Has anyone tried a Surftech Bark Vapour 14 yet? Impressions?

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Area10 said..
Has anyone tried a Surftech Bark Vapour 14 yet? Impressions?

A shop Here in Ontario has a prototype. There's been some very positive feedback posted on Facebook from people demoing it.. Here's the link to the product, there's a blurb in there somewhere.. As its a prototyp, I'd be inclined to take any opinions with the requisite grain of salt...
http://pspsupspecialists.com/surftech-bark-vapor-14/

My first impression is that I would like one but that I cannot afford it with our low currency.

Not sure if you have seen this "review":



And it looks like a off the shelf model not a prototype.

Cheers,

luc

looks pretty good.

the sort of board I would be interested in.


what has taken bark so long to do this type of board is the big question

I agree LL. It seems a fairly obvious move to learn from years of traditional paddleboarding as to what kind of nose works best in the ocean.

Maybe Joe Bark wanted to concentrate on the much bigger inland waters market first, and that is why most of his boards have tended to have displacement noses.

Is there anyone on this forum who has paddled a traditional paddleboard with a nose like this, compared to eg. a Velsey, who can tell me the pros and cons of the two designs in that context? I'm particularly interested in how well it goes upwind in mild to moderate chop and 10-20 knots, compared to a displacement nose.

And has anyone surfed this board yet?

disappointment noses

I was impressed with what Bark has done with the Downwinder regarding paddling upwind in flat to moderate chop.
Does not mean that the Vapor will have the same attributes but I am very much inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt for that sole reason.
Somewhat I am starting to dig boards with smooth simpler rocker lines and at 26" I think that I would prefer the straighter contour from nose to tail for stability.
For mixed chop on the seaside it seems an attractive board to my untrained eyes.

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Area10 said..
I agree LL. It seems a fairly obvious move to learn from years of traditional paddleboarding as to what kind of nose works best in the ocean.

Maybe Joe Bark wanted to concentrate on the much bigger inland waters market first, and that is why most of his boards have tended to have displacement noses.

Is there anyone on this forum who has paddled a traditional paddleboard with a nose like this, compared to eg. a Velsey, who can tell me the pros and cons of the two designs in that context? I'm particularly interested in how well it goes upwind in mild to moderate chop and 10-20 knots, compared to a displacement nose.

And has anyone surfed this board yet?

Bark was marketing displacement SUPs with cutting bows in coastal areas of California several years before the push towards inland marketing came about. It was always been the coastal market first, and then inland, which is where the next big push for recreational paddling seems to be. There is a cool video on the Bark Eliminator being used by several paddlers on an expedition trip on the Oregon Coast from 2014, and you have probably seen part of it on the zone at some point. Very challenging ocean conditions on that trip and the Eliminator is essentially a larger version of the Dominator, which is basically a cutting bow/displacement design. It's just the evolution of design and boards like the Dominator and Eliminator were commonly being used on the ocean before the Vapour and Downwinder came along. The Bark Competitor was being used in ocean racing events like the battle of the paddle back in 2011 and on downwind runs at the time.

It's a good point. But California is pretty flat by most standards worldwide. And you can't really beat a displacement board in flat water. I had the second ever Bark Competitor in Europe, and the first ever Dominator. What amazed me was how at that time almost immediately the biggest growth was in inland water racing, not coastal competing or touring. So I believe that that affected the shaping decisions even from the early days. It is only now when the brands need to find a reason why someone has to buy a new board that we are getting so many hybrid designs, more suitable for mild coastal type chop. Traditional paddleboarding has however always been a coastal thing, so Joe developed his prone prone paddleboards in another direction altogether from his SUPs.

Anyway, this new breed of hybrid boards (eg. SIC FX, All Star 2016, Vapour, maybe even the Naish Jav Maliko) may well be very good for competent paddlers who used to race but now want a fast and adaptable board that can cope with a wide variety of conditions, as well as those who are still racing in coastal conditions. A full displacement nose gives very little stability, whereas these wider flatter noses can lend stability to comparatively narrow boards, and tend to be easier to get tracking straight. So I reckon they are going to be good for people who want to go narrow but don't like the rock and roll of a displacement type nose.

Area 10, Bingo!! You got it exactly right. The major companies, Starboard, SIC, Bark and Naish are all moving into this space. They are coming from different directions to get there. Successful iterations of the Starboard Allstar, the marriage of the Bullet and X series, the Bark prone nose transplant and a Javelin that you can actually paddle in chop and not fall off (I had the 2011 version that wore me out).

I think it's important to note that these new / old noses ala Bark's prone board / Ace / etc. are displacement noses as well, just not the cutting displacement noses like the Dominator / etc. The Naish is the odd duck out a hybrid planning nose. As these new crossbred nose styles emerge with multiple elements that are cutting, piercing and bulbous / boofing; it's difficult to just dump them in the old school displacement / planning categories.

Baddog - true. But we don't yet really have nomenclature worked out yet for the different styles of SUP features, so it's hard to know what to call them. So we seem to be settling for the term "hybrid" for the moment, which we are using mainly to refer to boards with noses that have some characteristics of the typical "displacement" cutting/axe bow and also some features of a typical surfboard/DW board "planing" nose. I believe that this term "hybrid" has been used pretty consistently, and covers a broad range of design approaches. The "hybrid" term as I understand it, and as we are currently using it, refers not to the nose design as much as the intended use of the board. Hybrid SUPs are like the MPV or "crossover" vehicle in automotive terms: designed to have capabilities in a range of conditions, and for a range of uses, from pure flatwater to mild downwind and ocean racing. The term may not be a perfect one, but it is at least allowing us to communicate with each other about this complex topic in a way that most of us understand. So it's not too bad a term, I think.