I was fortunate enough to be invited to Kaua’i, HI for Starboard Dealer Meetings from April 5 to 10, 2010.
Our crew consisted of Svein (the Owner of Starboard) – Gaute (the Product manager and surf marathoner) – Magareta (the Marketing manager / photographer and shark bait) – Scott M. (SB Designer and wave sailing king) – Scott C. (the N. American SUP Sales manager and my bro) – Warren and Deb (from Surfing Sports in Santa Barbara) and myself (the “other” Warren).
Starboard brought us all together for a few days of stand up surfing and to talk about the present and future of sup and Starboard sup.
We managed to score a great house a block or so from the water in Hanalei Bay, Kaua’i.
It was a typical Hawaiian plantation style house with lots of fine wood work and 5 bedrooms so we could all crash on our own.
Gaute had a few minor glitches getting the 7 or 8 prototype boards he hand carried over from Thailand through customs (something about him being a “punk surfer” and all that). While we waited for the wonderful people at customs to do their “thing” we surfed on the Starboard boards that I have on Kaua’i with our Easy Rider team ripper Jeff Maddox. Good thing they were there or it would have been 5 year old “soft top” rental boards for us.
When the new boards finally made it to us (3 days later) the marathon man Gaute didn’t leave the water for 6 to 7 hours per day.
The surf was anywhere from knee high to over head – which was great to test all the new boards.
We would basically wake up – eat breakfast – answer some emails – go surf – eat at Pat’s Taqueria – surf some more – eat at Pat’s again – surf more – go have dinner – talk about SUP – go to sleep – and repeat.
I managed a bunch of GoPro shots and footage from my paddle mount – I really liked next years 10’5″ – it was an awesome board for me.
The best meal of the trip was when we had Pat come and cater an awesome dinner at the house for us one night.
All in all it was a fantastic trip and I am super stoked to have been a part of it all.
Thanks to everyone at Starboard for the trip, to Pat for keeping us all fed, to Jeff for looking out for us all week and to my bro for getting me into this fantastic sport!
