail. Fittings were all very expensive battens, tensioners and pulleys.

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This prob true building 1 off.

But there is a huge difference between buying 1 off or 1000 off which is prob what the big sail companies are buying.

I agree $500-600 would be acceptable we just have to convince the sail companies LOL.

I saw a snippet in Windsurf or was it Boards that said we can expect a 20% increase in the cost of sails due to oil price increase and an increase in the price of most things across the board.

As for sources of stuff - With masts that come from the same factory its really hard to know what stuff is just rebadged and what stuff is designed to different specs. You really have to measure the buggers.
EG Triana make masts for a bunch of brands. Most have the same specs (rebadged) but Loft for example have a different spec. The Loft skinny that I measured is one of the few that are true constant curve.

Boards - this season cobra will find it very hard to get the hi mod 500 carbon that is used in most carbon and carbon/kevla boards and as I understand all brands are changing their layups to absorb the price increases. this may lead to some board brands new layups failing and also some fabrics that look black are actually not Carbon. Beware I've heard some stories here about dodgy carbon/kevla fabrics that have little or no carbon which gives them no compression strength. Ask your dealer specifically if there have been any changes made to the construction for 2007 of your favourite brand.

Masts - Most Brands use more than one factory ie low carbon masts from Excell in finland, Skinny;s from Triana and others form Mclean. I thinks masts will be a real problem this year. Because company's will change there specs to try to reduce cost.

Sails - They are all pretty good and although the components and labour is only 500$ you hvae to pay for marketing, shipping and team riders etc. The margin from Factory cost to end consumer is about 1/2 what your average pair of boardies or wetsuit is. Plus the shops and distributors are absorbing used equipment at hi tradeins and cost of servicing warranties.

It's a tough business, ask your local shop if he is getting rich from windsurfing!