UPDATE August 1, 2018
Daniel Bruch and Diamond boards is history. After 4 months Dany Bruch suddenly showed up with his “Bruch Boards” at the 2018 Gran Canaria Wind & Waves Festival and he is also the offical sponsor of his own event in El Medano. Rumors say, he split up with his business partner. We caught up with Dany for a quick statement, to find out more.
Daniel Bruch told us: “Yeah it was a quite tricky situation and a last minute decision, but I needed to separate from my partner…in a brief resume, its not the same to be friends and to be friends and work together, I am not the first one going trough this I recon, but it just didn’t work out. I needed to go to Pozo with a free head so it all went really quick. The idea initially was to carry on with Diamond, but as it was a creation of both of us, the most correct thing to do was to start from scratch. Not ideal, specially when you consider that I had spend a year setting up the factory at my partners fathers land, but that is how it is and that is why I had to change plans of production, as with the separation I had got nothing left. Luckily 7 years going to Thailand was the reward to find a way to carry on with my project of setting up my own board brand. Of course I will have my own workshop locally here in Tenerife, specially to carry on developing, but now the first focus is to finally get some boards out there ASAP. Can’t wait!”
Diamond Boards by Dany Bruch
The rumors were right. Daniel Bruch has been working on an own board brand, called Diamond Boards. We hooked up with Dany to find out more about his new project.
Continentseven: What is Diamond Boards?
Daniel Bruch: Diamond Boards is my custom and semi custom brand that comes out of the CNY Factory. Both, Diamond and CNY Factory, are two parallel but separate projects, owned by my partner, Javier Vega, a passionate windsurfer and high end engineer and me.
What will Diamond Boards offer?
Diamond Boards will have a whole range of wave, free ride, freestyle, slalom and foil boards. Our customers can choose out of different existing models, or ask for variations depending what their needs are or go for a completely different custom model they desire. Our idea is to fulfill every windsurfer’s need, mainly orientated to amateurs and those weekend sailors that don’t have the time to get used to a board, jump on and go, that is what we like to serve.
Then of course, we will have that what the experts need too, specially in wave we will have a range for the pro sailors or those aspiring to fulfill their dreams and rip it up real hard!
On the other side, the CNY Factory is more orientated to serve other brands needs. Either to produce directly with us or to develop their product until the final masters to give into mass production at Cobra.
You worked 7 years for Starboard. What will be different now?
In these 7 years that I worked for Starboard in their development of the wave boards, I suffered under the fact that I had to go to Thailand to build the prototypes, then go to Australia, Maui or Canaries to test and for a next step forward I had to return to Thailand and build more prototypes to then come back again to the open ocean sides to test until we had the masters ready. That was a lot of time traveling and a lot of expenses, a lot of excess luggage carrying 20 boards around the world each time and a lot of pressure to get things done in such a complicated scenario. Yes, it was a sick experience for the first years, but very inefficient in the end really.
At the CNY Factory we have a CNC machine and what we can offer, being 15 minutes walking distance from the Cabezo Beach, is that the brands send us their files, we build the boards and they can come with their test team on a forecast for example or come to stay in Medano directly in summer/winter time and test and modify until they are happy, in no big time frame or travel logistics.
Dany Bruch Diamond Boards
You plan to produce boards for your own brand and for the other brands. Do you think you gathered enough know-how for such a big thing?
Yeah I recon I am ready for it! Of course we have a lot to do still and a lot to prepare to be were we want to be, but step by step.
Was the start of an own brand already planned for a long time?
The concept and the plan started over 3 years ago now. You know, you get older, plan a family and want to start to travel less and enjoy your family… FaceTime is great to get along, but just not the same. At this time of the year right now, I would have been away from home already over a month and a half, that with a son of 19 months is not great, you miss too much.
Why did you call it Diamond? Inspired by Volcom?
The name was quite hard to be honest. We maybe had listed about 50 or more possible final names and could not find the right one. We wanted to have more than just a simple name or choose some word to give it a meaning after…Diamonds are a pure, extremely hard form of carbon naturally crystallized in the isometric system. Ocean is involved too so it fits great! And then all the different cut’s of Diamond will give our ranges derivation and sense; say, “The Black Diamond” will be our “Black Box” type of board, just to advance one example.
Dany Bruch rips waves on his new weapons in his home turf El Cabezo, Tenerife
What was the hardest so far during the start-up process?
Well the hardest so far was at the beginning of last year, when we actually started to clean the old chicken farm that we are transforming into our factory. Cleaning the different rooms that were locked up for over 2 years, with farmyard manure and dead chicken, with simple paper masks, turned my immune system up side down and my body had an allergic reaction to some food, same as some people are allergic to peanuts for example. I first had a Urticaria on my whole body to end up in an anaphylactic shock were I just made it to hospital to avoid the asphyxia. That was on the 25 th of January of 2017…I probably won’t forget that date…ha ha ha…it took 6 months to recover from that and even now still I have to get a monthly injection to reinforce my immune system cause now I am more sensible to climate change and dust causing asthma, something I never had before.
How do you finance the project?
Right now we have invested quite a lot already and our idea is to grow depending on the request. Right now request is quite big already, which is amazing, but we have planned our steps carefully, step by step.
Will you continue competing on the world tour or will you fully focus on this project?
Yeah I will carry on competing for sure! At least a few more years, until my body doesn’t want to do it anymore…ha ha ha…to be honest I am training a lot and fell fitter than ever and sailing a lot too and actually starting to really enjoy it more again, as the last years my windsurf sessions were more work than fun, another reason why I needed to move on. Going to the beach every day of wind with 5 boards and a bag of fins gets to a point to not being fun anymore. Of course now I am working my tits off too! But its different…in our company Windsurfing is priority! Also my idea is to promote my brand my self to start off and the PWA is a great platform for that!
When will you have your first boards available and do you plan to sell direct or trough importers?
2019 will be our target to serve customers and brands. This year we still have a lot to set up and we don’t want too much pressure and rush, we want to enjoy this process. There are many details still to be sorted and we don’t want any customer to be unhappy.
The initial idea was to sell directly, but it seems like the custom market is growing fast again and importers are very interested in working with custom brands, we have a few different options and ways, lets see how they develop during the year.
Diamonds are rare and expensive goods. Will the boards be rare and expensive?
Ha ha ha…yeah well, our idea is to serve a month after order the latest, so we should not be rare to get. Our prices will be in between 1.700€ and 2.000€, depending on the construction.
©continentseven.com 2018, photos by Bartek Jankowski & Javier Vega
Hi Daniel,
what about crowdfunding your idea? I mean it could be a good way to get some more money for first production…right?
I feel like that would work in another industry, as much as I hate to say, windsurf is still a niche sport