What does that even mean? If all of the surfers are happy, why does the industry need to innovate? Why is constant innovation always seen as a good thing?
And some people what to look like a surfer. I am a surfer who wants to look like a normal person.
Who buys a new board if they don't have to? Madness. I choose my equipment carefully, it has to match my style. Standing on some clever foam out in the middle of the ocean is tricky and very personal.
I wouldn't say it's part of the culture, it's just being normal. I don't upgrade my PC to stay on trend. I don't upgrade my surfboard to stay on trend. They are tools.
By saying it's "just being normal", you're signaling that sensible frugality is normal to you. It's possible that value has some correlation with your identity as a surfer, no?
Folks who have wooden keelboats are about as into working on the boat as they are into sailing the boat. They spend money, but it's not on flashy gear. It's on another five gallons of bottom paint and another box of sandpaper because that varnish has to be redone again. Marketing and brand doesn't really help you sell these or increase margins on them, because a bunch of ratty guys are on the dock comparing how long they had to go between repainting the bottom with that manufacturer versus this one.
Folks who have big glitzy boats as a status symbol spend money, but generally you're not selling to them. You're selling to a designer or to workmen. And all the life jackets are still the same orange ones off the shelf from West Marine or the like.
It's interesting you chose that specific boat given the dust-up between the trademark owner and the builders over the past year, and the recent controversy in the 2024 Olympic selection committee. I've only barely followed it, but at least some of the controversy seems to be about the lack of innovation in the class.
It all came to a head because someone made a complaint to the EU that the way that Olympic sailing equipment is supplied is anti-competitive. World Sailing chooses equipment for some of the events which has a single or limited number of suppliers because the rules for that class require trademarks owned by those suppliers to appear on the equipment (true for the Laser, RS-X Windsurfer, Nacra 17).
All Olympic classes are having to change their model to allow anyone to become a builder/supplier of that equipment. The Laser builder who holds the trademark in the EU, Americas and most of Asia didn't play ball so the class rules were changed to remove the requirement for the trademark that they hold to appear on the boats and sails. At the same time they were in breach of a contract that they have with the class association to do with factory inspections and other governance matters relating to the supply of equipment and they have now been kicked out.
Not exactly the free and easy relaxing image that you might associate with sailing!
Interesting fact: Although lasers all look like they're all the same, the manufacturing tolerances are such that they're definitely not when it comes to the top level of competition, and the top sailors have to expend large amounts of effort to avoid duff boats and other equipment.
Source: I'm someone who sails a Laser competitively and has skin in this game.
That's really interesting. How annoying. Is there some tribal knowledge about what manufacturers are solid and what are not?
It's been well known for the last 10 years that the Australian manufacturer builds notionally "better" boats (stay stiff for longer, less likely to leak or crack etc), but there are still variances in key measurements which you need to look out for. The biggest ones are hull weight and mast rake (how upright the mast is in the boat fore and aft which has a critical effect on how the rig is tuned and the performance characteristics of the boat).
Boats come off the production line with fittings in slightly different places, different amounts of material in the layup, key parts of the hull not quite aligned the same etc.
There's significant variance between masts as well. The sections are extruded aluminium and over the lifetime of the extrusion die they go from having slightly thinner walls to slightly thicker ones. Mast manufacturers seem to end up with slightly different grades of aluminium as well. This affects the stiffness, a very important factor when it comes to how powerful the rig is with lighter sailors preferring thinner masts and heavier sailors thicker masts.
Competitive sailors will try and measure everything they ever use to keep track of what they think works for them, and then select carefully when they purchase something new.
All this goes against the ethos and values of the class, which is that there's no equipment advantage possible and it's all about the sailor. This is dealt with at the Olympics (and at World Championships for the Olympic categories) by having mandatory supplied equipment which hopefully has been selected so that it's all as identical as possible. For all the competitions you need to succeed at in order to get to the Olympics however, it's the wild west!
Much of the attraction of the class is the lack of innovation. Innovation in racing sailboats tends to sacrifice other qualities like seakindliness, survivability, and versatility. Look at the Americas Cup boats for extreme examples. They're amazingly fast, but useless for anything but that one task. Having a boat that has persisted as a first choice for Olympic racing and taking your kids out for daysail means that it is happens to have been an incredibly good design, and allowing innovation in the class is more likely to end up with reducing that versatility, rather the way the American Kennel Club's focus on conformation has destroyed dog breeds.
I chuckled at this bit, because I grew up in a surf town and still live nearby. Every surfer I've every known has been an attention hog, and they will find a way let you know they surf within minutes of meeting you.
Surf apps suck, they're generally asking around $10 a month, and they do little more than provide prettified weather buoy data.
_Decent_ wetsuits are in the $300 - $500 range, new board $600 - $1000. I think it's pretty capitalist to let some kook buy it new and then snag it from them off craigslist for %30 - %50 of retail.
https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=SGX&issuedby=S...
This is actually completely true. I'm friends with a guy who owns a surf shop in one of the highest grossing areas for surfing equipment/clothing in southern california, his biggest gripe with the industry is that surfers spend no money. They won't pay for parking, won't pay for surf apps, won't buy a new board unless they have to, don't really buy the clothes, etc. It's part of the culture.
Edit:
To add to his perspective, it's not about getting wealthy from surfing. The guy has been surfing his whole life, is a lifelong lifeguard, surfs 20 foot waves.
He just wishes the industry could grow and innovate, but instead sees it stagnate. Sure the vibe and love for surfing is there, but I think he is frustrated that there is no wealth in the industry to foster further growth and investment.
But then again, the way I see it is surfing as a sport is extremely limited, you can only do it on coasts, and only some coasts are actually consistently good for it.