The 2019 season is upon us! With the whole season in front of us it is now the time to see all the tweaks and upgrades the brands have been working hard on over the close season. With this in mind Californian based brand Infinity have wasted no time in touching up their race and sup surf boards, and releasing some upgraded and exciting boards. TotalSUP talks to Infinity boss Dave Boehne about the new 2019 Infinity range, and the excitement around them.
Hi Dave, the 2019 SUP season is upon us now and you have some exciting things going on at Infinity, can you introduce your range? Starting with the Whiplash.
Hi, yes we are excited to get started! So, the Whiplash 2019 model has been updated, we updated the cockpit, it has now increased in size and also the rail has been re-designed. Even the most subtlest changes make a difference. We have changed the back tail of the Whip, it is more flatter on top, we have done this so paddlers can find the sweet spot easier for quicker buoy turns and pivot turns. The majority of the infinity team are riding the Whip, and in all conditions! The reason for this? they love the glide per stroke of the board.
This season the Whip has a new carbon skin construction. This construction has the perfect strength to weight ratio, it is very light, yet performs stronger than most other brands that have an “ultra light” construction. All of this while maintaining a very competitive price. I love this board for flat water up to mild chop and mild ocean conditions. The team riders are FREAKS, some of them ride this board in all conditions including surf racing which I don’t recommend but people can decide for themselves.
Why did you chose to update the Whiplash?
Paddlers are always looking for a lighter board. So here at Infinity we work tirelessly on generating and designing new construction layups to meet our demands in quality. Luckily for us our custom shop based in California makes a lot of custom boards, so this means we have plenty of opportunity to work on construction and flex properties with new materials pretty much daily.
What is the great thing about the Whiplash?
The bottom of the hull is quite unique and something I am proud of. This board design is sort of design that comes from the corner of your mind. Applying the ideas into design is the most fun part for me in board design. The Whiplash board is like no other and the results speak for themselves. Multiple podiums and a couple of World Titles aren’t too shabby either haha.
Now for the Black Fish. We saw Kai Lenny paddling the 2019 board in London, what changes have been made?
The entry to the nose has been changed just to let the board glide more freely in pure flat water conditions. The Black Fish is all all around board so I wanted to put more mph/kph back into the board on flat conditions. This board can be considered a one board quiver. The Black fish has won races all over the world and in all conditions. Conditions including flat water sprints, flat water distance, surf racing, ocean downwind, this board can really handle everything. The flat deck on the board makes it cross over into many styles of paddling. It’s super comfortable to walk the deck. The stability of the board equals more powerful strokes and now with the refined nose entry it has an increased flat water glide per stroke.
I truly believe it is the best all around shape out there and we have the results to back it up. Podium results in the PPG, The Gorge, London APP Tour, China ISA’s, the list goes on. The team crushes it on this board. Here at Infinity we are very proud of the Blackfish and the influence the design has had in general.
Can you introduce the 2019 Downtown?
The board has had some small tweaks for sure. It is always evolving. The changes were small though. The board has now got a wider cockpit area. We shifted the volume around a bit in the front of the hull and added more rocker curve in the nose, while maintaining the same amount of rocker overall as to not tamper with the “magic” behind this board. Also in the new construction the boards are 3lbs lighter from 2018 which is incredible.
What is in the Downtown that makes it so exciting to downwind on?
It’s just really easy to paddle! The Downtown is a traditional smooth downwind rocker which takes virtually no time to get acquainted with. The board does most of the work for you when the conditions are blowing at your back.
Now, lets not forget the SUP surf Range! Can you introduce the Blurr Version 2?
The Blurr Version 2 has been designed with a step rail on it, a design feature that has been in surfboard design for decades, one we used often in our surfboard range. I actually used step rails all the way back in 2011 when we filmed the SUP movie “H2indo” . Slater Trout and I both had boards with the stepped rail feature during the filming of that movie. So basically I’ve just redesigned for us and modernized the approach on the BlurrV2. The idea is to take volume away from the rail and place it in the middle where you need it which allows a nice low aspect performance rail in the water for turning.
The board construction is the new SUPspension Tech carbon/Innegra blended construction A construction is super cool. It has a custom board feel yet in a production layup. When you place nice materials off axis and use different weave diameters you can promote the flex to get the feedback in ride the way you want. Think of it as tuning a guitar string, you can manipulate the flex and characteristics and tune the ride.
With the BlurrV2 I will say that it is always fun to try something new. There are plenty of great designs and boards out there so i just encourage people to try everything. Hopefully our stuff gets people inspired and stoked to get in the ocean!
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