Established at the beginning of 2007, TCH Surf Company is part of TCH Enterprises, which holds many interests through out Second Life, including scuba diving, surfing, land management, private SIM Development, private dive reef development and dive education. The new line of boards will be launched in conjunction with the launch of 'TCH Extreme Sports', the corporation's new four storey sports store being constructed in the southwest of the TCH Enterprises sim. SurfWatch was fortunate enough to get a sneak preview of the megastore and, well, what can we say: its BIG!
ATown Fall previews a few of TCH Surf's new line of longboardsSo why start another surfboard company and launch another brand? SurfWatch asked TCH Surf's ATown Fall. "It's our feeling that TCH Enterprises can fill a nitch in board design that some other companies have either overlooked or decided to not develop into," explains ATown. "We have the upmost respect for the other companies and are already in communication with companies like FAKT, Reaction and Analog Surf about how we can all work together to develop the industry. Our goal is strictly to provide a new style of board designs in an effort to give surfers greater choice."
A team of 10 graphic designers at TCH Surf are involved in product development. Sebastian Saramago's board shapes are being used by a number of other surfboard design companies and so are, to an extent, pretested, however, TCH Surf does test each board before putting it to production. TCH Surf is currently testing three new board shapes that will remain in the testing phase for at least the next two to three months. The firm is also has a short board in the testing phase and plans to make information on this shape public in the near future.
All retail boards will be available with embedded surfboard scripts and feature sets created by Heather Goodliffe to ensure compliance with SLSA competition standards. However, TCH Surf custom boards will include additional animations. "We do have some tricks up our sleeve," says ATown. "And TCH Surf has a very special line of surf boards coming to the market in the near future. This boards will not be SLSA approved and are designed more for the physical aspect of surfing. Watch this space!"
The new range of TCH Surf longboards will be available for sale at all TCH Surf locations, although whether the company makes its boards avialable for purchase at non-TCH locations has yet to be decided. Retail trans-enabled boards are expected to sell at L$555, copy-enabled boards L$1,200, while custom boards will vary in price based on the client requests. Custom board pricing will start at L$2,500.00 per board. However, surfers seeking 100% custom designs will be billed a RL billing rate of US$35.00 USD per hour. Team discounts will be available.
TCH Surf's new longboards are expected to hit TCH retail outlets by Valentines Day.
SLURL: TCH Extreme Sports
Up-dated story 1 March 08
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment