Board Prices

[keycocker]

Here in Maui you have Richard Greene, Peter Thommen, Mark Nelson, Sailboards Maui, along with Quatro and a couple of others..My new custom is a Peter Thommen, but so is my older F2 Style as well as my JP Aus Wave 250 and my Maui Project. He shaped Dunkerbeck gear since the beginning. Many of you out there are already sailing on Greene and Nelsons as well with your factory boards.
If your custom is white it is a good bit cheaper. The production boards at Cobra are built by hand in nearly the same exact way as a custom has been for a long time, but are almost always heavier. This is quite evident with guys who have both a factory production line and a custom line like Thommen and Quatro. The added layup weight gives them a margin of error since Cobra and chinese makers crank them out by the hundreds so quality control is more difficult. The customs we built in Belize cost about $300 plus in material, by the way, and a US built custom usually costs about $1500 to $1900.The labor is so great that these guys barely make a living so they design production gear to pay rent.
Note that the total cost of a board is the price you pay minus the price you sell it for at the end. Experience suggests that a custom isn't worth as much as brand name board in the resale market.

[hitech]

If you are considering a new custom board, you have to have Mark Nelson in the mix.

Check out his new website-- www.nelsomfactory.com

Mark has been shaping boards for many years on Maui for some of the top names in the PWA and he shapes most of Mistal's Wave, Freeride and Race boards. With Mark, you tell him what you want and he will build a board that delivers. Our current quiver is all Nelson with two bump boards and two race boards and I would not trade any of them for another custom or any production board. His new website (above) will show you his new shaping machine that turns out high quality boards everytime. With the new machine the reproducibility of designs are guaranteed and wait times for new customs are now pretty short.

[swchandler]

Thanks hitech for posting the NelsonFactory site. It's a very well done and quite thorough in presenting their strengths and capabilities. While I didn't delve into all the details in my relatively quite survey through the site, I did bookmark it for later.

[isobars]

A bud has his primary sticks made by one of the world's foremost shapers ... at a rather drastic cost ... for two reasons: he crushes through the decks of off-the-shelf boards in a few sessions and he demands that literally every millimeter of planform, thickness, and rail shape and every layer of cloth and resin meet his specifications. He flew to the shaper's home turf and went over everything in extreme detail to be sure he would get exactly what he wanted. He didn't. This "shaper for the stars" actually used his own judgment in some shaping details, so my bud has had to compromise his very exacting sailing style.

An east coast friend had a well-known Gorge shaper copy a Mistral he loved, and was very disappointed with the departures the shaper made. He couldn't do much about it from 2,000 miles away.

Another leading Gorge shaper began offering wider B&J boards ... promptly returned or dumped by his very-long-term devotees. And guys whose new boards from this shaper fell completely apart their first week in Baja were devastated.

I had yet another popular and widely known Gorge builder of custom and off-the-shelf boards under his own name copy my favorite nuke shape, under contract with and from the templates of the original shaper. I told this very experienced shaper/builder to build it bombproof, not light. The builder failed in three attempts to build a product that didn't fall completely apart within 3-4 days on the water. I sold the patched-up, still-new board to a lightweight who just wanted to try out a little sinker for $75 with the caveat that it needed another rebuild within days.

Screw custom, IMO, unless you live near the shaper, are willing to rely primarily on your back-up production board, have valid special needs, want a conversation piece, and/or are willing to risk a shape or product you don't like and can't sell easily. There must be exceptions, but these four shapers are widely acclaimed, some world-famous, so I've got to presume no custom shop is anywhere near perfect.

OTOH, I have had only one delam and two fin box failures in the 30 or so off-the-shelf boards I've owned, all replaced or repaired free within days. And if I just don't like a production board I've bought, I can usually get all or most of my money out of it if I didn't pay list price.

I've also got to ask this: How many non-pros are so damned good they can't find a production board better than they ever will be? The bigger quest, IMO, is finding a board or three that provides what they want -- pure speed, cushy ride, purple, mast track forward, early planing, ultralight or loop-proof, for 40 kts or 12 kts ... whatever. Once you find it, buy one or six, depending on whether your preferences are still evolving and whether it costs $2,000 or $100.

Mike \m/

[swchandler]

I think that there might be a misunderstanding about custom builders. Any designer/builder out there is really worth recognition and stature for what they do best. In my mind, going to a custom builder to make something that someone else did, is pursuing the wrong path. I know that many custom builders can make some allowances to suit specific customers, it does need to be done in context within the designer/builder's best suit.

Now, what Nelson's factory seems to be offering to other designers and companies is the ability to be a facilitating engineering focused subcontractor with a creative, but sound manufacturing capability that's arguably a leader. As an engine for development and engineering, Nelson's focus is rightly placed. So interestingly, Nelson elected to build his business onshore in Maui, and is placed to take advantage of the prime windsurfing leading edge.

[insh8bl]

Personally, I have had the polar opposite experience with custom boards from that of Isobars. The Roberts custom slalom boards I used back in the mid 90’s were light, wicked fast, tuff as nails, and a bitch to jibe. Nothings perfect.

I think my recent tirade about custom vs. production boards stems from the two boards of mine which broke a couple of months after the one year warranty was up. Not that I can’t find a production board that I like. Hell I love, don’t tell my girlfriend, the 2008 RRD Hardcore Wave 70L I demoed in Maui. It’s board nirvana. I think perhaps a good analogy would be if you bought two new cars, drove them a month past the warranty, then there dead, unrepairable, toast. Kinda’ chafes you in all the wrong places.

It’s not the money. I paid an absurd amount of money for my full carbon fiber road bike, which has a lifetime warranty. And some stuff wears out, in your rig or on the bike, as you would expect, and needs to be replaced. Like a universal, I just get a new one each spring, but a new board or two every year?

At my local sailing venue I have seen contemporary boards, those built within the last two years break from production manufactures JP (4-5), Quatro (2), Fanatic (5), Starboard (1), Naish (1), AHD (1), Mistral (1) and RRD (3). No one appears Immune. That’s my reasoning for the custom route, a little extra weight for three or four years, I hope, worth of use seems like a fair trade.

[isobars]

[insh8bl]

Well Iso your faith is misplaced; you had a fifty-fifty chance and your 0 for 1. The previously mentioned Roberts custom boards were exactly that, full customs built specifically for me.

In retrospect, there may be a few reasons why my custom board experience was unique.
1.) My boards had two wood stringers.
2.) ALL layers were carbon, no glass and no mat.
3.) Two layers of ¼ “ divinycell, as opposed to 1/8th.
4.) They were rarely if ever jumped, cuz’ that’s what a B&J board is for.
5.) After tweaking your kit in the spring they were used only for races.

[gregorvass]

[MalibuGuru]

More like 100 yards out at sea and down wind which proves my point. PS, I past you on the way up wind on my exocet despite my +40lbs. Hard to be way downwind on a light wind day and end up upwind, without the help of a wave and the other sailor being under powered because he just jibed in front of the wave. The wind was so light that day that no one was shoulder hopping... More like shlog hopping.

I think we need instant replay like the NFL!

PSS. I have 5 Richard Greene boards. They are great.