Here we are near at the beginning of 2012 and the season of big swells and cold water surfing has already arrived. Many of the less committed will have already put their boards in the garage and hung up their wetsuits happy to flick back through their summer photo album.

Newsletter January 2012

Here we are near at the beginning of 2012 and the season of big swells and cold water surfing has already arrived. Many of the less committed will have already put their boards in the garage and hung up their wetsuits happy to flick back through their summer photo album.

Apart from the normal passing of the seasons the surf market has seen dramatic changes in the last 8 years, and we at Escape Surfboards are changing to adapt to the new economic climate.

In 2003 Escape was one of the first surf U.K surf brands to import boards from China, back then new buyers were flooding the surf shops after their taster surf lesson, happy to buy into the surf image and culture and whacking the cost on to the credit card. We were supplying several retail outlets who were demanding more and more boards at cheaper and cheaper prices. When working in the windsurf industry in the 1980’s we had experience of losing our market when imports start coming in which destroyed the U.K manufacturers. We realised that in order to compete and keep up with demand we should this time be in the vanguard of those importing. Chinese boards were cheaper at the point of manufacture, Stirling was strong against the Dollar, the quality of the product was sufficient for the market and delivery was reliable. All was good; we were able to satisfy the massively expanding demand.

Fortunately, despite advice from others to abandon U.K. manufacturing we kept our basic facility here in Rock. We had persisted with this as our R and D platform and also luckily as a fall back if and when we would need to return our production back to this country.

Wind forward to 2011 and all has changed; classic surf shops are in a head to screen battle with the online outlets, the amount of first time buyers willing to part with plastic cash has diminished, the pound has crashed against the Dollar, and the Chinese manufacturers have seen inflation which has been passed on to their export prices, they can no longer guarantee delivery or quality because their workforce is less reliable as they seek better living standards for themselves. Over the past 2 years it has become clearer that importing boards from China is no longer a tenable alternative to U.K manufacture where we have complete control over quality, delivery and cost. It had also become obvious that if we continue to import the Escape brand will only ever be known for supplying shiny mini-mals from China and would struggle to be taken seriously as the market is moving away from beginner boards to more specialised, finer tuned shorter and more efficient surf boards. Also frankly it is crazy for us to be importing goods when this country is facing a period of high unemployment.

During the past few years Escape Surfboards have been developing a range of exciting models which have been receiving great reviews from our local hard core customers and team riders. From the high volume Peanut to the high performance Vaccine; whether you are a weekend warrior or full on surfer we have board models in a full range of sizes that will suit. We of course have not forgotten our previous successful models including the ever popular Flying Carpet and Fish boards, the difference will be that we will have personally seen the boards through our factory from shaping to sanding, and by using a shaping machine we know that every board will work as well as the prototypes.

We’ve been constantly told by the media and politicians that these are hard times and we have to make difficult decisions. We did not import any boards during 2011 and have no intention of doing so again. We have trained two more guys this year and will to add to Andy and Dan in 2012. Of course for us in some ways this a far more difficult operation than just buying stuff from China. We hope you will notice and appreciate by the quality of the finish and the way Escape surfboards perform that we really enjoy making the best surfboards possible. In times of recession it has always been advised to get your business back to what it does best. We at Escape Surfboards are best at making excellent surfboards and that is what we will be doing.

Happy New Year and Happy Surfing

Bill Attlee