Something very interesting - firstly boards and more have sold mistral to some textile billionaire who has put his daughter in the at the coal face - mind you what a face www.mistral.com/de/news/

And they have teamed up with anders bringdal to develop a whole new range of slalom and speed boards - about 7 or so if my count is right. www.mistral.com/de/news/bringdal/

Curious if nik baker and mark nelson are staying and what will happen to the equippe III due for release this year? Personally I like nelson's designs - easy to sail. They are also moving production to vietnam - away from cobra. So many changes at once, hopefully it5 works out and we don't see this iconic brand suffer.

Anyone with further info?

Might be a good thing

Now before Baldrick weighs in and abuses me the following is not brand bashing:

Mistral have had a bit of trouble selling to wave sailors as traditionally they were a bit plasticy and weak... think Bic waveboards.......the picture people often get before they see it is it must be a bit euro and not that strong......so the move to another manufacturing facility may help if they can tie that in with a hardcore image.
I think I saw one or two Mistral wave boards last season, compared to a hundred Starboards, a hundred JP's, a hundred RRD's etc.

A new CEO and new designer and new manufacturing facility does mean it will be hard for them, but it does mean the owner/s probably won't mind throwing a heap of cash at it... so we may see some really good things from Mistral soon

I think it is a good thing that a major brand is moving to a new manufacturing facility. Competition for cobra can mean only good things - not sure if the new partnership with AB will improve their wave board image?

The best news in the current economic environment that a corporation with plenty of cash is backing Mistral. Never owned a Mistral board myself but they have been around for such a long time it would have been sad to see the brand die.

anders is a hot wavesailor!

i think if Stef Van Merksteijn delivers every board in person they will be the biggest board company in the world again. smoking hot......



think i'll get my new Mistral waveboard deliver on a very hot day so she can show me the new style of Mistral Bikini [}:)]

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greenleader said...

anders is a hot wavesailor!

I wasn't implying that AB was not a good wavesailor - it just seems that he is bringing in a new series of slalom and speed designs.

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Mark _australia said...

Mistral have had a bit of trouble selling to wave sailors as traditionally they were a bit plasticy and weak... think Bic waveboards.......the picture people often get before they see it is it must be a bit euro and not that strong......so the move to another manufacturing facility may help if they can tie that in with a hardcore image.
I think I saw one or two Mistral wave boards last season, compared to a hundred Starboards, a hundred JP's, a hundred RRD's etc.

Mark, this may be the opinion of someone who sails in WA but I can't agree with you on this one. Mistral have been doing semi decent wave boards for a number of years that were popular in the UK/Europe, including pro-boards with twinzers (back when they first came out) and good all round wave boards*. I think the issue with them was that they were never that good performance wise, so they became a "free-ride" company and now they're slowly re-establishing themselves as a more "performance" based board company. There was a good interview with Baker a while back who explained this.

*Meaning they're easy to sail but were more B&J than pure wave.

And I forgot to say - what about the AB board brand?

I wonder if the "new" factory in Vietnam is the same one the Kinetics were/are made, if so and they're made to the same standard they'll be fine. Not made by Cobra can't be a bad thing

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Crash Landing said...

Mark _australia said...

Mistral have had a bit of trouble selling to wave sailors as traditionally they were a bit plasticy and weak... think Bic waveboards.......the picture people often get before they see it is it must be a bit euro and not that strong......so the move to another manufacturing facility may help if they can tie that in with a hardcore image.
I think I saw one or two Mistral wave boards last season, compared to a hundred Starboards, a hundred JP's, a hundred RRD's etc.

Mark, this may be the opinion of someone who sails in WA but I can't agree with you on this one. Mistral have been doing semi decent wave boards for a number of years that were popular in the UK/Europe, including pro-boards with twinzers (back when they first came out) and good all round wave boards*. I think the issue with them was that they were never that good performance wise, so they became a "free-ride" company and now they're slowly re-establishing themselves as a more "performance" based board company. There was a good interview with Baker a while back who explained this.

*Meaning they're easy to sail but were more B&J than pure wave.

That's what I mean... they may be good, but many people do not perceive them to be.
So radical changes to marketing, design, ownership etc may see them retain theri freerise and race share of the market but still boost up their wave board share

Sorry mark - thought you were saying that they were plasticy and weak. As for Bic's - I always fancied trying the original Tribal board, can't remember who it was shaped by (Teboul?) but the write ups were always good.