Hi everyone, a dealer mentioned this new board to me a few weeks ago, and it was supposed to be realised tomorrow. However someone at Starboard put the video of it up on their YouTube channel early. I have been narrowing my choice of next board the last few weeks and the Spice looks like it will move very close to the top of that list. Some great sizes, just need to get the volume numbers tomorrow to see if it's the one.

can you send the link please...Ive been waiting for this to come out

Hi mate, here you go.



if that does not work it's on their YouTube channel in the play list section.

Got an 8/3 on order should be in West OZ soon

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Rossall said..
Got an 8/3 on order should be in West OZ soon

Nice mate, any idea on the volume of that one?

Also seems like they found the leak and killed the video

So if you are out there Mr Starboard could you please fix the link on the video on your Hyper Nut page, it has always shown me one for a SUP windsurf composite

An image of the 8'8' I found.







Looks like a fantastic all round board.

All info on site, 7'11 looks sweet!

sup.star-board.com/paddle-board/hard-paddle-board/spice/

Like the look of this board, Starboard have updated their website with all the info about the new Spice

sup.star-board.com/paddle-board/hard-paddle-board/spice/

Video not yet live, premiers on 27th Sept at 22:00

The 8/2 is 121 litres and sweet

Looks a good shape... weights seem heavy though...even for the carbon one...

Picked mine up this afternoon, not bad for a 8/2 in limited, I'll get her on the scales tomorrow. Local shop isn't bothering with carbon's this season so it's Limited construction or nothing.

Incredible. For the last month I have been trying to decide between the pro and the wedge in 8'7" size. The weight seems wrong for the carbon version compared to the wedge and pro though.

Too bad the gap is so big between the 79L and 106L -- guess they figure that if you want something in that range you'll get the 7'7" Pro?

It seem very similar with the gong karmen...8,2 x30,75 121 lts starboard 8,4 x30 120 lts gong...

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Rossall said..
Picked mine up this afternoon, not bad for a 8/2 in limited, I'll get her on the scales tomorrow. Local shop isn't bothering with carbon's this season so it's Limited construction or nothing.

Very Keen to see or hear your thoughts mate... we seem to buy similar boards as have been looking at this and waiting for the shipment to land over east. We are getting carbon in 8'8 ...

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bomberdave said..

Rossall said..
Picked mine up this afternoon, not bad for a 8/2 in limited, I'll get her on the scales tomorrow. Local shop isn't bothering with carbon's this season so it's Limited construction or nothing.

Very Keen to see or hear your thoughts mate... we seem to buy similar boards as have been looking at this and waiting for the shipment to land over east. We are getting carbon in 8'8 ...

Is it just me or does the 8.8 have a more proportionally pulled in nose making it a different shape and board and there for a comparison with the smaller ones would be difficult. Or do I need to go to Spec savers?

Edit: And a proportionally narrower tail - I like it!
Edit2: Look at the rider weight range they put in compared to the others!

Very interested in this as well, Had a 8'Starboard pro in this construction and hated it. It was smaller and higher volume than the board it replaced (8'0"by 29" 121L vs 8'3"29.5 107L(YOB SP)) and was both less stable and more corky, had very little drive from the middle, the good folk at stand up surf shop let me trade it (with a little cash) for an ex demo fanatic pro (8'3"29.5 by 106L) which goes awesome in good waves but Ive always loved surfing slightly fishy surfboards with straighter rails and the video for the spice just gets me excited. Let us know how it goes!!!

A few more pics that hopefully show the beveled rail, oh and glass fins but FCS 1 still !!!!

Wait you are allowed to have boards in the house, I will just get my wife

Yes I am surprised they are sticking with FCS1 fins, surely FCSii is not that much expensive to use. Most likely they want a point of difference with the carbon models.

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trasgu said..
It seem very similar with the gong karmen...8,2 x30,75 121 lts starboard 8,4 x30 120 lts gong...

Actually, brands nowadays tend to align their models into common families:
- the performance longboard shape
- the performance shortboard shape: pulled in nose and tail
- the "tomo" shape: short, with wide nose and tail
- an "hybrid" shape: a performance shape with a bit less pulled-in nose and tail for comfort. The Starboard spice and Going Karmen are example of these (with many others)

With sizes and dimensions quite close between brands.

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drivethebus said..
Wait you are allowed to have boards in the house, I will just get my wife

Yes I am surprised they are sticking with FCS1 fins, surely FCSii is not that much expensive to use. Most likely they want a point of difference with the carbon models.

I think it's something to do with patent running out so anyone can knock ''em out on a 3d printer and not pay royalties to FCS. Anyways that my guess, I prefer Futures to be honest but that's another debate

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colas said..

trasgu said..
It seem very similar with the gong karmen...8,2 x30,75 121 lts starboard 8,4 x30 120 lts gong...

Actually, brands nowadays tend to align their models into common families:
- the performance longboard shape
- the performance shortboard shape: pulled in nose and tail
- the "tomo" shape: short, with wide nose and tail
- an "hybrid" shape: a performance shape with a bit less pulled-in nose and tail for comfort. The Starboard spice and Going Karmen are example of these (with many others)

With sizes and dimensions quite close between brands.

Seems like the Tomo shapes are fading out, that right?

Kisutch,was thinking that the other day as well,prob's about pro's not riding them in comps ,don't think they will go away entirely,as they have there place.

What did she weigh Rossall?

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Kisutch said..
Seems like the Tomo shapes are fading out, that right?

Not at all.

What happened is that some SUP brands just copied the Tomo shapes as implemented in surfboards, but it doesnt work well: Basically "Tomo" prone surfboards are quite narrow overall to keep a fast rail-to-rail despite the added tip widths. But with SUP, for production boards, you need to keep a minimal width for paddling around, and the rail-to-rail suffer. This is also why you do not see the twin fin midlengths craze in the SUP world: it is hard to make twin fins work with the floatation+stability constraints (width) of SUPs.

Also, Tomo shapes work by removing the nose, so shortening - a lot - the board. But SUP need a minimal volume to float, so you have to put it somewhere. And for SUP may end up with too thick rails. And too many customers are afraid of low volume and/or very short boards, so they tend to oversize Tomo SUP shapes, and this doesn't work well.

What you see now is the shapers that made the effort to really adapt their Tomo shapes still have working and popular shapes. For instance, Gong never had a "full" (square nose) Tomo shape in production: Patrice has prototypes but found out they didn't work (paddled like anvils), so all the Gong "Tomos" (Mob, Fatal) has somewhat pulled-in / rounded noses. The current Mob is one of the best sellers (and one of my favorite). One can argue that the starboard spice incorporate some Tomo design advances such as the more parallel rails.

TL,DR: Tomos shapes have been refined, "mainstreamed", with the early crude exaggerations forgotten.

Looks like a nice balance to me, surf shape that is user friendly.

Cant wait to hear some reviews from amateur surfers!

Reminds me of the Surftech Merrick Caddy ! That design was brilliant!

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colas said..

Kisutch said..
Seems like the Tomo shapes are fading out, that right?

Not at all.

What happened is that some SUP brands just copied the Tomo shapes as implemented in surfboards, but it doesnt work well: Basically "Tomo" prone surfboards are quite narrow overall to keep a fast rail-to-rail despite the added tip widths. But with SUP, for production boards, you need to keep a minimal width for paddling around, and the rail-to-rail suffer. This is also why you do not see the twin fin midlengths craze in the SUP world: it is hard to make twin fins work with the floatation+stability constraints (width) of SUPs.

Also, Tomo shapes work by removing the nose, so shortening - a lot - the board. But SUP need a minimal volume to float, so you have to put it somewhere. And for SUP may end up with too thick rails. And too many customers are afraid of low volume and/or very short boards, so they tend to oversize Tomo SUP shapes, and this doesn't work well.

What you see now is the shapers that made the effort to really adapt their Tomo shapes still have working and popular shapes. For instance, Gong never had a "full" (square nose) Tomo shape in production: Patrice has prototypes but found out they didn't work (paddled like anvils), so all the Gong "Tomos" (Mob, Fatal) has somewhat pulled-in / rounded noses. The current Mob is one of the best sellers (and one of my favorite). One can argue that the starboard spice incorporate some Tomo design advances such as the more parallel rails.

TL,DR: Tomos shapes have been refined, "mainstreamed", with the early crude exaggerations forgotten.

On point Colas! The early Hypernut from Starboard being the caricatural exemple...

These boards look fun but I'm a little put off still with the thickness relative to the length...I can't help feeling these are going to be slightly corky..maybe not. I don't think they are far off but probably built for larger folks. As with all new boards it will be good to hear over time how everyday riders find them. 140 litres for an 8ft 8 is a tiny bit on the high side but might work fine. I have an 8ft 8 x 32 surf sup and it's 136 litres and that's as far as I would want to go for that size being a 210 pound surfer. I also have a 10 ft longboard which is 145 litres..

Starby marketing vids are generally a tad embarrassing...trying to convince people that a single to double concave hull to a vee is something new are they? Everyone has been doing that for years! My 2019 Starby has that ..do people get sucked up into this marketing BS?

Look forward to hearing views on the board..saying all the above..I do think it looks a fun board, great shape and probably surfs really well.

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colas said..

Kisutch said..
Seems like the Tomo shapes are fading out, that right?

Not at all.

What happened is that some SUP brands just copied the Tomo shapes as implemented in surfboards, but it doesnt work well: Basically "Tomo" prone surfboards are quite narrow overall to keep a fast rail-to-rail despite the added tip widths. But with SUP, for production boards, you need to keep a minimal width for paddling around, and the rail-to-rail suffer. This is also why you do not see the twin fin midlengths craze in the SUP world: it is hard to make twin fins work with the floatation+stability constraints (width) of SUPs.

Also, Tomo shapes work by removing the nose, so shortening - a lot - the board. But SUP need a minimal volume to float, so you have to put it somewhere. And for SUP may end up with too thick rails. And too many customers are afraid of low volume and/or very short boards, so they tend to oversize Tomo SUP shapes, and this doesn't work well.

What you see now is the shapers that made the effort to really adapt their Tomo shapes still have working and popular shapes. For instance, Gong never had a "full" (square nose) Tomo shape in production: Patrice has prototypes but found out they didn't work (paddled like anvils), so all the Gong "Tomos" (Mob, Fatal) has somewhat pulled-in / rounded noses. The current Mob is one of the best sellers (and one of my favorite). One can argue that the starboard spice incorporate some Tomo design advances such as the more parallel rails.

TL,DR: Tomos shapes have been refined, "mainstreamed", with the early crude exaggerations forgotten.

Thanks for info Colas! Now if only I could find a Tomo to try that wasn't too big for me, see lots of L41's where I am but always 130L+.

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Slab said..
I can't help feeling these are going to be slightly corky..maybe not.

It is hard to say beforehand.
Some board shapes can tolerate extra volume and still be nimble, some other shapes need to be sized to the absolute minimal volume for your weight+abilities otherwise they feel like barges. It is hard to guess, it depends a lot on plenty of shape features...

Tomos generally are in the "don't oversize" category, but hybrids like the Karmen (and I guess the Spice with its beveled rails) often stay surprisingly nimble with some extra volume.