Infinity SUP: Past, Present and Future by Dave Boehne

Infinity SUP had a busy season last year with notable wins across the board which included Shae Foudy who took the APP World Tour title. Candice Appleby who won the PPG crown, then there were the performances of Gomez siblings at the Pan American Games, plus young gun Tyler Bashor storming to victory at the PPG, and that was just performances from state side.  Other riders such as Melanie Lafenetre, Itzel Delgardo and Ricardo Rossi have also blazed their own trail for Infinity in their respective regions.  It is not only the riders that have been hitting the headlines, the race boards and custom surf boards have been making their own name, with the whiplash, blackfish and downtown all making positive noises on the SUP scene. Infinity boss Dave Boehne chats to TotalSUP, reviewing the 2018 season and exciting developments for 2019.

Hi Dave,  What were the special moments for Infinity in 2018?

There were a lot of great moments during the year for Infinity. A particular  special one was when California based paddler Shae Foudy took the victory at the London SUP Open, I felt like it marked Shae’s return from injury, the performance made everyone take notice of her.  It was the start of a strong season for Shae who then went on to win the APP world Tour title.

Another stand out moment in 2019 was when Kai Lenny came out of hiding at the London Open; then won the sprint race at the London Open using our Blackfish raceboard, it was his first race since his departure from Naish. It was really great to see him win on an Infinity board.

The victory by Candice at the Pacific paddle games and ISA was also a special moment, she really worked for those victories. But definitely one of the best things that happened was the when Tyler Bashor took the win at the PPG. It was insane. He truly deserved it and what made it extra special was that the victory was on his turf!

We also had Izzi Gomez winning at the Pan American Surfing Games in Peru, with her brother Giorgio Gomez winning in the men’s competition. A good day for Infinity with top spots in both competitions. Infinity also won top spot in the Mens Distance Race with Itzel Delgado claiming 1st place, and Giorgio coming in 3rd.

After an incredible victory at the PPG, what does the future hold for Tyler Bashor?

The future is strong for Tyler, he has been paddling at Dana Point with the Paddle Academy for the last 12 years and his hard work is paying off.  Tyler is just on the fringes of entering in the top 10 so it will good to see him push through and get inside. He was a wild card entry for last years APP Tour, and so this means that this year he is on the tour, we will see him competing in all the APP world tour events. He  will be at the Carolina Cup so that will be the place to start his 2019 season.

It was good to see two female paddlers going toe-to-toe, who do you think will dominate this year between Shae and Candice?

It depends what the race conditions are like, Candice is focused on the Carolina Cup at the moment.  Shae is still on a high from the APP world Tour and relaxing after her victory.

However, I think Shae has only scratched the surface of her potential as she’s injury free and riding the high of being a world champion. Candice is rounding back into shape after taking some time off and dealing with a nagging back injury, but she’s hungry and has some new goals for 2019. A confident and focused Candice is very hard to beat!

What is in store for Infinity in 2019?

2019 will be more of the same that happened in 2018, we hope to continue our strong performances in the races. The group of speed freaks will paddling hard to improve on last years performances.  For our riders the focus will be on the APP world Tour, in the surf and the race competitions. We have committed to all the races this season.

Can you talk about your 2019 range? Any exciting news?

We are continuing with the ethos of only producing performance race boards. This is the focus of infinity.  We find that our biggest sellers are our performance race boards, so we want to keep this going, with this in mind the most exciting news is that we are going to launch the infinity inflatable race board. This is will be an 12’6″ iSUP, at 24 inches wide it is designed to be a performance race board. We have used the material performance ICT, this makes it 3 times as stiff as a normal iSUP.  The narrow measurements keeps inline with the ethos of performance boards.

We have updated the Whiplash, this is the board that Tyler Bashor paddled at the PPG. The update allows the board to perform the buoy turn effectively.  In the Blackfish we have made small refinements, subtle changes have been made to achieve better ease and glide.  Kai Lenny was actually racing on the 2019 prototype at the London SUP open, we have made some subtle changes to this board for  2019, just to enable a nicer ease and glide, essentially this is your one quiver board. Surf wise we have pretty much stayed with the same models and not changed much, except the Blur Version 2 this has a new construction, we have given it some unique features to make it more manoeuvrable in the surf.

For more information on Infinity race boards check out the site.