In 2004 Fanatic shaper Sebastian Wenzel revolutionised Production board design with his CAD/CNC system.
Five years later the challenge of pursuing this new revolutionary system has paid off!
Our competition is still fighting hard to catch up and we are still in a very comfortable lead. But it is not just a CAD/CNC system that guarantees success. It is the entire set up that needs to be right. Starting with the right software to design the boards and connecting it to the machine. Only highly sophisticated software is capable of designing the complex surfaces of a Windsurfing board.
But the machining process also needs to be set up perfectly to ensure a 100% accurate result. 5 years of CAD/CNC experience ensures that Fanatic is the undisputed leader in revolutionary Windsurfing board design.
The database is growing constantly and we keep learning every day. An experienced team of more than 14 years at Fanatic, is what sets us apart when it comes to creating an innovative, complete and yet compact range of boards.
Sebastian explains:
“I have written down all data from all boards I have shaped since 1993, have all specification sheets, which are coming out of the production at Cobra and also archived all templates from my prototypes. I even noted in my shaping book how often I had to go over which part of the board, with which sandpaper. But even the best shaper cannot compete with the accuracy of a CNC shaping machine. This machine can easily make accurate shapes of up to a hundreds or thousands of a millimetre. It was quite a challenge to master this highly complex software, however the time, money and effort spent on this project is paying off now and it is getting really hard to make the boards even better at this stage. Just have a look at our International test results!”
Sebastian is able to easily and accurately compare shapes, regardless of how small the changes are. Plus with our various test teams feedback, he can make the necessary changes for the perfect shapes. The software used to design our boards is standard today in industrial 3D CAD design and is capable of designing anything you can imagine.
Nothing however beats the actual testing on the water part of our R&D process. We truly use all of our team riders and experienced testing staff, to daily challenge Sebastian to come up with even better designs. While other brands just talk about involving their riders and make pro models with zero actual input from their pro team, we embrace and demand input from our riders. Sebastian Wenzel shapes ALL boards for our team´s use, why would we let any other shaper use the know-how and experience our riders can offer? If the shapes are not good enough for our team, then they are also not good enough to go to production, simple.
The future is wide open for CAD technology and we are really excited to see what´s coming next!”
