F-Light Series from Rip Curl

F-Light Series from Rip Curl

Have surfers been single handedly holding up the airline industry? In recent times, excess baggage fees have become rude, and with the weight of boards, wetsuits, pillows and teddy bears (what?!) you can start to imagine how it is stinging our pockets. Rip Curl figured they’d try to leave some of that coin with the traveling surfer, and so have tried to lighten the load of hauling your boards…

Part of their Jenny Craig F-Light series, the boardbags are 30-40% lighter then the average boardbag on today’s market. The outer on the boardbag is Tyvek, the same material they use in the FedEx packages that everyone stuggles to open. It still runs 10mm closed cell padding underneath it, while being waterproof and breathable. The entire project is a partnership between Rip Curl and DuPont – who are making the material for the boardbags.

These are really light – a noticeable lightness when you pick it up. The difference? Rip Curl’s triple boardbag is now 3.2kg (as opposed to the original 8kg), their double that was 3.5kgs is now at 2.4kg. And to round it off their single (which is 6?3?) is coming in at 1.6kg!!

A couple of other neat additions to the board bags include a neoprene buffer between your board and the zipper, as well knowing that all the material is recyclable.

Pretty neat to see the surf brands finally trying to address the weight of their travel gear. We should expect to see more of the same from Rip Curl slowly dripping down to their backpacks and luggage.