You might be wondering where I am going with this, but before I review the 2017 Fanatic wave range, I think it’s worth hearing a little bit about the driving force behind the Fanatic brand.
Fanatic are a brand who do their home work. Of all the brands out there, I can confidently say that when Fanatic release a new board, you can guarantee that they have put a lot of thought, development and testing into it. They have a very close-knit group of riders, who feedback directly to their shaper, Sebastian Wenzel. None of their riders are allowed to use custom boards from other shapers and the whole approach is very scientific and methodical.
Quite frankly, it’s how development should be done and it’s the reason that Fanatic shapes are always so consistently good. I’ve never tested a ‘duff’ Fanatic board and where some brands are happy to experiment with new ideas on customers, Fanatic won’t release shapes until they are thoroughly tested and worthy of production.
Last year was a perfect example of this when Fanatic introduced their funky looking Stubby range. This wasn’t some new concept to gain instant attention and then be shoveled under the carpet a year later. Fanatic had secretly tested this board for over 12 months before becoming the first to release this shape onto the market. And what a board it turned out to be. Since then, many brands have tried to emulate it, but as of yet, I’m not sure any have come close to beating it.
In an age where budgets are tight, you can certainly understand why some brands find it tempting to cut corners when it comes to testing and development. It’s a very costly business. But with Fanatic, it’s thanks to the passion of their brand manager Craig Gertenbach that they continue to invest so much time, effort and money into their development program. Craig is a die-hard windsurfer at heart. He grew up in Cape Town, was a Fanatic sponsored rider in the early nineties and one of the top wave sailors on the World tour, before becoming a tester and working his way up through Fanatic to become their brand manager in 2004. A position he has held ever since.
Craig still has the ability to push his team riders hard on the water, but most importantly, he understands windsurfing and in particular, wave sailing. He understands what makes a good board, not just for his team riders, but also for you guys, the buying public.
It’s a very rare balance in business to combine the might and power of a large corporate brand, with the raw passion and ‘finger on the pulse’ thinking that would normally be associated with a much smaller brand. Yet Craig manages to achieve this with Fanatic and the 2017 wave line-up epitomizes it perfectly. Everything is top quality, as you would expect from a big brand, yet sandwiched right between the now legendary Quad and the highly regarded Tri-Fin is the innovative Stubby. It’s a quality line-up, but also a cutting edge and fairly intriguing one.
Whilst the team riders and shaper have obviously all played a big part in this, there is no doubt that Craig has been instrumental in making it all happen. He is the man at the helm.
Sadly, many brand managers in our sport end up becoming too far removed from the sport itself; too busy with the day-to-day running of things to get excited about the intricacies of the latest wave board shape. But luckily for Fanatic, Craig’s passion for wave sailing started more than 20 years ago on the beaches of Cape Town and it’s a passion he has not lost. He may have moved from South Africa to the board room of Munich, but he has not lost one drop of enthusiasm or passion for the sport. To me, this is the distinguishing factor that makes Fanatic the brand that it is. It’s what makes them so consistently good.
Now, it might seem that I am being a bit charitable here as the prologue to a wave test, but I think in an age when wave boards are approaching £1800, it’s more than just the board that we are buying into. It’s the brand as well. We want to know that the brand has the expertise and the drive to make that board the best it possibly can be.
With Fanatic, I think you should feel reassured that there is a passion for the sport that is apparent right from the very top of the brand. It’s apparent on every board I have ever tried from them. And it’s apparent in this 2017 wave line-up. Craig may be Mr Fanatic now, but I still remember him as ‘the Fanatic man’.
Now let’s hear how their 2017 wave range stacks up…
Source: BSW
