Looking for feed back on anyone in the 85 -90 plus kg riding this board...please.

That'd be me. 6'4" and 87kg.
Float: no worries at all. Could take a few extra kegs.
Tip: a full-time occupation if there's a bit of wonk in the water, as the front-to-back tippiness is there, but easy if it's smooth. Better than my 2013 8'5" pro by a mile, even if it's 106L.
Glide: what you;d expect from low volume/length but paddles really well. Wide nose keeps you going to paddle into waves.
Surfing:The board is great. It's taken me about a month to get half an idea about how to ride it, because the width to length ratio is pretty full-on and it wants to stay flat on the water rather than get up on a rail and bite. Rails are quite fine, and when you do get smooth water at speed and want to turn it comes with you. I have c-drives in it which work way better than the 4.7" and 4.5" quads it comes with. Just chucked a knubster in too, and it steadies it right up, plus improves drive on top of the improvement from c-drives. Has a tendency to slide in top turns/hooks when you have speed (sans knubster). Brilliant acceleration thru/out of bottom turns with all those fins. Light and small enough that you can get carried away and think you;re 29 again and on a shortboard and.....anyway, it's pretty responsive. No tube riding experience on this board as yet, though (Maldives in July, though....) but suspect its width would make things a bit tricky.

I haven;t tried the 30" wide version but it could also be good, might surf a bit better. If you have the chance to grab one I'd say yes.

cheers

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Tang said..

That'd be me. 6'4" and 87kg.
Float: no worries at all. Could take a few extra kegs.
Tip: a full-time occupation if there's a bit of wonk in the water, as the front-to-back tippiness is there, but easy if it's smooth. Better than my 2013 8'5" pro by a mile, even if it's 106L.
Glide: what you;d expect from low volume/length but paddles really well. Wide nose keeps you going to paddle into waves.
Surfing:The board is great. It's taken me about a month to get half an idea about how to ride it, because the width to length ratio is pretty full-on and it wants to stay flat on the water rather than get up on a rail and bite. Rails are quite fine, and when you do get smooth water at speed and want to turn it comes with you. I have c-drives in it which work way better than the 4.7" and 4.5" quads it comes with. Just chucked a knubster in too, and it steadies it right up, plus improves drive on top of the improvement from c-drives. Has a tendency to slide in top turns/hooks when you have speed (sans knubster). Brilliant acceleration thru/out of bottom turns with all those fins. Light and small enough that you can get carried away and think you;re 29 again and on a shortboard and.....anyway, it's pretty responsive. No tube riding experience on this board as yet, though (Maldives in July, though....) but suspect its width would make things a bit tricky.

I haven;t tried the 30" wide version but it could also be good, might surf a bit better. If you have the chance to grab one I'd say yes.

cheers

Select to expand quote

Tang said..

That'd be me. 6'4" and 87kg.
Float: no worries at all. Could take a few extra kegs.
Tip: a full-time occupation if there's a bit of wonk in the water, as the front-to-back tippiness is there, but easy if it's smooth. Better than my 2013 8'5" pro by a mile, even if it's 106L.
Glide: what you;d expect from low volume/length but paddles really well. Wide nose keeps you going to paddle into waves.
Surfing:The board is great. It's taken me about a month to get half an idea about how to ride it, because the width to length ratio is pretty full-on and it wants to stay flat on the water rather than get up on a rail and bite. Rails are quite fine, and when you do get smooth water at speed and want to turn it comes with you. I have c-drives in it which work way better than the 4.7" and 4.5" quads it comes with. Just chucked a knubster in too, and it steadies it right up, plus improves drive on top of the improvement from c-drives. Has a tendency to slide in top turns/hooks when you have speed (sans knubster). Brilliant acceleration thru/out of bottom turns with all those fins. Light and small enough that you can get carried away and think you;re 29 again and on a shortboard and.....anyway, it's pretty responsive. No tube riding experience on this board as yet, though (Maldives in July, though....) but suspect its width would make things a bit tricky.

I haven;t tried the 30" wide version but it could also be good, might surf a bit better. If you have the chance to grab one I'd say yes.

cheers

That's a big help Tang. Did you struggle a bit at first or find it manageable straight up? Im 92 kgs and had a little paddle on the 30wide in the flat I reckon I could get there eventually, but would prefer the extra width. Can you get it over whitewater ok? And do you have to take off later or can you stroke in fairly easy? Your fin combo sounds like a sweet set up. Cheers

Hey Tang, any chance of some photos of your fin setup? And why do you think it tends to slide on a top turn? Maybe getting too high and poppin the fins?? Also, what size C-drives do you use?

No worries.
I was fine straight up, but that was coming from the 2013 8'5" pro, which I find hard in any real chop or wind over 10 knots because I'm too damn tall and my centre of gravity is too damn high. If you;re 92kg it would still float you no probs, but your height has a lot to do with it (seems most tall blokes understand this). Whitewater is no real probs but it doesnt cut through like the pointier boards will. Takeoffs are pretty much the same - later is better anyway, that way you can do your bottom turns with max speed.
Photos - I'll try. Struggling to find the time to whack a deck grip on it.
Slides because I spent 25 years riding thrusters/singles and dunno how to drive a quad...yet. Also the stupid amount of tail area plays a part. BUt the knubster makes it hold for now. Poppin the fins...? I wish!
XL C-drives - they're weight-based. I can still throw it around in small stuff, but it just hangs on as speed/steepness increases. Which reminds me - I need a fcs cdrive tail fin.......

Ive heard the pro's are harder to ride. Yes I agree being taller ( im just over 6') makes u a bit of a kite when the wind kicks in but you have helped me to see that a sub 8' board is doable. Ive only been riding since last October and Im on the 8'2 WP carbon now and really like it but want to push on to smaller and lighter. Hangin to see what starboard have in the making for 2015 stock and thinking I should just be patient and get dialled on this board and see what comes out. But start drooling every time I see an airborn! Thanks for your input and help!

Hey guys,

Ive enjoyed reading your insights into Airborn 7'10 x 31.5 in this thread.
Just a quick question. Are you all referring to the carbon construction model your fweedback?
If so, does anyone have any experience with the wood or AST construction?
I'm thinkin 90kg might be OK in the carbon but out of the question in the heavier construction

Your thoughts...

Hi north, I was referring to the carbon model cas it is sooo light and strong, but I think the other constructions are good to. Being over 90 kilo and wanting a smaller board I prefer to keep it light. I know of a of guy riding the 7'10 x 31.5 and he is heavier than me but a lot more experienced which shows, I guess, that it can be done if you hang in there.

Are you saying the lighter board is more stable, all other factors the same?

Tang, that was a great review.

Gents, yes, that was about the carbons. However, the carbon boards, being so light, also seem to be a bit corky and from what I've experienced and heard, it actually seems to make them a bit less stable that the wood or AST construction, which are heavier and sit down in the water more. Having said that, the lightness means the responsiveness is unreal, and carting one to the beach is something you can actually look forward to rather than dread (even with starby's neanderthal straight grip handle). I've also got the 2012 8'5" pro in wood, and while the 2013 is quite a different shape (for a start it went from 123L down to 106L and also from pintail to square tail) the swing weight of the 2013 carbon board just makes it that much easier to react to things. Perhaps if I was going to get a 9'-10' gun I'd consider getting off carbon (or the light boards) for the steadiness but I can;t really see me being able to handle anything down here that the 8'5" can't handle. It starts surfing properly at solid 4ft and sings in 5-6ft.

cheers

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windara said..

Hey Tang, any chance of some photos of your fin setup? And why do you think it tends to slide on a top turn? Maybe getting too high and poppin the fins?? Also, what size C-drives do you use?

Finally, here it is - very similar to Colas' board on the surf fins thread on the general page






I have surfed the board with knubster in both the front and back slots/positions, and probably need some good waves to figure it out. Both stiffen the board up about 30-40%, with the rear position generating far more drive. Then again, the waves in rode it in with it at the rear had a lot more drive....

Great photos! So are they the large size C-drive fins yeh? Looks like a nice set up. On my 8'2 WP I have changed the large rear fins for a set of 3.5's ( the smallest SB fins ) and it has loosened it up and surprisingly doesn't feel like it will slip out, and that's pushing quite hard on bottom turns. Happy with the change. So did you buy those fins on-line direct from them? Cheers Tang :)

They're the XL c-drives. I'm 87kg and they're weight-based.

I took the knubster out this morning (and surfed on my own for half an hour at dawn...) and it was 1ft with the odd rogue 2-footer. The board was completely different, far, far looser but heaps of grip. Just got a new set of c-drives from Troy today so that I can put the thruster fin in the airborne, and will see how this goes.

Looks like a good few days down here to try it out....if you can weave your way through the inevitable throng who will be here and frothing that little bit extra thanks to the surf forecast websites talking it up...and might even try dome small regular fins in the 3/4 positions to see if it'll hang on when it's a bit bigger.

I see Colas has also used a 5-fin c-drive setup, though it looks like he might have different size fins front and back, whereas all mine are XL (check the surf fins thread).

cheers

Hi Tang. yes on wide-tail boards you need to take care to always take some rail before going into the turn, or you will slide more than an narrower board. Also having the foot so far aft as to be on the leash plug helps not having to move it too much laterally.

The 5-fin fcs setup was nice to provide a smoother handling when the board was used in its upper wave range. Actually it is a way to extend your board range easily. But of course it can stiffen it too much in small conditions, especially since your rear quad boxes seem so far back.
In small conditions you may try to go thruster: 3 XL C-Drive are a very pleasant combo, giving you the nimbleness of the thruster while keeping some drive. A Twin fin config with twin-sized fins in the rear boxes is also cool in small waves/

On the sizing, I am not a good enough surfer to manage 4 XL C-Drives, having QM sized rears was easier for me to enter into turns. With too big rears like you have I tend to "understeer" (board come flat mid-turn) by lack of technique (I guess not commited enough in my upper body positioning). Also having small rear quads makes adding a small trailer not feel overfinned I guess.

Very nice to see other discovering C-Drives. They are the underrated ideal complement of short SUP boards!

I'm hoping to do a bit of serious fin trialling over the next week, so I'll report back.
Agree with what you have said, Colas, the cdrives are great for smaller sup boards. I first put them on an 8'5"pro and they improved it outta sight.
The thing I find hardest with the wide tail boards is getting the board on rail to turm and maintaining fin penetration/grip - the tendency is for the width to keep the board from being able to bite like the narrow boards and prevent the fins getting enough water around them.
The cdrives also seem to require you to be able to "drive" them, that is, you need to know how to generate speed through turns to make them work properly, so beginners might not see the benefit of them.
I don't find the 4 XL fins lead to under steer on their own, but putting the knubster in did exactly that. Of course, that will make the board hang on better too, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the board can handle with two or three swells due here in the next week from 3-6ft.....

Hey Tang, How did the new C Drive fins go? What size were they?

Gday windara,

The c-drives I have in it were XL, though when the swell got up on A-Day (it was pumping down here, apparently the reefs were 6ft+ on the sets, and where I was was about 5ft with sets nudging 6ft) I was on the 8'5" which might be a wobbly b*stard to stand on in any chop, but comes into its own with a bit of speed under it and c-drives as a thruster. A couple of speed runs reminded me of Jeffery's back in '96.....aaaahhhh.

I rode the 7'10" as a thruster once, but it just didn;t have the same degree of hold or acceleration that it has with a quad set up. Of course, it might have been due to the waves being 4ft and me needing a few more sq inches of fin to hang on. I would have been better off with the quad and knubster that day. I only rode it with the knubster in in waves up to solid 3ft, and it seems to go better without the knubster when it's that small. So it seems what you;d expect - bigger waves, more fin and smaller waves less. I'll tryand surf it as a thruster one day soon in smaller surf to see how it goes, too.

cheers

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Tang said..

Gday windara,

The c-drives I have in it were XL, though when the swell got up on A-Day (it was pumping down here, apparently the reefs were 6ft+ on the sets, and where I was was about 5ft with sets nudging 6ft) I was on the 8'5" which might be a wobbly b*stard to stand on in any chop, but comes into its own with a bit of speed under it and c-drives as a thruster. A couple of speed runs reminded me of Jeffery's back in '96.....aaaahhhh.

I rode the 7'10" as a thruster once, but it just didn;t have the same degree of hold or acceleration that it has with a quad set up. Of course, it might have been due to the waves being 4ft and me needing a few more sq inches of fin to hang on. I would have been better off with the quad and knubster that day. I only rode it with the knubster in in waves up to solid 3ft, and it seems to go better without the knubster when it's that small. So it seems what you;d expect - bigger waves, more fin and smaller waves less. I'll tryand surf it as a thruster one day soon in smaller surf to see how it goes, too.

cheers

Hey Tang, Sounds like yr having some fun down there. I contacted Troy about a set of fins but hes having problems with manufacturing and its going to be a few months before I can order some fins. Ah well. Talk again mate

Yep, a lot. That's right about the fins - but it's a minor issue, so if I were you I'd get the order in asap! cheers