SupChickadee said..
Hey Brenno
how does the stability etc. compare to the 8'10 sups you had?
Much better. Even at 28" wide.
I was always a great believer that shorter was better, easier to turn on a wave, better to surf. Of course I had longer bigger boards, but they're for small waves. Aren't they?
But the trade off at 6'2" tall and hovering around 100kg was that I had to go wider for stability.
And then you start dishpanning, and pushing the tail out and stalling, having to paddle like hell to get moving again, yawing around the centre of the board, and generally working far too hard to carve and flow. Unless of course it's pumping. Which is rare thing to line up with days off.
So by not cutting out those two really big parts of the nose to turn a longboard shape in to a shortboard shape, the increase in stability for me is huge. And I'm no Mick Fanning. And my local ain't Bells. And my boy is outsurfing me still. Forever.
The magic of this board is all in the tail. Flows and carves. This morning was wally, glassy and magic. One of those rare ones when the offshore blows the spray past you as you paddle back out. Mint.
But my favourite wave of the day was this arvo, a fat wally beachy, when I really stood on the tail and sprayed a whole heap of salt water towards a couple of local lads sitting on their short boards. And then turned back down the wave for more. I felt like I was really smashing it. Hope no one filmed it, I might be disappointed.
Life's good.

