The Hot Tornado

We are looking into building Sexyloops rods in the US for the US market. Maybe the “Hot Tornado”. I’m getting legal advice to find out how this works as an International company manufacturing in the US, particularly regarding how sales tax applies. Some aspects of this process will be cheaper, for example we already fit US components manufactured by REC — reel seat fittings, rod rings and the Sexyloops rod tube are all REC. Rod decals are printed in the US too. Torzites of course are Japanese, cork is from Portugal and the blanks are rolled in Spain. I don’t think prices will change by very much and any difference will certainly be less than 600 dollars!!

Manufacturing in the US for the US market is something we have been discussing for over three years. I think there are advantages in doing this for the US customer. So it’s something we have been actively working on. It’s just now it makes even more sense, because we certainly can’t absorb a $600 tariff! We don’t even make that on a rod and if we did I wouldn’t be living in a small Battleship in the jungle but instead the QE2.

Now someone here reading this page, working in IT, might be able to recommend some software that can track supplies levels for components? I also plan a rod builder in Australia soon too. Three rod builders with different stock levels — I don’t think that can be done on the back of a beer mat, or as in this case, a whiteboard on the wall of the Battleship toilet. So if anyone knows and can recommend suitable software for tracking stock levels, then please let me know!! It’s already very complicated and if I know anything about anything, having three rod builders is going to be more than three times more complicated.

This is all quite exciting and while it sounds like a bit of a headache, I think assembling in three strategically located places around the world does make a lot of sense. For the Australian market I’m thinking “Hot Tuxedo”.

I hope to have both locations set up by January. I think this is going to cost me about 40-50K dollars to initiate, so back to living on beans and beer for a while.

Talking of beans and beer, the Malaysian Ironman is just around the corner. And very exciting that is too. This week I start swimming. As a seasoned triathlete, like all other seasoned triathletes, I leave the swimming training until the last minute. Sometimes I don’t even train at all! In my case it’s not just because I don’t enjoy swimming, but also because I’m terrified of Snakehead biting my toes. You would be too, if you’d caught the fish that I’ve caught around here.

Swimming aside, I’m certainly better trained than previous years… I think it’s a case of accumulated training hours. Also I have different gear ratios on the bike. And I have a better fuelling strategy. My entire race plan is to negative split on the run. If I can manage that then I will regard this as a success, no matter how quick or slow the actual time. Hopefully it rains. This time the race is later in the year so this is certainly a possibility. But I’m not going to get my hopes up for rain, because the last two events it was dry on the run and last year in particular was actually a sauna.

What I like about Ironman is that it has kept me training all year long, in fact non-stop for over five years. Averaging 10 and often 15+ hours/week. Maybe at some point I’ll actually do more than one race/year!

If you are interested in a really first-rate sports podcast then I find this one to be truly outstanding:

https://open.spotify.com/show/3g71AuFYy6FnYHEI1GO9A0?si=AGS954W4RQeG0PREFwh8Ng

That’s the weekly news from me! I’m in a very remote part of the lake. About 90 minutes by speedboat from the jetty and three hours by Battleship. And I have found Snakehead. So it’s all about to happen….

Have a great week!

Cheers, Paul