Has anyone bought one of these in the last year? They are now marketed towards beginner light riders but they look like a good longboard shape that would be good for bigger waves.

I have an older model 2010, does surf well.

I have an older model 2010, does surf well.

I had one and loved it except for one thing as I discovered later after I had a life changing wipeout. Soft rails don't grab in the wave whereas a harder edge so I'm told will hold on a steep sucky wave. Rail grabbed so hard and fast I had no chance of recovery and really got hurt.
Great board in normal waves but I really would look at something like Sunova Speeed .Got everything going for it.

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rockmagnet said..
I had one and loved it except for one thing as I discovered later after I had a life changing wipeout. Soft rails don't grab in the wave whereas a harder edge so I'm told will hold on a steep sucky wave. Rail grabbed so hard and fast I had no chance of recovery and really got hurt.
Great board in normal waves but I really would look at something like Sunova Speeed .Got everything going for it.

Cheers mate......glad you survived! You are saying the Element has hard edges in the tail? Isn't it a good thing to have grip on a tricky wave?

No as far as I remember soft rails throughout. Sorry I worded it a little confusing. For surfing hard edge is a better option as I say on steep sucky waves. Check it out on Starboard website to see board shape.

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rockmagnet said..
No as far as I remember soft rails throughout. Sorry I worded it a little confusing. For surfing hard edge is a better option as I say on steep sucky waves. Check it out on Starboard website to see board shape.

Cool....agreed.

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rockmagnet said..
Soft rails don't grab in the wave whereas a harder edge

It is actually the opposite. It is a common misconception. The hard edge is there to make the water flow break from the board cleanly without drag, but the drag is what gives the hold. This is why you have hard edges on the tail section for fast boards, and not on noserider tails, so that their tail is sucked in the curl.

What gives hold is low volume rails, and rails shaped like the front of a wing. Both features make the rail easier to dig deep into the water with less resistance, the former for low speeds, and the latter at high speeds, which was your case I guess, you wanted the opposite of boxed rails. And they provide hold by entering water, so the edge has no noticeable effect here.

Rails are tricky because they act both (at different times) as a the front part of a wing (when they enter water) and the rear part (when water leaves them). A classic trick is to make rails shaped as airplane wings front sections, but with an added edge: the edge will not bother the flow when entering water, but will help the water separate cleanly on exit.

For fast waves you want low volume ("pinched") thin rails. They will probably have an edge to help with the board speed on fast waves, but it is not what provides hold on a wave face.

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colas said..

rockmagnet said..
Soft rails don't grab in the wave whereas a harder edge

It is actually the opposite. It is a common misconception. The hard edge is there to make the water flow break from the board cleanly without drag, but the drag is what gives the hold. This is why you have hard edges on the tail section for fast boards, and not on noserider tails, so that their tail is sucked in the curl.

What gives hold is low volume rails, and rails shaped like the front of a wing. Both features make the rail easier to dig deep into the water with less resistance, the former for low speeds, and the latter at high speeds, which was your case I guess, you wanted the opposite of boxed rails. And they provide hold by entering water, so the edge has no noticeable effect here.

Rails are tricky because they act both (at different times) as a the front part of a wing (when they enter water) and the rear part (when water leaves them). A classic trick is to make rails shaped as airplane wings front sections, but with an added edge: the edge will not bother the flow when entering water, but will help the water separate cleanly on exit.

For fast waves you want low volume ("pinched") thin rails. They will probably have an edge to help with the board speed on fast waves, but it is not what provides hold on a wave face.

Yup, my noseriding longboard (prone) had really nice soft rounded rails all the way from top to bottom of the board....the secret was they were also nicely pinched. Once in trim it locked in nice. The Starby Element will be like most wave SUPs....round rails until the back end of the board where it starts to get a harder edge....that way you get that loose turning.

That's really interesting colas- so hypothetically if you wanted your board to be able to turn more easily from the middle of the as opposed to the tail of the board, you'd put hard rails quite far forward? But it wouldn't hold in a steep face as well?

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benjl said..
That's really interesting colas- so hypothetically if you wanted your board to be able to turn more easily from the middle of the as opposed to the tail of the board, you'd put hard rails quite far forward? But it wouldn't hold in a steep face as well?

If by hard we mean a sharp edge at the junction with the hull, it wont be important to provide hold.

And for turning from the middle, other factors are more important: rocker, width, rail volume distribution (thinner rails in the tail), outline curve...

For the question of the hold in steep faces, See this picture:


The right rail enters the water like an airplane wing, and the water wraps around the rail. Curving the water trajectory requires a force that pulls the board into the wave face and provide hold. The more it "bends" the water flow around it, the more the rail provides hold. You want the rail to "suck" water into going above and around it on entry, not cutting it. But as the rail edge, if present, is underneath it doesn't matter there: what is critical is the shape of the upper part of the rail, and the position of the rail main width (high/low)

In the following picture, you can see what you want to avoid: the water separates early from the rail and is not wrapped around, providing less hold than a proper rail:

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You can see however how the water cleanly separates from the board on the right rail above and the left rail below: this is where the rail edge helps separating and reducing drag:


Rail design is complex however. You want a gentle curve in it for the water to follow it without separating, but without being too round, in order to reduce volume so that it can penetrate deeper in fast waves. But on slow waves, you want the rail to not penetrate too much to reduce drag. Basically, you are better off telling your shaper what kind of waves you will be surfing, and what you want to do on them rather than trying to tell him how to design the rails.

Fascinating stuff colas!! Always been fascinated about rails and probably slightly mis-lead about hard vs soft and what waves they're best on.
my custom 5'9 shortboard had rather soft rails quite far back compared to other shortboards I've owned- in hindsight it makes sense as i said I wanted to make sure it could still handle double overhead juice.

funnily enough, I went out for a sup tonight on off shore hollow and 2m+ swell size on my new lokahi. That board seems to have quite a pinched hard rail edge quite far up the board (which until your prior comments I assumed was good for hollow big stuff). I tried it with a set of Kelly slater quads tonight which I've never used before but my god the board held well on the face! Just drilled down the line and nearly got barrelled a few times but was quite hard to turn at speed on those waves.

also for a board with such a pronounced square tail I can't believe how well it holds on a big heaving face!

I spent about 1.5hrs just picking off the bombs on that big peeling left in the below from today. Even had a couple of long Wally rights off it!

I have had 5 various size sups now the element my first 2010 and still my go to most used board. Have considered getting a newer model. How would this compare to the 2010 much change in shape. I think the carbon one would be awesome but not cheap.

Masters of soft rail design fir xl surf in no particular order: geoff McCoy, Webster, Brewer, Downing, probably plenty of others.
Thete is an element of learning how to surf the limits of your equipment. Got smahed by rail of C4 sup years ago. Had nothing to do with catching a rail.