"Much like Blackberry, KSWC pioneered a new technology. And like Blackberry, KSWC is stubbornly hanging onto its original blueprint."

If you ever have the good fortune to grace the fabled Kelly Slater wavepool in Lemoore, California, you will be awed by its size, the shore where the right extinguishes itself after one minute of riding barely able to be seen, even with squinted eyes.

I rode the joint in 2017, nine waves lassoed, and have yet to sight or command a wave, even close to as good.

Therefore, a terrific surprise this morning when a wavepool expert slammed the Kelly Slater Wave Co pool as “obsolete the day it was unveiled.”

Skip Taylor, a Partner of Surf Park Management told wavepool mag, the reason there hadn’t been another Slater tank built since it’s unveiling in December 2015 was that,

“What happens time after time is once people start to dig into the financial feasibility and see the limited capacity, the large footprint of the venue, the scale of civil construction, and the awkwardness of the pool shape to build around, KSWC quickly gets dismissed in most cases.”

Meanwhile, Wavegarden, Perfect Surf and Endless Surf, smaller, modular tech, dominate the market.

When the developers of that wild housing estate built around a pool near São Paulo, Praia da Grama and Boa Vista Village, looked at the various techs, they dug the Kelly pool but came to the same conclusion as everyone else, it don’t have the commercial potential of its rivals.

And that wild little double shot air combo? No way the Slater pool touches that. Surfers are already calling it the most high-performance wave on earth.

Author of the comprehensive story, Evan Quarnstrom, posits,

I liken the position of Slater’s pool to the Blackberry cell phone circa 2010.

Blackberry was a pioneer in the cell phone space and even the preferred option of then US president Barack Obama. They had an industry-leading 43% of the market share in the US at their peak.

Then came the iPhone with its touchscreen technology.

Blackberry insisted on sticking with a keyboard. Their complacency spelled the beginning of the end. After an initial aversion to transition with the market trends and a far-too-late attempt to enter the smartphone market, the Blackberry cell phone finally sputtered to an inevitable death with its final model in 2018.

Much like Blackberry, KSWC pioneered a new technology – in this case a wave that could mimic the power of the ocean. And like Blackberry, KSWC is stubbornly hanging onto its original blueprint. As markets demand a smaller pool with a higher wave rate, KSWC is sticking to its guns.

Read more here!

From the post-truth department!

While doing some work-related research on market trends, I came across this interview with Ted Post, president of the National Candle Group, the leading industry coalition that generates candle standards; and that tracks retail trends for the candle industry. 

It’s buried behind the paywall of The Wall Street Journal, so I can’t provide the link. 

However, key content is pasted here for the edification of BG readers:

According to Post, there has been both an unprecedented and unpredicted increase of candle sales in the United States over the last 5 weeks. 

When contacted by The Wall Street Journal, Post explained,

“This has caught our industry totally by surprise. Both suppliers, distributors, and retailers are perplexed, as we have tracked an increase of 280% of sales compared to the same time horizon of the 2021 retail year. This is exciting, but of course alarming, in a good way, as more sales of quality produced candles is our goal. Candles make every social gathering more memorable. However, in this compressed retail environment with ‘just-in-time’ sales trends dominating the retail ecosystem, many retailers are stressed to keep up with this unfound rise in demand.  

When asked why there has been this unpredictable increase, and what it says about consumers, Post responded,

“Well, there are certain retail times of year where we know candles will sell: the holidays, especially Hanukkah and Christmas; Passover; Halloween/Day of the Dead; and Valentine’s Day. Those are dependable retail clusters where we expect 1,000% increases, and our suppliers and retailers work hard at those times to provide quality to our customers. So this sales trend caught us totally unawares, which of course on many levels is a good thing to have happened.

We did our due diligence and sent out a survey to retailers in the US. This was also mirrored with our networks in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It turns out sales are being driven entirely by a single demographic: white men in their 50s and 60s, often about 30 to 50 lbs overweight, who wear “thongs” and cargo shorts, and a tight surf-brand tee shirt that shows too tight on their beer bellies. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine such a demographic–how does one predict and thus prepare marketing campaigns for this demographic? It turns out this demographic trend holds in all US coastal states, and the same in our international markets. Then, weirdly, there was an increase of candle sales by a factor of 300% in Oklahoma, of all places. That one is even harder for us to figure out.”

Post was asked why he thinks these precise demographic of customers are flocking to get candles in these specific locations:

“That’s weird, too. The #1 response for why the purchase, at a rate that statistically dwarfs any other response, was ‘I’m hoping for Kelly to get Gisele.’ That’s basically been the overwhelming reason given. Really, the only reason given. Then, oddly, after saying this, the male will put on sunglasses and make some esoteric hand signal where they extend their thumb and pinky while closing the three middle fingers, and walk away, content with their new purchase.”

Post concludes by saying, “This has me stumped. I’ve been in the candle industry for 25+ years. I live, eat, and breathe candles. Candles have put my kids through college. Never would I have predicted that a bunch of over-50 year old men in coastal towns, would care about lesbian relationships.”

BG has learned two things over the last couple of days: Chas relishes beating dead horses to oblivion; resuscitating said dead horse; and then beating it to death again. 

The second is that Chas can singlehandedly skew whole retail markets. 

More as consumer trends emerge…

#WeAreBeachgrit  

"I have a deep fear of the 405, so I could not stop to surf, even though Zuma looked surprisingly inviting. I kept driving, but not without a wistful view in the rearview."

Last week, I hopped in a rented white Jeep, slid onto the 101, and headed south. I drove past Rincon, where the tide was too high.

I followed the maze of freeway construction toward Ventura. They’re remaking the 101. When it ends, no one seems to know. Keep left. Merge right. No outlet. Do not enter.

Looking over my shoulder, I could see the ant farm swarming small peaks at Emma Wood.

We really should rename the place to Dane’s. What’s Emma Wood ever done for us, anyway?

I always wonder who names surf spots and which name after what must be so many tries finally sticks. I always imagine Hobson as the drunk in the parking lot, the guy who sat there every day, beer in hand, telling stories about that one day over and over. Hobson was probably the rich guy who owned all the land for miles around, but I like my version better.

I was on my way to do a launch party for a guide book to Southern California surfing that I helped write with the crew at Wildsam. Yes, I helped write a guidebook. I definitely gave away all the secret spots, because if it has a parking lot and a bathroom, it’s definitely a secret spot.

I have a deep and abiding fear of the 405, so I could not stop to surf, even though the north end of Zuma looked surprisingly inviting. I kept driving, but not without a wistful view in the rearview.

In fact, the 405 was mostly behaving, if rolling 80 mph with all your closest friends is behaving. If you don’t have to slam on the brakes and send your boards flying through the front window, did you even drive the 405?

I bounced off the freeway at Bolsa Chica and headed to the beach in search of a bathroom. I did not know there was a $15 day use fee at Bolsa Chica State Beach. You live and learn in this life, and sometimes you pay $15 to use the bathroom.

The tide is too high, the wind is too much — surfing likes to make it hard. I got to Huntington with time to surf, but the wind got there, too. I sat on a bench with a Spindrift and watched someone launch over the falls on a walled up set. A couple of guys scrapped around a tiny inside peak.

Maybe I should surf, I said to no one in particular.

Then I thought about pulling on my suit, and walking across the long stretch of sand. I thought about going over the falls on the closeouts, and the meager insiders on offer.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

Later that night I sat around with some newfound friends and talked about surfing. Thanks to the Covid years, I forgot how to talk about things in front of people, so that was exciting. I probably sounded just as dumb as I do here. It’s good to stay on brand.

The subject turned to surf films. Five Summer Stories. Sprout. Punk and airs, I said. I just want to watch some airs.

The next day, sitting on the 405 again, I thought about my favorite surf films. Do I even have any?

I was struggle-bussing to Venice for coffee, and I was not making all that much progress. The slow crawl through Carson left me with plenty of time to think, though not many brain cells to do it.

I tried to make a list: Trilogy, Lost Atlas, Psychic Migrations, and Leave a Message. But surely, I missed something. The lack brain cells, you know.

I drank an amazing espresso at Alana’s on Venice Boulevard, a crowded joint with a patio out back. Like a tourist, I cruised Abbot Kinney. Then suddenly, I was back out at the beach in Santa Monica.

After stopping for a sandwich in Malibu, I tried to get back in the white Jeep. There was a woman sitting in the front seat, talking on the phone. I had opened the car to the wrong white Jeep. What if this was my car, I wondered. What if I was this woman talking on the phone? I wonder if we could be friends.

Eventually, I found my own white Jeep, the one with the surfboards and the melting wax in the back.

Maybe I can make it to Rincon before sunset.

Maybe this time the tide will be right and the wind won’t be on it.

I drove past Rincon without even stopping, and made it home without ever taking my boards out of the back.

So much of surfing is all the time in between. Driving around California with boards in the back of the car totally counts as surfing.

Go on, change my mind.