fragile

i ride R/F by choice, am heavy, surf hard, surf heavy waves, get pitched daily on ledges, dont take care of boards...no problems...ever...i make it a point of approaching others and asking how they are getting on with their boards...never heard a problem....

Hey folks,
so I wanted to chime in here on a couple point before things get completely crazy on this thread. First off, international shipping logistics are incredibly incredibly more technical than it would seem when you sit and look at the deck of a container ship. How can that be? I'll explain. Freight forwarding companies breakdown their storage area into zones that are, defined in part, by temperature. Therefore, when choosing a carrier, the manufacturer has to determine the tolerable transit condition for their product and then ship their product in an appropriate location on the boat. Obviously this is of paramount important when considering heat sensitive electronics such as cameras and computer.

In our case, we elect have our containers stored below deck where the temperatures remains well below 100 degrees. We also do quality control our containers with thermal stickers in order to ensure that our boards never get exposed to heat and that they are getting the care we pay for.

with all that said, the likelihood of an entire container being exposed to catastrophic temperatures is highly unlikely. Furthermore, you can bet every dollar you have that if containers containing hundreds of boards went bad, we would have much greater rate of failure. most commonly, the delams that are seen on the forum are the result of water getting in the board at some point.

Hopefully this helps clarify things a little bit for folks.

Cheers

Thanks Chris, pretty clear!!

I have had around 10 firewire boards over the last few years and not had any major issues, I find the FST is more durable and thats what I prefer as a material. I had an old old ( about 5 years old ) flexfire which had delaminated on the deck. The fact of the mater is the board are really nice to surf and you can chose exactly the right board for yourself and once you kill it you can buy exactly the some one if you wish.

true that!

Most n here including the FW crew recognise the RF isnt as tough as the FST....fact. However i still think the RF is stronger than a PU board and it is definately lighter and from looking at the price of some machine shaped board from a top shapers file...Channel Island and even local shaper prices...etc. then i still think they are a reasonable purchase. The cost of these board is now getting on par with top shaper pu's so they will always be an attractive buy.

However i must be honest and after owning 1xRF and 4xFST's i personally would alwyas go for the FST and it has to be one of the most durable constructions i have ever come across. I know we hear some horror stories of snapped sticks but % wise i reckon the number of failures is exceptionally low. All shapers out there make bad boards now and then due to issues with foam, resin quality and set, temperature, humidity....etc.

Be interesting to get more feedback from the pro's on how may board they go through in a season and how hat has differed to when riding PU's. If Taj has a magic board how long has he been able to keep one going for and still use them compared to pu's...etc. All the pro team seem to ride FST's as well so id also suggest you pay a little $ more for FST even though the RF do look beautiful.

I'm sure Taj had boards in Hawaii that he surfed on the Gold Coast with. Seems like he surfs his favourites all year. He said when he was riding for Webber he'd usually break 1 a week.

This one was taken during the Quiksilver Pro NY last year. Taj's trainer with his boards... Wether he's riding that rapid-fire or not I don't know
Attachment 301

I reckon it was an emergency board incase the waves were micro

Am agreeing with rockhopper here about durability as ive had a RF elfuego for over a year now been surfed apprx couple times a week and am seeing only slight indentation in front foot area and minor dimpling on the bottom whereas with pu i wouldve seen substantial caving in of footpad and front foot area and duck diviing finger dents and these are not lightly glassed boards(actually almost miss that bedded in feel of pu! but certainly dont miss the longevitý, I'd be lucky to get a hundred bucks for a one year old pu)
Also have an FST that is a few months old now and is as good as new. Obviously not everyone has the same positive experience with firewire surfboards when you go through the posts but how many other board manufacturers open themselves up to scrutiny with a forum like this?

I'll second rockhoppper on sponsored pro's feedback,too