Inflatable Paddle Board recalls – But NOT Red Paddle Co

Reassurance from our Founder and CEO – John Hibbard 

 If you’ve landed on this page, then you’re probably aware of the inflatable paddle board recalls that are currently happening and you may be wondering whether we are involved. First and foremost, I wanted to reassure you that Red Paddle Co boards are NOT part of the recalls. There are several reasons why we are not involved that are important and that I would like to share with you.

With the growth of SUP over the past 15 years it was only a matter of time before there was a major production issue. We’ve always felt this would come from brands that are made in shared facilities on mixed production lines. As demand increases so does the pressure on the people making the material and building the products. We’ve doubled down on our processes in periods of high demand to ensure we are doing better than before and ensure we have control over the products that carry the Red name. We’d rather fall short on production quantity than deliver products we are not proud of. 15 years is a good teacher, and we like to think that doing what we do from the very earliest days of SUP puts us in a position that we know what we are doing and are delivering on our promise to Never Compromise.  

I don’t want to speculate on what has caused this current wave of recalls but there is a reason we make our boards the way we do and ultimately where we do, and this comes down to 15 years of board building experience. From the very early days of building boards, we knew that a lack of control and process will quickly land you in all sorts of trouble. It is for that reason that we make our boards in our own private facility and we do not use shared factories or production lines for any of our products. We also don’t make boards for anyone else – despite what some companies claim. We’ve heard it so many times before “built in the same factory as Red”. This is just not true. Our facility is set up just to make our boards, we have no interest in making boards for anyone else.  

Our focus has, and will always be, material knowledge and product design. Good Inflatable paddle boards are incredibly complex products to produce well – it is not something that can be rushed for the pursuit of dollar returns. We feel that the only option is to have complete understanding and ultimate control of every element, no matter how small and that starts with product design.  

Many things that might become issues later down the line are tested and smoothed out during the design and sampling stage. Our highly experienced in-house design team are constantly working together with everyone in our supply chain to ensure we are reading from the same page and working towards shared goals.  

  There are many ways to trip up when making an inflatable board, but if we focus on the elements that effect the structural integrity, which appears to be the issue with the current recalls then they can be narrowed down to heat, humidity, adhesives and process.