Splinter Boardworks throws down…
Where have we been?!
Yeah it's been a little while away from the media. We've been busy: paddling, building, training, sanding, racing, guiding, dadding, sanding, coaching, surfing, farming, writing a blog post, oh and there was some sanding.
It has been quite a glorious summer over here in Port Townsend, albeit a little weird in that pandemic-y kind of way. Now the rain and leaves are falling (and downwinding season is upon us!), it is a good time to look in the rearview and share an update on what’s been happening at Splinter SUP.
SUP SKILLS
With our main mission to share the stoke of being on the water and to get more people out confidently living la vida aquatica, we spent many beautiful hours with clients in lessons and tours. Seeing folks progress and embrace the wellness gained by standing on water and exploring their home from a new perspective is such a great joy. I look forward to expanding our outreach this coming year with some key partnerships with local organizations. Some very exciting things are in the works!
RACING
Many of our design goals have been born and achieved in the wake of putting ourselves and our equipment to the limits, from the adrenaline-shot of start-line madness to endorphin-laden finishes, with lots of gruel in between. While we’re not exactly trying to create the fastest race-worthy SUPs, it’s a welcome co-product of our efforts to improve hydrodynamic efficiency and conditions-capability. This year we had some strong finishes in regional adventure races, from Salmon Bay Paddle’s Deception Pass Spring Race (2nd-SUP) and Bremerton 2-Bridges Tidal Race (3rd-SUP) to Northwest Maritime Center’s SEVENTY48 (3rd-SUP).
BOARDWORKS
Last but far from least, we’ve been on an odyssey to bring the 2.0 design of our 16’ touring board to life, in amongst the demands of family, day jobs, etc., putting hundreds of gorgeous development hours into tooling, materials research, process experimentation/refining, scaling preparation, and general awesomification of the SUP. With joy, we handed off the first product of this adventure to Rob Casey this week. As one of the most standout SUP professionals in the PNW, we know he’s going to put it through the wringer. Little know fact: Rob played an important role in the early days of Splinter, working with Brandon to spec some of the first unlimited touring SUPs with internal storage and high performance, so we’re glad he gets to ride the latest and greatest out in the world.
While we continue to make minor tweaks and improvements, we’re quite happy with the design and paddling characteristics of the new board (ok, we’re in love). It has beautiful glide with a stable feel, excellent maneuverability for a 16’ board, and impressive top-end speed. Oh and it loves bumps.
Another exciting development is our push to reduce the carbon footprint and improve the sustainability of manufacturing our SUPs. By setting up to mold the boards’ rails and by sourcing and employing recycled PET we have all but eliminated the use of EPS and PVC foam in the construction of Splinter SUPs! This is just the beginning as we continue to experiment with bringing in renewable and sustainably-sourced reinforcement cloths and bio-resins while maintaining the super durable and high-performance qualities of Splinter SUPs.
Looking forward, we are now tuning up a new shop space where we’ll bring the next round of Splinter SUPs to life, allowing us to continue R&D while producing boards for customers as early as Q2 2022. I’ll send another update when production timeline and prices are dialed in and we can start to take orders in earnest.
Thank you for your support and enthusiasm as this project takes to the sea. We have officially left the dock, friends!
Cheers,
Chris, Arran, and Steve