For two decades it was Seabreeze and the StandupZone.com.

--> Takes you to some other random site 'for sale' www.standupzone.com

The "Zone" is dead. End of an era. Did Facebook groups kill the Zone or had it just run its course?

The best thing about the forums vs. Facebook groups are (were) the persistent personalities, you knew who to trust, and the searchable PERSISTENT thread topics.

i left the StandupZone years ago exactly because of those 'persistent personalities', so for me, that was the worst thing about that forum. if you had an opinion in opposition to those personalities, you were crucified. don't find that to be true here.

I agree it is a shame. There was some good information in seachable form there.

Eg. Beasho's detailed plans for a sup racks for a bicycle and waist leashes.

I should have made a copy!

There was some rubbish noise there ... as here too ... easy to ignore.

It was slowly dying for some time now. I enjoyed the sharing of information especially on the board building. I got inspired to make my own and haven't bought a new board since. The threads got more and more diverse as new sports came into the picture. I also think the health of the founder may have come into play. I will miss Bill Boyums' "Smokin Maliko Thread" and Pono's constant know it all imput. Both were good people if you ever met them.

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BetterIwas said..
I should have made a copy!

The web archive has some:web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/standupzone.com

You can see that the forum closed on May 23rd, without any announcement I can find.

PS: I was banned from StandupZone, once the admin determined I was a (unpaid) Gong ambassador, he wanted me to pay $600 / year to be able to post, and ended up banning me (and some others).

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SupMaui said..
It was slowly dying for some time now. I enjoyed the sharing of information especially on the board building. I got inspired to make my own and haven't bought a new board since. The threads got more and more diverse as new sports came into the picture. I also think the health of the founder may have come into play. I will miss Bill Boyums' "Smokin Maliko Thread" and Pono's constant know it all imput. Both were good people if you ever met them.

Are Pono and Bill Boyum still alive? You speak of them in past tense. I am a big fan of both. Love Boyums surf book.
I also had spent a lot of time on the zone. It was cutting edge when sup came out and the same when foiling started. I started riding Axis because all of Admin's frothy posts about each new wing that went on for years. I felt bad for those that never took up foiling and had there sup forum destroyed by it. And of course the Zone was my introduction to Beasho and all of his data driven Mavericks froth. You can't replace the days of being on the frontier of a new sport and interacting with other early adopters on the Zone. Now everyone is dispersed to seabreeze, progression and facebook. RIP SupZone! And Thanks.

You can find PonoBill on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/PonoBillBut he seems to only post about cars and bike nowadays.

Bill Boyum also www.facebook.com/bill.boyum.3
But no posts about of him on the water.

Sad to see it gone, so much wealth of information for SUP & Foil, now gone.
Beasho thank you for all of your posts on standupzone over the years.So many gold nuggets that helped me: (SUP porting straps, Oneil Impact vests, Body Glove PFDs, waist leashes, DIY hand tied leashes, gorilla glue foam, board size for wave height, tail handle, removing water from boards, hydration packs, shoes for XXL waves, SUPreme, PSH, L41, Clark, GoPro shaft mount, foilbox construction & placement, XPS board building & design, foiling waves. and last but not least "Climb Every Mountain.", . . . . . . .Guessing standupzone wasn't getting as many eyes as it used to, which didn't generate the ad revenue to cover operating costs.
I do think it was lame that people in the industry had to pay to be part of the forum. I know Robert at Blue Planet was a contributor. But then besides Colas, standupzone lost SUPtheCreek due to his affiliation with Sunova.
Long LIve Seabreeze...

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broVan said..

SupMaui said..
It was slowly dying for some time now. I enjoyed the sharing of information especially on the board building. I got inspired to make my own and haven't bought a new board since. The threads got more and more diverse as new sports came into the picture. I also think the health of the founder may have come into play. I will miss Bill Boyums' "Smokin Maliko Thread" and Pono's constant know it all imput. Both were good people if you ever met them.

Are Pono and Bill Boyum still alive? You speak of them in past tense. I am a big fan of both. Love Boyums surf book.
I also had spent a lot of time on the zone. It was cutting edge when sup came out and the same when foiling started. I started riding Axis because all of Admin's frothy posts about each new wing that went on for years. I felt bad for those that never took up foiling and had there sup forum destroyed by it. And of course the Zone was my introduction to Beasho and all of his data driven Mavericks froth. You can't replace the days of being on the frontier of a new sport and interacting with other early adopters on the Zone. Now everyone is dispersed to seabreeze, progression and facebook. RIP SupZone! And Thanks.

Yes.

Totally missed the closure. I Met PonoBill in 2012 at Maui and bought a paddle from him. Really nice guy. Givven his each back then I can imagine that he might be out of watersports by now? When I was still supping a lot I was reading there frequently but as mentioned earlier some caracters and the quite strong blak-white opinions made me visit it less and less. That said, I cant believe that operating costs are the reason to shut it down. an Php forum is relative cheap and if the funding was an issue i,m quite sure plenty of people would chip in a few bucks to keep it running.

I meet Bill at the 2024 AWSI at Hood River . We had a good chat he was dressed up in his motorcycle gear so he is still going hard.