I look at their site and they have so many boards of so many combinations of boards its great. CI's team riders are the best of the best in the solar system, so are these boards created by the most skilled and knowledge'd shaper of this era? Or is he just lucky?
"best" is such a personal thing...
But Merrick deserves everything he gets. He is a very creative, skilled board designer and shaper. His expertise and experience make his boards highly desirable and reliable.
He's also a great business mind.
a lot of it is marketing...CI has slater, curren, machado, reynolds, etc...riding their boards. that pulls in all the little grommets that just HAVE to have what slater's riding!
i will say that i've had (& still do have) boards from them. & they work. i've had only 1 board from CI that was a dud, but that's going to happen from time to time. the ones i have now are all great boards (i have 4 of them).
very little is real original design. i think the genius is that they can take designs & refine them, put them under the feet of top level pros, give it a snazzy model name, & market the hell out of it.
merrick actually stole the design for the tri plane hull from paul mindich and also stole the dumpster diver design from the white diamond board. after i heard that i stopped buying ci's
i heard mark zuckerburg stole facebook from some classmates i stop using facebook ..... the government stole the internet from al gore i stopped using the internet...Al gore shapes all my boards now
haha awesome!Originally Posted by billabongmoney
I have a biscuit (one of my favorite boards), and I have a flyer that I liked ( but was a little too small so I traded it in). I can't say that I know a lot about the history and all that like some of you, but I'd give the boards I've had experience with a thumbs up.
i never got into the whoe CI thing . Merrick know how to make a board its proven but they just dont appeal to me.
I think one board I would want it the Machado Single fin. I almost got one Set up like a Bonzer for 200 bucks but I drug me feet too much and someone scooped it up from under me
this shows a horrific lack of knowledge about how design has typically worked in surfing...everyone borrows from everyone else. that's how progression occurs. by your logic, every shaper who puts fins on their boards is stealing from tom blake. anyone riding a thruster stole from simon anderson, anyone riding a gun in biig waves is stealing from pat curren, etc...w/out question elements were borrowed, but that's how things work in surfing. as i said in my first post, CI has historically been really good at taking shapes & refining them.
i have 4 CIs currently in my quiver. all but 1 is "custom". that said, there's still nothing better than working closely & having a personal relationship w/ the guy (or gal) making your boards...personally, i wouldn't have gotten them if i didn't have an "in" & get them cheaper than retail. $700 for a plain white shortboard is ridiculous IMO.
shows your horrible lack of not getting the point, obviously progression is going to occur, but your really going to steal someone else's DESIGN and call it your own? your not stealing when your buying a board with fins on it or buying a thurster its the fact that the design was stolen and he took credit for something someone else did, yea taking shapes and refining them WITHOUT PERMISSION without giving the original person credit is stealing in my book. im sure you would be pissed if you made that design and could of made a lot of money off of it but some dude from bradley beach that moved to cali stole ur idea and is set for life from it
Were the original designs patented and can you provide some detail on how they were stolen.? I agree with NJ, surfboard design has always been about copying someone's design and refining it (and for the record I'm not a big CI fan). In my own experience, Jon Ashton is always taking designs he sees from other makers and adoption them as his own. He may do something different with the bottom contours but the general outline is very similar. Is that stealing? IMO no because he is altering the original to better suit our waves.
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