I am 75kg
I have a 1010 axis on a short fuselage. I ride a 4 or5m wasp usually in 17-25Knots

i started on a 125 l naish hover.
after 6 sessions I went down I a 6"4' fanatic sky sup 95l. It's so much better than the big board
I can jybe and tack on foil and can ride small waves.

I want to get a smaller board

how small can you go and still be able to start on your knees? I should add, for normal humans at an intermediate level

can we talk body weight (BW) + or minus litres

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Yuppy said..
I am 75kg
I have a 1010 axis on a short fuselage. I ride a 4 or5m wasp usually in 17-25Knots

i started on a 125 l naish hover.
after 6 sessions I went down I a 6"4' fanatic sky sup 95l. It's so much better than the big board
I can jybe and tack on foil and can ride small waves.

I want to get a smaller board

how small can you go and still be able to start on your knees? I should add, for normal humans at an intermediate level

can we talk body weight (BW) + or minus litres

Do a search there a few threads on this. 10l over weight is safe. Short and wide got the gong but they are harder to pump onto foil. Very small is good too apparently.

Sounds like you are advancing faster than most. With mediocre abilities, I have had no problems with +7 in fresh water so you can probably go +5 easily. Some believe that for surface stability, width is what matters the most but I am not so sure. I think overall surface area, board volume, foil volume, foil/mast drag all matter a lot for knee starting. I also don't see any benefits for width less than about 24 inches for a wing board.

I am 105kg and can knee start on a 95L (although it is a pain in choppy conditions). On a 110L it is super easy. I think you will probably get away with a 75L.

Plus 0 is doable at my age of 66. Plus 8 is comfortable, and what I use. Minus 10 I've done, but too much work.

Young guys plus 0...everyone else plus 5 to 10

I hope Josh gets his 75L Fanatic soon Yuppie, then we can give a small board a go. At 70kg my 92L is starting to feel very big.

Ive just cut dowm a windsurfer and made a wing board. Aprox. 60 litres, I'm 78 litres, goes unreal on the foil, a bit tricky to get started though!

I'm 85kg and going to -10L. 5'x25.5"x75L. Just need to wait for the next Sunova delivery to WA.
Mainly use a 5.3m wing and axis 101/1000.
Demo'd a similar size and loved it (see images below), this one weighs in at 4.5kg (Vapor Tr3tec)
I found the small Wing board as easy to get up an foiling as my 115L aviator, however you do need to knee start.
West Oz is generally consistently windy all summer so small board should be a lot of fun for downwinging.

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dboy63 said..
Ive just cut dowm a windsurfer and made a wing board. Aprox. 60 litres, I'm 78 litres, goes unreal on the foil, a bit tricky to get started though!

I watched your struggle to start with and thought what is the point. Now you have it sussed I can see the benefits, you look very comfortable riding swells and through transitions. Tempted to give a smaller board a go, not sure the knees will survive it though.

We have been playing around a bit and made a few customs for some crew, this one is sitting in my shop at the moment at 5ft x 23 x 75L x 4.1kg

I was thinking i could just normal SUP foil it as i don't do huge amount of wind winging. If you are starting on your knees(something i can not do because of dodge knees) you should be able to do body weight to equal Volume.

Good timing! I just had my first attempt at knee starting a shorter board yesterday. Roughly 5.8x24, 80L. I normally ride 6.8 sup, probably 120ish.

Pretty dodgy start, I couldn't balance on it, kept pitching forward when I tried to lift the wing. Required being a little further back, so nose stuck up, and keeping balance point lower. I only got up once, did 3 reaches and concentrated really hard on not falling off in turns, and then my time was up. Being lit up makes it way easier -- and super windy helps too, haha. Once up on my feet, it felt like normal getting up on foil and it was SO nice to ride with less swing weight.

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Relapse said..
I hope Josh gets his 75L Fanatic soon Yuppie, then we can give a small board a go. At 70kg my 92L is starting to feel very big.

Problem is, josh doesn't want to give up his 75l and I have ordered the 95l. I think it's too big.
Judging from this feedback, I believe a BW + 5l is the perfect minimum size for knee starts.

Just learnt to wing a few weeks ago must admit I already windsurf foil and kite foil so winging was just natural evolution learnt on 170 ltr 7 ft 2 sup great to learn on as you don't get wet. on my seventh session decided to try something different I have an old course race kite board approximately 50 ltr had to learn how to do a knee start but no problem and even at 85 kgs I could probably still go smaller yes it is a little wobbly but only for a few seconds it is such a good board to ride. First attempt I could jibe both ways and even switch feet on the foil what a huge difference to ride a small board not so good to learn on but I would recommend going to a small board as soon as your skill level allows you

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paul.j said..
We have been playing around a bit and made a few customs for some crew, this one is sitting in my shop at the moment at 5ft x 23 x 75L x 4.1kg

I was thinking i could just normal SUP foil it as i don't do huge amount of wind winging. If you are starting on your knees(something i can not do because of dodge knees) you should be able to do body weight to equal Volume.

paul.j - this board sounds awesome!!!!! I've been using the Fanatic 5.0 for winging, which is an inch wider than this but the same 75 ltrs. I'm 83 kg and quite tall (I've always had to use wider boards than most people for SUP surfing (I used my height as an excuse but TBH I think I've just got crap balance when still - when moving I'm fine). I kneel start the Fanatic no problem. It's a nice board but my only grip about it is that it's heavy at 6.5 kg. No, that's not a typo, 6.5kg !!!!!!!!!!!! Any chance you can export from AUS to Muscat, Oman?

Just got hold of an old sup board.
Cut the back off it, length 4 foot 10 inches. Dropped some reinforced boxs in it , did some fairly rough rail shaping, glassed it. It ended up super chunky at the rear end. And very wide in the middle.
Was unsure how it was going to go, but to my suprise wad great, easy to get up, forgiving in transitions and small enough to feel good on waves, volume aprox. 75 litres
All this for under $300.00. Bonus!

Well done.. Looks good.

73kg here. Just moved to 80l after 6 months at 100l. Absolutely no problem to knee start and managed to drift home on my knees after the wind dropped. So for me +7 seems OK to get back on your knees at a pinch.

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dboy63 said..
Just got hold of an old sup board.
Cut the back off it, length 4 foot 10 inches. Dropped some reinforced boxs in it , did some fairly rough rail shaping, glassed it. It ended up super chunky at the rear end. And very wide in the middle.
Was unsure how it was going to go, but to my suprise wad great, easy to get up, forgiving in transitions and small enough to feel good on waves, volume aprox. 75 litres
All this for under $300.00. Bonus!

That's really cool, fair play dboy.. I havnt got the skills to do this myself but if I sourced an old board what do you think a shaper would charge me to do this? What was the donor sup? Great job...!

Good to hear Slyde.

I am waiting for the delivery of Lemon 4'10 85liters and Unit 5m. I'm 78kg and this will be my first go on winging. Can't wait :)

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IanInca said..

dboy63 said..
Just got hold of an old sup board.
Cut the back off it, length 4 foot 10 inches. Dropped some reinforced boxs in it , did some fairly rough rail shaping, glassed it. It ended up super chunky at the rear end. And very wide in the middle.
Was unsure how it was going to go, but to my suprise wad great, easy to get up, forgiving in transitions and small enough to feel good on waves, volume aprox. 75 litres
All this for under $300.00. Bonus!

Hi lanInca, sup board was a proto Smic board.
I dont know for sure what a shaper would charge, but at a guess probably $300 to $500 dollars. You can reuse grip off the sup.

That's really cool, fair play dboy.. I havnt got the skills to do this myself but if I sourced an old board what do you think a shaper would charge me to do this? What was the donor sup? Great job...!