Theres a good article on the Facebook IWT page or on the IWT page itself about Naish team developments.

It's an interview with Bernd Rosigner.

Question 7 is interesting...........Specially the bit about how the do the photo shoot and put away all the boards, then use their custom board all season. I thought Naish was better than that and the team was instructed to use production boards.

Seems a shame that Naish has gone so corporate and has gone away from individuality, not using local shapers etc.

Hope he now does OK with his new sponsors, which I think might be hot sails Maui.

Link is here: internationalwindsurfingtour.com

After that rant any company would be crazy to sponsor him

If you have any interest by what's written above , you are obligated to read the Q7 answer, on the link.
he was just dropped by NAISH for 2021.

at some point he will likely regret what he's said. It's no revelation that companies have custom boards for Team Riders. In the video and his Facebook page he is riding Hot Sails Maui, which is a HAWAII based company as well.
probably more to the events that we see.

Sounds like a bitter response from someone too young to really understand how business and marketing works. It can hurt being fired from your employer but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and not comment on it in public.

No matter how crap a brand is if you look hard enough you can generally find aspects worth promoting. After all you are an extension of their marketing department. It's your job to promote the brand in line with the vision of the brand. For some brands this is competition results, for other it's lifestyle. Either way you have to make a choice between "do I want to be sponsored because I want to get paid for what I do" or "I want to ride the boards / sails that I believe are the best in the market".

Most likely the most desired brands won't offer huge sponsorship contracts unless you are in the top 3 and/ or are a marketing machine. At the moment I can only see a very small number of windsurfers playing marketing aspect relatively well .... Ben Profit and Nico Prien come to mind.

Team riders have been using custom boards painted up as production since the year dot. How else are manufacturers supposed to do any decent development. Calling people out for it is like handing out speeding tickets at the bathurst 1000.

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Cluffy said..
Team riders have been using custom boards painted up as production since the year dot. How else are manufacturers supposed to do any decent development. Calling people out for it is like handing out speeding tickets at the bathurst 1000.

This is true but Naish had a thing about the team using production models rather than customs whether in competition or not.

I guess that comes down to contractual obligations. It's a bit like Hamilton insisting to drive a Ferrari with a Mercedes paint job.

Forgive the slight deviation from the topic, but im interested to know. When they say custom, are they designing a board specifically around what a rider wants? Or are they giving them a little bit of leeway to say perhaps "i'd like a little more (or less) vee in mine please..."?


how much do they get to change? All the boards i've see PWA sailors on resemble what you buy at the shops (at least from a distance)

i take my hat off to him for speaking his mind and pushing back against commercialism and standing for what he believes in. he's not alone in his view and i;m sure he'll find like minded people.

that said.

most of the photos on the naish website of ricardo he's riding a thommen custom painted like a thommen custom.

Robby responded to the facebook post. fair to say he's not happy.

Robby is a really nice bloke, and very genuine.

I was pretty taken aback by what Bernd said but it is out there now and officially online.

I recon the IWT should have shown Robby the initial transcript and got a reply from him before putting it out for the world to see.

Riccardo's boards as we all know are customs but might see one as a production one day.

Think we should all take what Bernd said with a large pinch of salt. Most people would give their right arm to be in that position.

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Gestalt said..
i take my hat off to him for speaking his mind and pushing back against commercialism and standing for what he believes in. he's not alone in his view and i;m sure he'll find like minded people.

As the saying goes: Don't bite the hand that feeds.

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stehsegler said..

Gestalt said..
i take my hat off to him for speaking his mind and pushing back against commercialism and standing for what he believes in. he's not alone in his view and i;m sure he'll find like minded people.

As the saying goes: Don't bite the hand that feeds.

pretty sure the hand had stopped feeding him. reading some of his other comments it seems he got to where his dreams were and decided he didn't like the smell of the flowers.

fair enough.

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Madge said..
I was pretty taken aback by what Bernd said but it is out there now and officially online.

Just because its online, doesn't mean it's true

Ancient Hawaiian proverb... "Never Bernd Bridge".

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John340 said..

Madge said..
I was pretty taken aback by what Bernd said but it is out there now and officially online.

Just because its online, doesn't mean it's true

Dude it's a published interview . Its true he said what he said

Sour grapes because Ricardo joined Naish?

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westozwind said..
Sour grapes because Ricardo joined Naish?

I very much think thats true, and think that as he's a hard worker and very much promotes stuff online himself and works on the development side very hard too, its put a few noses out of place. He's a very good asset and Robby has done well to get him signed up.

It would be nice to see him using some production gear too and showing what can be done on the boards that us common folk use.

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Madge said..

westozwind said..
Sour grapes because Ricardo joined Naish?

I very much think thats true, and think that as he's a hard worker and very much promotes stuff online himself and works on the development side very hard too, its put a few noses out of place. He's a very good asset and Robby has done well to get him signed up.

It would be nice to see him using some production gear too and showing what can be done on the boards that us common folk use.

there are 2 vids on the naish site of ricardo. one he is on a naish board and the other his thommen custom.

he just doesn't look comfortable on the naish. boards bouncing on bottom turns. On the thommen he is ripping.
i mention this because it really stands out and made me think naish will need to come out with a new board to suit him.

Its a bit of a shame it came to this. Roediger was always one to watch at the Aloha Classic. But thats where it ended for me. Campello on the other hand, I watched lot of the PWA. Guess thats why Naish signed him and possibly it was the reason why Roediger was dropped. Thats business.

Lets face it, the IWT is a good competition as they go to a lot of places. But they dont have the number and quality of sailors as they dont pay the same level of wages. Its a few professionals and a large number of amateurs doing 1 event for their holidays. Top 9 only did the quota of 4 events.
internationalwindsurfingtour.com/rankings-2019/

Why did the IWT publish that interview? Are they a news site? Did they take the hump about a PWA sailor coming in and taking out one of their regulars? Why didn't they get Naish's side of the story in the same interview?

Good luck to Campello and Naish. If I did more wave sailing and was after a new board their Global would be on the shortlist and he was pimping that board. I see now they have just 1 waveboard on their 2020 site. Fewer boards, fewer sailors required.

Also good luck to Roediger, he is talent and I hope he has learnt from the experience and finds something in keeping with his dreams.

I dont think anyone these days thinks the boards (generally speaking, I dont know about Naish) they all ride in wave competitions are all production boards. A few boards are, and they shout about it from the roof tops. The eagle eyed amongst us (not me) can spot a twin fin setup painted up as a quad in their sponsored brands colours.

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stehsegler said..
I can only see a very small number of windsurfers playing marketing aspect relatively well .... Ben Profit and Nico Prien come to mind.

from a small youtube channel .. with 20K subscribers and small market .. good at videos but not really profitable.

To be honest the biggest sin is to use the name of Harold Iggy in the way that Roediger did. Harold Iggy remains a legend of surfboard and windsurf board shaping going back to the 1950s/60s and his passing a few years back was like the loss of a family member to the Naish clan. I can imagine Robby would be deeply hurt by that. The 'corporate America' line is just absurd. Every shaper's business small or large is likely in corporate form these days anyway. I would be surprised if Naish is as big as say Pryde/JP and others.

So what brand custom boards has Bernd Rosigner been using?

Rich entitled kid who left his mega gravy train sponsors to start his own company at the height of his success, disses rich entitled kid doing the same thing lol

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forceten said..

John340 said..

Madge said..
I was pretty taken aback by what Bernd said but it is out there now and officially online.

Just because its online, doesn't mean it's true

Dude it's a published interview . Its true he said what he said

But is what he said true?

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R1DER said..
So what brand custom boards has Bernd Rosigner been using?

I don't know, but I would offer, that without 100% sufficient information , it would be a Maui based company.
Quatro at the top, Goya, perhaps a Mark Nelson design, or any number of lessor known shapers.

I don't really see the relevance to which company or who shaped it. FWIW , the boards of those I have seen in person that are painted to look like regular production boards have been signed by the actual shaper.Two that came from the same cobra based company. It wasn't Naish.

the boards would be very light weight , and probably too radical for the real world sailor, would be made specifically for that break. It follows this , What wins on Sunday sells on Monday.
I have purchased sails that are the same, actually more common , that are not production units, some wee ok , some only suited for a professional.

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John340 said..

forceten said..

John340 said..

Madge said..
I was pretty taken aback by what Bernd said but it is out there now and officially online.

Just because its online, doesn't mean it's true

Dude it's a published interview . Its true he said what he said

But is what he said true?

Is what part in question ?
Companies use custom boards painted to look like a production unit.
fact.
Iam not aware if NAISH has a promotional policy to say they use only production boards.

I know that Simmer do customs for their riders. But they do them in house and if you really wanted they would sell you one.

That's a big difference from riding another shapers board then insisting it's your sponsors factory board.

Who else can R@D boards besides the sponsored PR sailors?
Certainly not the shaper/designers, who USED to sail well but are not near the leading edge.

this board seems to work well...

www.instagram.com/p/CAdpvA_D70y/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet