Ask Carroll

[Surfnsmurf]

no doubt there will be No Comment from anyone, but then again there never is.

yeah you know a bit about that dont you

[MrMik]

Hi Nick,
have you ever surfed a modern Geoff McCoy board, shaped in say the last ten years or so?
If so, how did you like it?

[Nick Carroll]

Hi Nick,
have you ever surfed a modern Geoff McCoy board, shaped in say the last ten years or so?
If so, how did you like it?

Hi Mr Mik! No I haven't.

[el rancho]

jesus. who really cares

[Surfnsmurf]

oooohhh el macho your so tough

[Nick Carroll]

Hey Nick,

On a tangent from the q's from ctd, and your response ... and, well to help you fill in your recovery time

What about a 'blind board' test ... and, no I don't mean getting totally pissed first

Say, all boards supplied with no logo's, labels, marks, etc. ... just a number to identify the board and to cross reference comments from the test riders?

Why? Well, I guess I am wondering if there is potential for bias due the name, brand, shaper, etc ... as in, test riders could perceive shaper x makes great boards, so 'feels' his or her boards go better? A blind test would remove the potential for that bias?

what's the point, Wingnut?

Are there blind unlabelled boards out there in the market, being bought by rigorously cleansed surfers who are completely unaffected by brand, colour, or indeed shape appearance? No.

So what would you be testing? Whether you liked one blind board more than another?

Of COURSE there is potential for bias due to the name/brand/etc. Every single surfer on earth is biased in such a way. The point is to understand your tendencies in that area, and include them in your awareness and judgement of the board, not to pretend they don't exist.

Look at our most recent SL Test for example. I know shearer thinks it's just advertorial but let's put that aside for the moment. There were boards in the Test made by famous shapers and boards made by really good shapers who weren't famous. If you read the comments around, say, the Mayhem, you'll note Soli taking into account his expectations of the board -- they were higher than those he had of, say, the Simmo. (Note it's "expectations", not bias, by the way - labels and reps can cut both ways.) Yet as he says in his little profile piece, and in the Simmo review, he was psyched to find that some of the best boards in the Test were boards from shapers he'd never heard of, such as Simmo. This to Soli (as it is to me) was one of the big points of the Test.

I reckon if you could go into a surf shop and buy a "cleanskin" board, made by a top designer but unlabelled because it has some manufacturing flaw or whatever, then that'd be a basis for such a test - get five of 'em, surf 'em, then track 'em back to the board maker. But you can't. There's no such thing. Every board is labelled etc so that's how you have to approach 'em in a Test.

[Nick Carroll]

by the way, Lewis says he can't comment, adding "I wish I could"

and no reply as yet from the ASP.

[Beanpole]

I really reckon the video testing is heaps good. A picture is worth a thousand words so whats a video worth information wise?
You know its one thing to say performs well but its different to watch the action.
My son went "see the barrels that old guy was getting on that board."

[Battery]

by the way, Lewis says he can't comment, adding "I wish I could"

and no reply as yet from the ASP.

Wow, the unreleased part 2 of his power ranking must have been explosive. Maybe he put Slater in 10th position and called him a has-been?
He should just start up a blog again... tag it on to MarineLayer and between Dane and him they could take over the world.

Do you think the ASP may offer you Lewis's position Nick?

[steve shearer]

Look at our most recent SL Test for example. I know shearer thinks it's just advertorial but let's put that aside for the moment.

Christamighty. The people pay a fee to be involved and are promised a favourable review.
Peely gets a contra deal on advertising to be part of the deal.

It's not anything like a "test" if the outcome is predetermined like that. It's Pure Advertorial. What Galbraith would term a "not wholly innocent fraud".

It'd be fine if the mag was given away but the fact people pay for the Board Bible under the impression they are getting a proper independent testing of the current best of the surfboard's available doesn't sit well with me.

Anyway, more power to you if you can pull it off.


I've known Soli since he was in nappies. Lovely kid, great surfer. Been sponsored all his life.

There's no way on God's Green Earth his experiences with surfboard design and performance are translatable to the average Joe out there.

[Nick Carroll]

As if Carroll is going to shit in his own nest and ruin the chances of a paid trip to the telos to do an infomercial by saying "yeah, me reviewing boards is a phucken waste of time, dont know why I bother"

the man is paid to write about surfing.

just so you know, the SL Board Guide is the most popular single feature of the year with readers and (generally) with the board makers too - even the ones who don't get involved see a benefit.

If readers and board makers didn't embrace it, it would surely be a waste of time, and we wouldn't do it.

So I really don't feel I have to justify it here at all. I'm just answering a few questions about board testing in general and they're pretty good questions at that.

[Nick Carroll]

Wow, the unreleased part 2 of his power ranking must have been explosive. Maybe he put Slater in 10th position and called him a has-been?
He should just start up a blog again... tag it on to MarineLayer and between Dane and him they could take over the world.

Do you think the ASP may offer you Lewis's position Nick?

No, and I'd knock it back if they did.

There was plenty in that first lot of Lewis's to piss off several WCT seeds. And the one thing the ZoSea crew don't want right now is to spook the horses. I mean they are about to commence running a tour which is currently about $22 million in the hole in its first year. This leaves the dot com bubble in the shade in its sheer chutzpah. They can't afford for the surfers to begin asking serious questions about the finances. I've just begun attempting to do just that of Speaker and co, can't wait to see the replies, if I ever get one.

[pinhead]

Wow, the unreleased part 2 of his power ranking must have been explosive. Maybe he put Slater in 10th position and called him a has-been?
He should just start up a blog again... tag it on to MarineLayer and between Dane and him they could take over the world.

Do you think the ASP may offer you Lewis's position Nick?

No, and I'd knock it back if they did.

There was plenty in that first lot of Lewis's to piss off several WCT seeds. And the one thing the ZoSea crew don't want right now is to spook the horses. I mean they are about to commence running a tour which is currently about $22 million in the hole in its first year. This leaves the dot com bubble in the shade in its sheer chutzpah. They can't afford for the surfers to begin asking serious questions about the finances. I've just begun attempting to do just that of Speaker and co, can't wait to see the replies, if I ever get one.

Well this doesn't bode well for generating income from content built around the surfers.
Most of them are building their own personal "Brands" through social media, instagram, you tube, twitter etc. The surfers are looking at a - defining themselves beyond competition. They'll want to push out personal content to their fan base through their own channels - they won't be particularly interested in ASP using their stories to bolster its brand.

Then on top of that you've got sponsors who are trying to leverage both competition profile and personal branding.

Apart from contest video I can't see much marketing territory left over for ASP if they're attempting to please everybody.

[Nick Carroll]

That's the risk these boneheads took.

Until they can show these surfers some non endemic money, they're just marking time till they run out of Dirk Ziffs free kick.

There is a future here in which the whole shebang fractures horribly, with the interests of the surfers scattering to the winds and the interests of ZoSea being subsumed in lawsuits.

A lot of it depends on the bigger economic picture. The surf industry is likely to stabilise in the next two to three years. But part of its stabilisation will be the relief gained from having to prop up the ASP and the surf culture at large. Most of the companies won't look kindly on having to up the ante again in that area; they no longer consider that they have a shared interest in supporting the world tour.

And the US recovery will probably be long and sputtering. A sport like surfing, way down the totem pole of sponsorship and interest to the majority of Americans, will not be any more sellable a year from now than it is today.

A huge amount depends on what these characters are thinking. And they are shit at conveying that. It's insanely difficult to get a word out of any of em.

[spork]

Yeah, well a quick glance a the 'surf videos are crap' or whatever its called, would tell you that you can't please everyone. One mans amazing 40yr old tearing apart macking Cloudbreak is another mans yawn...show me some soul and style with an acid Mexican jazz soundtrack.

[swvic]

Think the majority of us are looking at that question with old eyes. We're not the source of the cash. It's the kids - always has been. Pretty sure they don't want the acid Mexican jazzy soul. Doesn't matter what us grumpy old know-it-alls think

[marauding mullet]

We're not the source of the cash. It's the kids -

Well, kind of…...until they're in their mid twenties, they get the cash from grumpy old know-it-alls and pass it on.

[pinhead]

acid Mexican jazz soundtrack.

Do you have any good links to that sort of thing?