FLOW

fisherrat · Post by **fisherrat** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:58 pm

GREAT MOVE TO SEE FOR ALL .THE MOVE IS CALLED FLOW, THE AL MERICK STORY. GREAT STORY OF A GREAT MAN. SURFING NEED MORE LIKE HIM.

PaulN · Post by **PaulN** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:17 pm

fisherrat wrote:GREAT MOVE TO SEE FOR ALL .THE MOVE IS CALLED FLOW, THE AL MERICK STORY. GREAT STORY OF A GREAT MAN. SURFING NEED MORE LIKE HIM.

Not to be a complete pain in the butt, but please explain to me why Al Merrick is a "GREAT MAN". Is it the rush offshore to make boards in Thailand with surftech or China under another label? Or maybe the 10 board min order which freezes out the small shop? Or the 700$ clear shortboard that was never touched by the man whose name is on the board? Or the promotion of surfing to any donkey with a credit card? Just wondering.

kneemor · Post by **kneemor** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:18 am

I agree the movie is great. To the guy with the bad comments about Merrick...your comments are unfounded.

Have you ever surfed a Merrick? They are magic. Never had a bad one. I have boards that are signed by him so i dont know where you are getting this info.

If the info you has some basis can you say for a fact that August, Hynson, and others are'nt doing the same thing.

Beeline2.0 · Post by **Beeline2.0** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:25 am

PaulN · Post by **PaulN** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:39 am

kneemor wrote:I agree the movie is great. To the guy with the bad comments about Merrick...your comments are unfounded.

Have you ever surfed a Merrick? They are magic. Never had a bad one. I have boards that are signed by him so i dont know where you are getting this info.

If the info you has some basis can you say for a fact that August, Hynson, and others are'nt doing the same thing.

Yes I have surfed a Merrick and it was ok, I like the machine pop outs made by ...Lost better. Unless you are a pro surfer the boards that you have were cut by a machine and finished sanded by someone in the Merrick factory, never touched by the man himself. August is doing the same thing, Hynson has many of his his boards made in Slovikia, same as the new Harbours. All of the big board makers get boards off a machine: Rusty, Lost, Merrick and 99.9% of the boards are never touched by the "shaper" whose name is on the masthead. My quarrel with Merrick is that he was the first to rush offshore with his production with Surftech and that due to the volume he does is changing the industry for the worse in my opinion. Your comments are what I cant stand about Merrick, people who buy his boards dont even know how they were made or dont care.

Finally, did you know if you buy a resin tinted, top of the line Merrick MSF or Fish- you know the boards that are like 1000$ here? If you buy it in europe it was made in China, not Santa Barbara. I dont see Merrick promoting that fact either.

gumby · Post by **gumby** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 8:09 pm

A problem I do not worry about. In fact has Al shaped a KB? Any one out there got one and do's it work? If a machine can make waves and boards why would it need you? CASH!!!!!!!!!

KAVA · Post by **KAVA** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:00 pm

even if i was a standup shortboarder i wouldnt buy an A.M. board because i would (like 90% of my standup surfer friends do) want a custom board made just for me. I would also want a reasonablely priced board. I'm not cheap! im just not rich either lol!

JackG · Post by **JackG** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 1:26 pm

My quarrel with Merrick is that he was the first to rush offshore with his production with Surftech and that due to the volume he does is changing the industry for the worse in my opinion.

Wow. You should try the software industry. You'd not like that either.

You have no control over how other people spend their $$$, or how other people make their $$$. If you have a problem with the value that other people put on someone elses product, then perhaps you should take it up with the people who spend the $$$, not the people receiving the $$$. If no one valued the product, then no one would pay for it. Obviously many people disagree with you about the value of the product.

PaulN · Post by **PaulN** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:11 pm

JackG wrote:
My quarrel with Merrick is that he was the first to rush offshore with his production with Surftech and that due to the volume he does is changing the industry for the worse in my opinion.
Wow. You should try the software industry. You'd not like that either.

You have no control over how other people spend their $$$, or how other people make their $$$. If you have a problem with the value that other people put on someone elses product, then perhaps you should take it up with the people who spend the $$$, not the people receiving the $$$. If no one valued the product, then no one would pay for it. Obviously many people disagree with you about the value of the product.

I never said anything about his boards or the "value of the product". People love them, good for them. If you want to waste your money on a "name" board that the shaper never touched - good for you. My quarrel was with the above posters characterization of Merrick as "a good man"- I still don’t see how. Plus like other posters have said what does this glorified advertisement for a surfboard company have to do with kneeboarding?

kneemor · Post by **kneemor** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:58 pm

Paul you are way off base. I shape my own boards and surf local shapers boards so your rhetoric is not appreciated.

I am a Stand up (short and Longboard),kneeboarder, bodyboarder, and body surfer and do all quite well. I do care about who shapes my boards and I have had merrick boards since the early nineties. Did you know that or are you making random assumptions?

Have you seen the movie? What shaper has been able to assemble such a great team and religous following before the machines came out. If you have demand like that how else would he be able to produce the boards. I surf his shapes because they work for me...the shape is what matters not who or what shaped it .

Now if Flashppoints and Blasts were suddenly produced with a machine would you stop buying them? If you did you would be quite foolish!!!!!!

quadfin · Post by **quadfin** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:43 am

kneemor wrote:

Now if Flashppoints and Blasts were suddenly produced with a machine would you stop buying them? If you did you would be quite foolish!!!!!!

Yes and No. I would go back to directing standup shapers on my "progressive" polyester designs and would probably have a "Blast Tech" or "Flash Tech" epoxy in my quiver. This is what most standups are doing with their quivers.

The geopolitical issue of making surfboards overseas is another issue.

Beeline2.0 · Post by **Beeline2.0** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 9:01 am

PaulN · Post by **PaulN** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:05 am

kneemor wrote:.the shape is what matters not who or what shaped it .

There lies the crux of the argument. I disagree 100%.

You are not getting it. I dont care that he uses a machine to shape boards. Hell-correct me if I am wrong but Brue Hart uses a machine too. The machine is not the issue. The issue is Merrick building surftechs in Thailand, starting a new label of low priced boards that are going to be shaped in China, and making his high end boards for the Euro market in China also, then putting a "designed in California" lam on them.

If this is what you want to see, board production shifed overseas, then keep buying Merricks. A least he will keep getting richer while small shapers get run out of business.

Beeline2.0 · Post by **Beeline2.0** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 10:36 am

kneemor · Post by **kneemor** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:51 pm

we are in agreement then. I too do not like how we are offshoring our products.

Until costs come down or demand isnt so high we wills ee this dort of thing for a while.

Kneeboard Surfing USA Community Forum

FLOW

FLOW

Re: FLOW

flow

Re: flow

Paul N

Re: Paul N

Re: Paul N

Re: FLOW

agreed