Everything you never wanted to know about the new SUNOVA

TR3 TEC [tɹiː tɛk]

The SUNOVA TR3 TEC (spoken: tree tech) technology has been tested and trialed over the last 3 years successfully with all our “The One” | ECO tec models. Those boards were some of the most sold boards in our range and we were told over and over again, by customers, shops and friends, of how impressed everyone was by the mix of a super clean and unique wood look and really lightweight and incredible durability for an amazingly affordable price. That’s 3 out of 4 of the main Sunova criteria and an additional 4th being the awesome price, which was what the EcoTec range focused on. Bring the SUNOVA to everyone.

Of course, for Bert, the performance aspect has always been the most important aspect of the SUNOVA criterias. So here is the next step…

With our standard XXX TEC range being as successful as it is and ever-growing to allow the most amazing performance to everyone. The RIGHT BOARD for the RIGHT WAVE, for the RIGHT CUSTOMER, means a lot of shapes and choices and no other brand takes this more serious than us.

James Casey ripping on his “Flash” Pro Model

Sunova has kept its promise of delivering probably one of the best values for the money for an incredible Service, Product and Design. We have not increased our prices for over 5 years, which must be unheard of. However, even we run our own manufacturing called The Board Factory Co., Ltd., in Thailand we are not immune to material increases, currency exchanges taking away our hard earned money and growing living costs in general which we give back in higher salaries for our own employees.

a new board is “born” at the CNC station

installing the fins precisely

Our Technology – In 3 Finishes

We are proud that we can merge XXX TEC and TR3 TEC to evolve into the future. We would like to explain to you how we will do this and why.

[Finish A – bronze]

Introduce TR3 to the world with EVERY amazing SUNOVA shape you are used to (like the Speed, Flow, Flash, Creek, Skate, etc.) and all the new ones  (like the Placid, Point Break, and all the new foil boards). For the exact price as the XXX TEC used to be until now.

[Finish B – silver]

For the reasons explained above we will increase the XXX prices by app. 15% to allow for the past years cost increases, and to keep this amazing technology with everyone.

[Finish C – black gold]

And the new Pro-Brands models like Sean Poynter’s and Ian “Kanga” genRation or James Casey’s casey. Branded models will only be available in XXX. We plan to work with many more legends and release those limited editions in the best possible way there is.

Daniel Huges working on his AIR TIME

This part of the range is one we are especially stoked about, as it allows us as a relatively young and new brand in SUP to work together with some of the most unbelievably famous and decorated legends in this sport. Sean Poynter, the APP SUP surfing world champ, Ian Cairns, James Casey are only some of the names we say for now. There is much more in the pipeline…

SUSTAINABILITY

Another topic we have never been very loud about. Even though, we were probably with some of the first brands thinking about using recyclable materials and actually using them. Of course the wood is our main and most remarkable feature and its been used for performance reasons, it is one if not the best material to be used. Guess how many percent bio is the wood…

making sure its right

Brings us to the reason why we feel there is a lot of marketing and talking in this area of the business that we feel we prefer to just do and let others do the thinking. We believe that trying to be better, reduce waste and materials is a lifestyle and one that must be lived in much more areas than “JUST” inside our products.

For us this starts with our own factory and how we treat our workers. Everyone here surfs, loves nature and appreciates it. We need to create a bond to nature that we all are on the other side treating to bad. Only then can we learn how to save it. We have our own restaurant and we grow our own vegetables here and our workers have chickens that provide eggs and we all feel this impact every day. There is compost and we only use glasses and stainless steel straws we clean.

Of course we control all the steps of making a board from A-Z in a much more close way than ordering  a board in someone else’s factory. We learned manufacturing from The Toyota Production System (TPS) or the LEAN manufacturing which is basically the Philosophy of reducing seven wastes of lean! Please feel free to look this amazing system up. (Click here)

To get back to sustainability – one of the Lean Systems main WASTES is STOCK. Stock is probably the main “EVIL” identified in this way of life. For us it has shaped one of the most unbelievable and possibly most remarkable and unique things SUNOVA today stands for. To break free from the need to constantly throwing things away and buy new ones in a seemingly endless and useless circle. JUST because…

laminating and doing that light

The LEAST waste is created if you did not need to throw something away.

This can be achieved in 5 ways, and we are fully dedicated to each one of these:

1. make products last longer, more durable or less prone to fail
2. create a desire to keep it longer because it works awesome and is still desirable
3. allow for easy repair and education to let it be repaired
4. keep the value high so that in case it does need to move on it can move on as its desired by someone else
5. have enough choice to be able to find EXACTLY the perfect product that there is no need to don’t want it anymore.

final touches

Our idea and solution is best given in an example:

We set up a trade show booth last year and when we designed the booth and products we wanted to display we checked what boards we had available near the show, so we did not need to air freight something especially there. Unfortunately it did not look “good”. We were sold out (which was of course super good!) of almost anything. So we checked some of our own boards we had been using. PERFECT! we used a 3 year 8’10 SPEEED (which if you wanted to put a year to it would have been the 2016 model!) and after cleaning it up it looked like new! And because we do not  change our range to the latest fad color or “just because”, it was also the 2020 Speeed! 

To us there are so many ways of being green that do not necessarily only mean using biodegradable materials which we of course also love to be part of, but it means  WASTING LESS, USING IT LONGER. If we could calculate the impact of this, I am sure you would get an awesome and amazingly high percentage number and someone will surely put a number on it and an add in a magazine!

It means so much to us to see our customers stoked with our products. To come back and buy another one and use it also and to tell us how hard it is to find a sunova. We do not want to be in every seven eleven, or McDonalds. We make boards for who wants one… One by one.

And TR3 TEC is following this path and we are proud it fits so great into what  we believe is right as well as being able to do what everyone believes is right…

Martin Jandke | disruption

Bert Burger | innovation

Klaus C. Mueller | stability

sanding again

The Differences

The reasons, that XXX TEC is more expensive than TR3 TEC are the following.

The Wood

• The Balsa
  • In general is more expensive, as well as much harder to use. We puzzle app. 24 pieces of balsa panels together for 1 board. This is awesome because we get to choose each piece and areas that need more strength to get a higher density and others less. That saves weight.
  • On the bottom, this gives the SUNOVA a unique damper effect that makes the board feel so smooth in the water and especially in more bumpy water.
  • Due to the lighter density of the balsa, we must take better care of the fin area and reinforce it with extra strong  BAMBOO/fiber pieces. The TR3 does not need that. Both Techs use full cnc PVC inserts to prevent water leaks and extra strength.

• The Paulownia
• • is approximately three pieces per board and thus faster to apply. It has other issues of course or it would’ve been too easy ;-).
  • It is approximately double the density, so we use around half the thickness.
  • This reduces the sandwich structure affect a bit, because this sandwich depends more on the thickness than on anything else. So realistically the THICKER the structure the stiffer.
  • The most positive point of this wood is, that the higher density is definitely stronger for impacts like paddle and or harder objects as well as heels and knees.

The Rail

• Both constructions use a full carbon parabolic rail to generate the most stiffness with the least amount of weight.
• We keep the SUNOVA unique hand brushed rail paint to make paddle strokes as hard to see and repairs as easy as possible.

The Handle

• We love the lift SUP handle and how easy it is to use and carry the board. It is however one of the most if not the most expensive handle on the market. We feel that the new TR3 tec handle is a great exchange.

The Mast Track

• All XXX TEC boards always come with a mini windsurf Mast track built in.
• TR3 TEC does not.

The Deck Pad

• In xxx we use patches of pads to create a more hardcore feeling and add additional grip
• in TR3 we use single pad, with a cool embossed diamond grip

wood is what we do

TR3 in the rack

the new TR3 Pro tec in the race boards