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Area10 said..

Carvers said...
I have a Red paddle race. I love the board. But...... The board has one weak spot: on the sides you have to put in some sticks to stiffen up the board. Watch it, two times I had one or two grains of sand in it (almost unavoidable when you are on the beach with warm dry sand). The sand went in those pockets and I had a leak what was unrepairable. The guarantee of Red Paddle is very good: I got a brand new replacement board twice.

But further on the product is great, nice bag to put the bosrd in, nice glide also in waves. Pump is good.

That's a bit worrying. My beach has very fine sand and I can't imagine it doing that even if you poured a litre of it down the side. Do you live somewhere where the sand is very coarse, or near coral reefs?

No just twice bad luck. Normal sand on the med. sea on the south of france on a holiday. twice a leak in a pocket. So you have to be careful when putting the sticks in the pockets, it seems. Overall I like the board, and the Red Paddle guys and guarantee are top notch.

Wow. I'd never have guessed that could happen from the Red Paddle promotion literature. They mention that the rails are 4 layers thick and say they are the strongest part of the board. How do a few grains of sand penetrate 4 layers of tough material? Thanks for mentioning this though. I'd never have thought to consider it. You may have helped several people avoid a similar problem.

I gotta say that it's a new one on me, and we're using the boards (with RSS) all the time. Never heard of anything like it here, and there are several thousand RSS-configured Reds in NZ. But sand is a bitch though, if it can damage something, it will! So yeah, definitely not a reason not to buy the board; the RSS system does make a massive improvement in performance, but worth just being aware of, and I guess just beware of putting a sandy batten into the RSS pocket if it can be avoided. (And of course, you don't actually need to use the battens anyway, the board works just fine without them.

Also, if you are looking to add a windsurf rig, please look at the JP/Naish offerings with dedicated mounts. It's doubling the uses of your board.
Red Padel Co. State:-

and if you have a windsurf sail just tie it to the center carry handle, it wont damage the board regardless of how hard it falls over and you will be more confident than on a solid board = more fun.

I wonder if they are willing to let me test this? I reckon you will rip the handle/deck grip off before you puncture the board, so at least that part of the statement is correct. Shenanigans in the rest!

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Area10 said..
Wow. I'd never have guessed that could happen from the Red Paddle promotion literature. They mention that the rails are 4 layers thick and say they are the strongest part of the board. How do a few grains of sand penetrate 4 layers of tough material? Thanks for mentioning this though. I'd never have thought to consider it. You may have helped several people avoid a similar problem.

Inflatables are very tough, but are very sensitive to repeated abrasion: the sand in this case, and there have been reports of board destroyed while staying in a bag in a boat: with the boat movements the gentle abrasion of the folded board material in its bag on the floor/wall was enough to rub a hole in it after some days.
Also people have had their board suddenly deflate at sea because they had a rough edge on their paddle (a scratch) and the repetition of brushing the rough edge of the blade on the rails while paddling teared the fabric after some time.

With a hard board, you learn to be wary of anything hard (gravels, pebbles, door frames, harness buckles...). With an inflatable, you must be wary of "silent grinders"

Modern inflatables tend to have textured rails (like the railsaver pro), which are less sensitive to "sanding"

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BillyD said..
I gotta say that it's a new one on me, and we're using the boards (with RSS) all the time. Never heard of anything like it here, and there are several thousand RSS-configured Reds in NZ. But sand is a bitch though, if it can damage something, it will! So yeah, definitely not a reason not to buy the board; the RSS system does make a massive improvement in performance, but worth just being aware of, and I guess just beware of putting a sandy batten into the RSS pocket if it can be avoided. (And of course, you don't actually need to use the battens anyway, the board works just fine without them.

So the 10' Surfer doesn't really need the battens? I read that they increase stiffness by at least 40%. It would be cool if they didn't need to be inserted every time.

I think it was the sand. I couldn't think of anything else. The leak was so small, I had to put my ear on the pocket to hear it. I am very careful to my material anyway. The board looked like new when I sent it back to the uk. I remembered though that I had put the sticks in the pocket on the beach in the sand. Well, I can imagine that one little sand drop could damage it when it is pressured in the pocket with a lot of strength. But that's just a thought.

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spirit4earth said..

BillyD said..
I gotta say that it's a new one on me, and we're using the boards (with RSS) all the time. Never heard of anything like it here, and there are several thousand RSS-configured Reds in NZ. But sand is a bitch though, if it can damage something, it will! So yeah, definitely not a reason not to buy the board; the RSS system does make a massive improvement in performance, but worth just being aware of, and I guess just beware of putting a sandy batten into the RSS pocket if it can be avoided. (And of course, you don't actually need to use the battens anyway, the board works just fine without them.

So the 10' Surfer doesn't really need the battens? I read that they increase stiffness by at least 40%. It would be cool if they didn't need to be inserted every time.

Any board with the RSS system will work perfectly well without the battens, but yeah, it'll be significantly less stiff. So if you're after max performance then you want to use the battens. But the board will still work (basically it'll just be like any other inflatable board) without them.

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westozwind said..
Also, if you are looking to add a windsurf rig, please look at the JP/Naish offerings with dedicated mounts. It's doubling the uses of your board.
Red Padel Co. State:-

and if you have a windsurf sail just tie it to the center carry handle, it wont damage the board regardless of how hard it falls over and you will be more confident than on a solid board = more fun.

I wonder if they are willing to let me test this? I reckon you will rip the handle/deck grip off before you puncture the board, so at least that part of the statement is correct. Shenanigans in the rest!

Most of the main inflatable brands that have any windsurfing in their pedigree; Starboard, Fanatic, JP, Naish, etc and indeed Red Paddle Co, have inflatable windsups in their range now, with a proper 'built-in' mastfoot thread. The problem is that the only way to attach fittings to an inflatable is to glue them on. You can't structurally mount a mastfoot into the board like you can on a fiberglass board. So those lateral forces from the sail are being applied to something that has been glued onto a piece of cloth, basically. That's it. Here's a pic of the Red and Fanatic Windsups fully powered. Later that day there was a 110kg rider out on the Red with a 6.9 - he was burning off slalom boards, and pulling full speed planing gybes on it. The board handled great!! But when we told the manufacturer, they were like 'noooo!! The lateral forces are just too extreme, no iWindsup can take them for long. The board will be fine, but the fittings will just get pulled loose. And when we're talking planing and gybing, chances are it'll be the finbox that goes first. That's why Powerboxes and tuttle finboxes etc were invented for windsurfing boards, to deal with all the sideways force on a windsurfing fin. Expecting a plastic box glued onto the outisde of the board (which is all that any iSUp can ever have) is just asking too much. But for messing around in light winds, inflatable iSUPs are certainly great.

I haven't seen that comment before about tying the mastfoot to the centre handle, but it's actually not a bad idea, as it doubles the amount of connection to the board. Both the handle 'bases' are extremely large and well glued down. I could imagine the mastfoot walking around on the deck grip and potentially roughing it up quite a bit though. But you'd certainly be no more likely to pull the handle off than you will be to pull the glued-on mastbase off.

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BillyD said..

westozwind said..
Also, if you are looking to add a windsurf rig, please look at the JP/Naish offerings with dedicated mounts. It's doubling the uses of your board.
Red Padel Co. State:-

and if you have a windsurf sail just tie it to the center carry handle, it wont damage the board regardless of how hard it falls over and you will be more confident than on a solid board = more fun.

I wonder if they are willing to let me test this? I reckon you will rip the handle/deck grip off before you puncture the board, so at least that part of the statement is correct. Shenanigans in the rest!

Most of the main inflatable brands that have any windsurfing in their pedigree; Starboard, Fanatic, JP, Naish, etc and indeed Red Paddle Co, have inflatable windsups in their range now, with a proper 'built-in' mastfoot thread. The problem is that the only way to attach fittings to an inflatable is to glue them on. You can't structurally mount a mastfoot into the board like you can on a fiberglass board. So those lateral forces from the sail are being applied to something that has been glued onto a piece of cloth, basically. That's it. Here's a pic of the Red and Fanatic Windsups fully powered. Later that day there was a 110kg rider out on the Red with a 6.9 - he was burning off slalom boards, and pulling full speed planing gybes on it. The board handled great!! But when we told the manufacturer, they were like 'noooo!! The lateral forces are just too extreme, no iWindsup can take them for long. The board will be fine, but the fittings will just get pulled loose. And when we're talking planing and gybing, chances are it'll be the finbox that goes first. That's why Powerboxes and tuttle finboxes etc were invented for windsurfing boards, to deal with all the sideways force on a windsurfing fin. Expecting a plastic box glued onto the outisde of the board (which is all that any iSUp can ever have) is just asking too much. But for messing around in light winds, inflatable iSUPs are certainly great.

I haven't seen that comment before about tying the mastfoot to the centre handle, but it's actually not a bad idea, as it doubles the amount of connection to the board. Both the handle 'bases' are extremely large and well glued down. I could imagine the mastfoot walking around on the deck grip and potentially roughing it up quite a bit though. But you'd certainly be no more likely to pull the handle off than you will be to pull the glued-on mastbase off.

So, Red Paddle Co has windsurfing pedigree? Please explain? I'd love to hear about your dedicated carbon/Kevlar or wood construction windsurf boards.
Check your FAQ page. No mention of the WindSUP model, but it recommends that you tie the mast base to any model's handle for instant windsurfing. Have you tried this?
You claim that someone on an inflatable SUP, with no foot straps and a very average fin for planing was smashing full on slalom rigs? Really?!?!
you're also missing the point of WindSUP. it's for light winds, once there is enough wind to plane, no "normal" windsurfer would choose an inflato SUP over a proper board, or am I missing something?
I can't believe the hype.

''Later that day there was a 110kg rider out on the Red with a 6.9 - he was burning off slalom boards, and pulling full speed planing gybes on it. The board handled great!! But when we told the manufacturer, they were like 'noooo!! The lateral forces are just too extreme, no iWindsup can take them for long. The board will be fine, but the fittings will just get pulled loose. And when we're talking planing and gybing, chances are it'll be the finbox that goes first. That's why Powerboxes and tuttle finboxes etc were invented for windsurfing boards, to deal with all the sideways force on a windsurfing fin.''

I agree with westozwind.. I've sailed these inflatables and the only way a person could burn off a slalom board with an inflatable is to have a very good sailer on the infatable and a very bad sailer on the slalom board.. and there should be no problem with the loads put on an inflatable because it will be sliding sideways out of controle before there is any real load put on it.. .. But they do work.. and are great fun in light winds..

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westozwind said..

BillyD said..

So, Red Paddle Co has windsurfing pedigree? Please explain? I'd love to hear about your dedicated carbon/Kevlar or wood construction windsurf boards.
Check your FAQ page. No mention of the WindSUP model, but it recommends that you tie the mast base to any model's handle for instant windsurfing. Have you tried this?
You claim that someone on an inflatable SUP, with no foot straps and a very average fin for planing was smashing full on slalom rigs? Really?!?!
you're also missing the point of WindSUP. it's for light winds, once there is enough wind to plane, no "normal" windsurfer would choose an inflato SUP over a proper board, or am I missing something?
I can't believe the hype.

Red Paddle Co is the brainchild of Tushingham Sails, leading windsurf sail brand in the UK pretty much forever, with olympic windsurfer Dave Hackford at the helm along with Roger Tushingham himself The Red Paddle Co MD is ex UK Wavesailing Champion and was competing on the PWA tour before being seduced by the SUP side of life. All their team are mad keen (and very good) windsurfers, and their headquarters is just up the road from a classic UK south coast wavesailing break. Their windsurfing pedigree is pretty much as old as the sport itself (in the UK).

As for the guy on the 6.9 - it's not an idle claim, it happened, plenty of witnesses. (And if you want to come over to NZ I'm sure that Sean would be very happy to have a burn against you too ). He wasn't spinning out and going sideways - the trick to sailing an inflatable on the plane is simply to keep a bit of weight on your heels to keep the windward rail engaged slightly. And then it grips astonishingly well. And yeah, he was almost certainly a better sailor than some of the people on slalom boards, but the point is that it can be done.

And as for 'the point of WindSUP' - I would disagree completely. WindSUP is for light winds is not 'the point', it's a limitation. Yes, for sure, you'll always use the best toy for the conditions if you happen to have that toy there to hand. But if you don't happen to have that toy (ie a "proper board") to hand, but your iSUP can make a reasonable fist of the job, then why not!!?? It would be amazing if you could build an inflatable paddleboard that could stand up to the stresses of planing windsurfing performance too, and I for one are delighted that brands are looking seriously at it. As we've found with planing sailing on the iSUPs we've got now, the board itself actually performs well enough to be undeniably good fun. The problem is the limitations of the fittings. (Footstraps will be a similar issue too). But it's not outside the bounds of possibility that these fittings issues can be overcome.

Inflatable SUPs now account for 50% of the SUP market in the Northern hemisphere, and that percentage is expected to increase further. It's going to be really interesting to see how it develops further.