Navis Boards - A rare glimpse into the building of a board business

Over the last few months I've had the rare privilege to take a look inside the making of a kiteboards building business - Navis Boards which is going live in mid-April.

This is not a case of a back shed operator trying to build one board for himself and one to sell. No indeed. Mirsad Cviko, based over in Sweden, started with passion for kiting, a blank sheet of paper and in the middle of a one of the poorest economic climates in most of our memories secured a financial backer, went about researching the hell out of how to make the greenest kiteboards around and started to source and build industrial strength equipment which recently all came together for a first test pressing.

Part of the Mirsad's great story owes a debt to global trade made accessible to anyone with a Commodore 64 or better:) . It's made it possible for a startup on the banks of the Baltic Sea to source niche products from far flung corners of the world. Bio-epoxy from the US, Paulownia wood from Slovenia, Basalt Fibre ( yes that's right spun volcanic lava that requires no doping with nasty impurities to enhance its properties likes fibreglass does and it's 100% recyclable) from Europe (and I jumped on the bandwagon and looked at sourcing some from China via Alibaba.com) and accessories from Taiwan!!! Maaate, every board is a little slice of the united nations in kiteboard form:)

One of the other things that has been impressive to watch is how he's been able to reach out and engage his very talent group of friends and family. Engineers to put together this pneumatic press capable of 90 psi (i.e around 36 tonnes of force over the surface of the board) from the mother of all I-beams,

Dad helped properly wire  this dual PID temperature controller for driving the silicon heat blankets for speeding up curing while toughening the resin ....

 ..... and not only are there techo's but there's artist among them as well

 Its easy to get excited about a project yourself but to be able to get other people excited about it is a credit to his leadership skills. And here's the kicker... Mirsad is an engineer and being an engineer myself I know that people don't often compute so he's obviously got both sides of the brain working on this project.

And here's what is all about..

Great work Mirsad. Looking forward to seeing the first board roll off the production line!!!