g'day.

its taken me 4/6 mths to get comfortable on my JP pro 8'6" 113 L, for most conditions, 1ft to 6/8 east coast beachies and points. Dropping 5 kg to get to 88/90 kg has prob been the best help.
Im looking for suggestions for a 2nd board, for the small /weak days 1/3 ft and gutless waves.
Any suggestions?, either a long board 10ft wave focused or a fish style board ?
Was thinking a JP slate but don't know which size or a Smik twin fin or even their twin fin long board ? Thinking 120 to 130 litres ?

Good work on losing weight.
In terms of 10ft boards plenty good options such as Fanatic Stylemaster, Starboard Longboard,NSP DC Super X and Smik.

I'd be looking at a performance 10', something like the DEEP JC 10'1" they turn great yet you're still able to toes on nose. Or lose more weight and go down a size

Thank you, trying to decide between a performance 10" sup or a short square fish, eg JP slate ?.
Cheers for all the feed back

Have you ever ridden a shorter square style SUP? I've owned a couple and tried hard but just could never get along with them.

A 10 footer long board style on the other hand.....

No haven't ridden a small square style sup, I have fish style surf boards, but I've obviously different to paddle short board and turn boards with big wide tails. Would like to demo, but difficult when living in a small costal town. Might try my luck next Goldie visit with a demo ?

I had an 8'1 gulliver box (which was prob too big for me) but it rocked!
i used to have 8'5 starboard pro and after one surf on the gulliver, sold the pro the next day.

They can be great fun for shredding for sure! And I also had mine in big stuff too

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Nerdburger said..
Thank you, trying to decide between a performance 10" sup or a short square fish, eg JP slate ?.
Cheers for all the feed back

I guess it depends on what you want to do:
- noseride and glide => 10'. Great on barely breaking waves.
- aggressive "shortboard" surfing, bursts of speed and acceleration, rollers galore => fish, 7' or less. Great with waves that break somewhat predictably, as paddle speed is slow.
- glide and rollers => Simmons, about 8' or less. Great for smooth carving arcs, even in micro waves. More latency in turns than a fish shape, but more glide in turns.

The trick is to get really short with the short square fish shapes. In my opinion, 8' is much too long, hence I guess the reason why some people are disappointed with things like the slate, hypernut, etc... in really small waves. The shorter the board the slower is their planing speed, thus a 6'x" board will be at a full plane on 5s period waves, whereas a 8' will still feel sluggish as stuck in mixed displacement/planing speeds. Plus you drive these boards the foot on the kickpad, and a huge wide nose 8' away is incredibly cumbersome.

As for all small wave boards, a light weight, especially in the nose, is very important.

Another option is to get a pointy nose shape: imagine a 7' fish but with a 1' protruding from it. Basically you get the nimbleness and accelerations of a 7' board, but can lower the nose on the water surface to get the early wave entry of a 8' board. However they are tricky on takeoff, as it is easy to trip sideways with the rail catching, especially in chop.

Here on the right a 7'10" pointy nose I had with this kind of shape (118l for my 100kg), it could perform insane rollers in calf-high waves breaking only for 5 meters rides. But I sold it as it was too hard in chop. The 6'6" on the left (130l) was super stable and hyper fun in junk waves, but paddled quite slowly.

JP slate 7'6 is a fun board, with tails that wide you have to be very active with back foot placement to get them to work well. Really enjoyed but was out shone in the turning department by the hipster twin. Slate had a much better low speed planing threshold though and kept its speed amazingly in junk. Now have a 9' stylemaster for small stuff as like to move around and keep active!

Interesting the slate vs style master. I found i was influenced by a longboard surfer this year that the large set waves still surf great bottom and top turns but on the smaller mushy waves had the length to get paddling speed ti catch the waves and can always to 5 on the nose
I think the slates have their place in a quiver after 10 years wavesailing taranaki with what sail, board and fin the less choice the better - just surf and don't worry about equipment. One mate loves his but i want to try different - 10ft nose riding small waves and on the tail cranking bottom turns when its bigger Moving around and catching plenty waves ( with sharing with surfers) to suit the session

If you want a go to board to accompany your 8'6 JP then try the 10 ft Atlantis Mistress . Great noserider and surfing performance style longboard. (designed by Beau Young)
I take this and my 7'10 Smik to the beach and usually ride the 10 footer most times as it is bulk fun to ride. I ride this in any size from 1 to 6 ft with ease. The Smik is only used when the conditions suit as and is an awesome board as well.
Price for the Atlantis Mistress is reasonable as well

@515 when are we going for a sup
together? Was out at muriwai on sat when it was 2.6m and solid! Few other paddlers out there. My cousins live in taranaki and surfer there a few times too

Colas, wow great overview, thank you very much, also big thanks to everyone else's feed back and experience. Will need to give it some more thought. Thinking 9 or 10 ft 28 inch SMIK Hipster Twin might be the go.

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Nerdburger said..
Colas, wow great overview, thank you very much, also big thanks to everyone else's feed back and experience. Will need to give it some more thought. Thinking 9 or 10 ft 28 inch SMIK Hipster Twin might be the go.

+ 1

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wazza66 said..
If you want a go to board to accompany your 8'6 JP then try the 10 ft Atlantis Mistress . Great noserider and surfing performance style longboard. (designed by Beau Young)
I take this and my 7'10 Smik to the beach and usually ride the 10 footer most times as it is bulk fun to ride. I ride this in any size from 1 to 6 ft with ease. The Smik is only used when the conditions suit as and is an awesome board as well.
Price for the Atlantis Mistress is reasonable as well

I do like the look and price of the mistress but I wish they had a size between the 28" and 32" wide. I reckon 30" would be spot on @ 10'.
But I imagine if you ride a 7'10 then your probably on the 10' by 28" Mistress

Hi Nerdburger,
Sounds like the Smik is your choice. Whatever you get let us know

Hi Ben,

Muriwai can be good when its smaller and offshore.
Yes catch up for paddle, these days I normally do Long bay (1km from home), orewa, tawharanui with family.
The naki has so many breaks but haven't been back after knee reconstruction and selling house down there .