Rusty Ending Efforts in Snow, Wake Boards

Three years after Rusty Surfboards began making snowboards and wake boards, the company is discontinuing those lines to refocus on its core surfboard business.

“It was a very small, developing percentage of the business,” spokesman Peter Townend said of the wake board and snowboard production. “At the end of the day, you only have so much expertise and manpower and time, and you have to face up to the fact that you need to focus.”

Rusty Surfboards makes more than 10,000 surfboards a year at its San Diego manufacturing plant. The company’s apparel arm, Irvine-based Rusty Apparel--one of the most popular surfwear lines with hard-core surfers--has been busily expanding its men’s and juniors lines and launching its Rusty Girl swimwear.

The company says it has $70 million in annual sales and is growing domestically and abroad.

But Rusty was only producing only 4,000 to 5,000 snowboards and wake boards a year, despite the rising popularity of those sports, Townend said. Buyers tended to stick with more familiar snowboard and wake board brands, he said.

“We just weren’t able to break through in sufficient numbers to continue to justify the marketing expense,” Townend said. “After three years, we just needed to be further down the road than that.”