Kalama $1000 off all Barracuda models - why?

Hi! This is my first post here and I hope I?ll find an answer so far away (I live in Vienna) - How come Kalama is selling of the barracudaV2!? Thought it was the actual model or has anyone more information on a succsessor. I?m riding the E3 105l and a duotone downwind - dave is always on the frontline of board development so I?m curious... Thanks, Oliver

Dave was on a recent progression podcast and he had mentioned the difficulty of the foil industry and how hard it is to know how many boards to order and how fast they will move. If you noticed, the v1 barracuda was really hard to get. Always sold out. I would guess with the v2 he may have simply overcompensated and ordered too many. Then every brand caught up and saturated the market.

Next, throw in the parawing craze and how that is probably going to murder the DW board industry since people will be shifting to midlengths and all of a sudden he's got a glut of boards that need to be offloaded before the DW board market collapses.

I don't have any insider info to back that up with, but it would be my honest guess at what is going on.

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BWalnut said..
he's got a glut of boards that need to be offloaded before the DW board market collapses.

This, plus add that often regional (Europe) + national (Austria) has to pre-order their stock.

This adds 2 places (3 with the actual shops) that may overstock and have to sale fast.

This is where direct order shops can save a lot compared to the traditional system.
Especially the ones that update their models as soon as the stock is emptied instead of waiting for fixed dates.

Overstock is a huge overhead on things like boards where margins are quite thin.

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BWalnut said..
Dave was on a recent progression podcast and he had mentioned the difficulty of the foil industry and how hard it is to know how many boards to order and how fast they will move. If you noticed, the v1 barracuda was really hard to get. Always sold out. I would guess with the v2 he may have simply overcompensated and ordered too many. Then every brand caught up and saturated the market.

Next, throw in the parawing craze and how that is probably going to murder the DW board industry since people will be shifting to midlengths and all of a sudden he's got a glut of boards that need to be offloaded before the DW board market collapses.

I don't have any insider info to back that up with, but it would be my honest guess at what is going on.

It seems like - outside of the races where SUP is a defined category - the parawing is making full size downwind boards totally obsolete.

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TooMuchEpoxy said..

BWalnut said..
Dave was on a recent progression podcast and he had mentioned the difficulty of the foil industry and how hard it is to know how many boards to order and how fast they will move. If you noticed, the v1 barracuda was really hard to get. Always sold out. I would guess with the v2 he may have simply overcompensated and ordered too many. Then every brand caught up and saturated the market.

Next, throw in the parawing craze and how that is probably going to murder the DW board industry since people will be shifting to midlengths and all of a sudden he's got a glut of boards that need to be offloaded before the DW board market collapses.

I don't have any insider info to back that up with, but it would be my honest guess at what is going on.

It seems like - outside of the races where SUP is a defined category - the parawing is making full size downwind boards totally obsolete.

Downwind sup foiling was never in danger of becoming popular though. Cheap and lazy as I am, I only brought my downwind board travelling this winter rather than two board bags. I don't miss my 60L at all even winging. Had a session yesterday where nobody else could get out to the wind line and I just floated slowly out on 127 liters. 40Km of powered up 3.5. Winging an 8' board is still better than no winging

It's also been great for learning parawing but I'm certainly not giving up my paddle anytime soon.

V2 was released 10 Months ago.

V3 on the way I would assume in line with Kalama yearly release cycle

one summer season of wind in Perth WA is the same as 3-5 years of wind in SE QLD

No doubt the margins on ALL foil boards are ridiculous. I'm impressed how $300 worth of materials turns into a $2300 DW board from the bigger names in the sport.

And speaking of bigger names in the sport, it doesn't appear Kane has any issues ripping turns on a long board. The tip is out on every turn.
You will have to click on the "watch on youtube" link, Probably best stuff after 1:50. Is he riding nose high much of the time?

Probably region specific. In the Gorge for instance, shuttling is very convenient and the user group is pretty big. Still DW supfoil amounts to less than 10% of windsport folk. Had the equipment not been optimized from five years ago, I wouldn't have bothered as only olympic level athletes could do it then (and it's still the hardest foil discipline).

As a one board solution though, A lightweight DW board from DK or KT is completely doable. Starting one winging in 30+ kinda sucks though...

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Mark _australia said..

noepoxy said..
one summer season of wind in Perth WA is the same as 3-5 years of wind in SE QLD

I mean in same wind how many people are out doing each discipline
not how often it's windy

I was just surprised to hear it's not popular, prob 25% of my work is DW boards - pretty significant when windsurf has perhaps halved and kite boards dropped to virtually nil.

but yeah I know what you're saying I guess nobody wants to DW in 12kn but winging is becoming fun then

You're very spoilt in WA! Most people (unless retired) only get to go out on the weekends or if lucky after work - no daylight savings time in QLD. So 52 x 2 = 104 ish days a year and the chance there is enough wind on the weekend to DW is probably 25% (and if you don't want to go winging), so basically 26 days a year, excluding family events etc. Then we have to organise logistics and paddle out 2-3km offshore (and be comfortable doing that) for the bumps to be good enough. If you're over 80kgs it's probably not going to happen for you unless you're young or can pump for a sustained period of time, repeatedly. Most travel south to NSW when the good storms come.

I've a DW board but DW is not going to happen for me here (6'3 and 98kgs) so I just sup foil it, but the board I have 8'1 x 21 x 128L is not right as a dedicated sup foil board. It's too narrow and difficult (hard on your hamstrings) to stand on in chopping messy conditions, too long to handle a big rip and big surf, getting in and out etc. However, I have a good wave count when small but I doubt that my wave count would go down that much if I had the perfect size board for me would be a 7'3 x 23 x 128L.

It really depends on your conditions though as what board is suitable. That video with KDW, nice rolling mellow bumps = DW is the best option to paddle in early. This is opposite to our conditions.

All the parawingers are on downwind boards at our local, they just get going quicker than a mid length. And with a parawing yo can ride a much smaller DW board than you would paddling.