A Brief History of Imagine Surfboards
Click Here to see a variety of past shapes and models
Boards strong enough to handle the rough environment of river surfing were, simply put, impossible to find. Those of us surfing every day out in the rapids found very quickly that lightweight boards, while performing, were simply falling to pieces (and had an average lifespan of about 3 months). In addition, for just about anyone except seasoned riders, we found the shapes to be entirely wrong. With the reduced bouyency of natural water, and the slower shape of the river waves, combined with the need to swim through difficuld whitewater just to get to the waves, we quickly realised the need to start shaping our own boards.

This 6'8" fun shape was made specifically for Jean, a beginning surfer with extensive whitewater kayaking experience. The epoxy, 8oz glass construction made it possible for jean to run the rapids without fear of destroying his board, while the unique shape offered him the ability to navigare on a solid platform, catch the wave easilly, but once on the wave, progress quickly as the board handled with surprising quickness despite its stable platform and forgiveness.
We quickly began to expirement with different ways to make the boards performing and strong for the environment, without adding too much weight... the downfall of the 80z epoxy glass boards. We discovered that using 6oz carbon fiber was the solution. This gave us 12oz rails offered a significent increase in impact and ding strength compared to 6oz glass boards. While the cost increased significently (30% over glass) strength and longevity was increased by nearly 200%. However, despite being lighter than the epoxy glass boards, these boards remain somewhat heavier than the traditional glass boards. As with anything in life, the compromise is always realitive, and some riders prefer the increased strength despite the increased cost and weight, while others perfer to take better care of the equipment, and increase performance through reduction of weight. The carbon boards, however, have proved a huge success with river surfers, and account for about 50% of total sales.
Recent experimentation with laminates has lead to a decrease in the number of carbon boards being made, as we now offer a 40z glass laminate board with 14oz rails and 8oz front foot pad. Since 80% of board dammage was to the rails, inmply increasing rail strength alowed us to keep the overall weight of the boards down, while maintaining similar strength on the rails, and the cost of carbon was eliminated. Increase of performance, and reduction of cost while maintaining the strength where needed.