Red Paddle Co. boards are more expensive than others for sure. I will say this though – while they are made in China (like pretty much everything these days, even Apple laptops), there is a TON of research and development that occurs in the UK. Red Paddle Co is a company that takes very serious the design of their boards, and you see that in the innovations they come up with every year. For example, this year they launched the speed tail on their sport models and the v-hull on their Voyager series.