Hoping to finally get a SUP groveler this year for summer waves. Have a JL Worldwide that does well for this but want something smaller, 29.5 feels wide for me. What are people's thoughts and experiences with different small wave shapes and what they are best for. I pasted some images from web as examples: L41 ST, Infinity RNB, Infinity New Deal (the 8x28 is appealing but too redundant with my current boards probably). Seems like you have a tomo, curvey outline(with wide tail or pulled in), midlength lb shape....

I have a jimmy Lewis super frank 8'0 that I love in small waves. It's super nimble

I would try that L41 split tail quad. Can get any width you want. I would go less than 8 for sure and probably more like 7'6 or less. On right day you can turn on a dime with plenty of speed and flow. On a wide tail board too much power from the wave you lose the tight turning, too little wave and I don't see the point, I'd rather longboard if its truly small. Some of the really flat and wide shapes supposedly work but not my style. So downside could be a more specialized type of board that might have limited optimal wave range but probably closest you can get to the feeling of surfing a shortboard on a sup for us mortals.

I like my long board 10x28 in small waves more glide and shorter boards the bigger the waves 8.5 x 28 then bigger waves 7.11 x 26 ! I cant surf short on small waves !

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jvriesinga said..
I have a jimmy Lewis super frank 8'0 that I love in small waves. It's super nimble

Yeah people seem to love SF and I would love to try one; they seem hard to find in the 7-6x29.5 which is what size I'd want. It's interesting how this is the only one with the pulled in tail, but maybe it's wider than it looks.

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slsurf said..
I would try that L41 split tail quad. Can get any width you want. I would go less than 8 for sure and probably more like 7'6 or less. On right day you can turn on a dime with plenty of speed and flow. On a wide tail board too much power from the wave you lose the tight turning, too little wave and I don't see the point, I'd rather longboard if its truly small. Some of the really flat and wide shapes supposedly work but not my style. So downside could be a more specialized type of board that might have limited optimal wave range but probably closest you can get to the feeling of surfing a shortboard on a sup for us mortals.

Yeah I think this is a great (and available) option for me, like a ~7-7x 28 l41ST. I've surfed one of the Simsup models but it was too big (8.5 or something) to get a feel for, friend's board. A little nervous to get a wide tail, parallel outline board before surfing one, but seems like a safe enough bet. Want something for just the conditions you mentioned - thinking like waist to head high short period waves, also the few small days in winter. I Like that the L41 is very different than anything in my quiver, worried that something like Sunova SP25 would be too similar to my Infinity Blurr. RNB very appealing but to go shorter than my current 8' boards I'd be at 7-7x27 87L which would take the fun out of it I think. Infinity custom is less appealing for me cause if I understand correctly the price is same but they are more fragile than their production boards.

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LastSupper said..
I like my long board 10x28 in small waves more glide and shorter boards the bigger the waves 8.5 x 28 then bigger waves 7.11 x 26 ! I cant surf short on small waves !

I love my 9' longboard on small days for learning to walk board and that stuff, love doing turns on it in more solid surf, but for working on maneuvers in small surf I have a lot of fun on short SUP. I would love to try a 10x28 one of these days

Depends on how you want to surf small waves I guess, I love short boards for doing turns. Hypernut 7'2 is insanely fun! Super stable, paddles well for length and just feels good on a wave. Anything compact with a rocker designed to go fast, tail width makes a huge difference of course and balance between maintaining speed and turning. Super Frank 7'6 is a board I'd love to try as is the L41 ST and TV Dinner. I think a lot of the tomo shapes were ridden too long to be effective with the added stability they give you really can go small.

It also depends on what small waves you are planning to surf. For hollow and fast waves I have incredible fun on my 8' Hypernut. If I weighed less, then I would get a smaller one, but since I am around 105 /106 kgs with a wetsuit on I need all of the 133 litres to float me and actually be able to paddle it. I love the way I can race down the line and then bash the close out section. It's easy to gather speed and feels lively and skatey in 1 to 4 foot. Beyond that it starts to get bouncy and too slidey, especially on powerful foam. I am sure it looks awesome from the beach when I slide to the left and then immediately slide to the right, but that's not what I was intending to do! The trick is to pretend that it was what you were actually intending, I guess.

If your small waves are slow and lazy peelers, then I would suggest a longboard shape would be great fun. I struggle to paddle into such waves on the Hypernut, so I grab the 10.2 wedge, but I am working on my fitness and technique, so it could be a me problem.

What I like for small waves, for a shortboard style surf (I let others speak of the longboard shapes):

- As short as possible. Shorter means slow paddle speed, so you have less mobility to flee the crowd to chase waves peaking outside of the normal lienup, and less leeway to go place yourself perfectly for takeoff. For instance, for fast waves breaking in some depth, you will want to keep board length (e.g 8'+). For slow waves breaking on a well-shaped sand bank or reef, you will want a 6'x" board

- As light as possible

- A round or semi-round nose. Avoid blunt square noses, they push water.

- For weak waves, a full square tail, Simmons-like. The more powerful the waves, the more pulled-in the tail.

In my Gong quiver for Hossegor, you can see, from left to right:
- #1 a board for weak fast waves: 8'4" x 120L, semi rounded nose, wide tail but not extreme. A flat rocker. Similar to the Infinity B-Line and others.
- #3 a board for small fast waves: 7'3" x 105L, pulled in tail
- #4 a board for small slow waves: 6'10" x 125L, wide everywhere


A better shape for the #4 (small, slow) was a rounded nose: a bit faster to paddle:


Here in action: Slow waves, 4s period:



And a Simmons of the same size: (second from left):


In action: I had a tiny peak for me alone, 50 surfers were crowding a better peak just nearby:


But now, Gong has reduced his lineup, and the Mob is currently offering a compromise, an hybrid of all these small wave shapes:
A very good shape for "shortboard"-SUPing in small waves.

I do not have good videos of it, only webcam captures, but it shows why on Hossegor sandbanks, the paddling speed is important to go fetch the shifting peaks:

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colas said..
What I like for small waves, for a shortboard style surf (I let others speak of the longboard shapes):

- As short as possible. Shorter means slow paddle speed, so you have less mobility to flee the crowd to chase waves peaking outside of the normal lienup, and less leeway to go place yourself perfectly for takeoff. For instance, for fast waves breaking in some depth, you will want to keep board length (e.g 8'+). For slow waves breaking on a well-shaped sand bank or reef, you will want a 6'x" board

- As light as possible

- A round or semi-round nose. Avoid blunt square noses, they push water.

- For weak waves, a full square tail, Simmons-like. The more powerful the waves, the more pulled-in the tail.

In my Gong quiver for Hossegor, you can see, from left to right:
- #1 a board for weak fast waves: 8'4" x 120L, semi rounded nose, wide tail but not extreme. A flat rocker. Similar to the Infinity B-Line and others.
- #3 a board for small fast waves: 7'3" x 105L, pulled in tail
- #4 a board for small slow waves: 6'10" x 125L, wide everywhere


A better shape for the #4 (small, slow) was a rounded nose: a bit faster to paddle:


Here in action: Slow waves, 4s period:

And a Simmons of the same size: (second from left):


In action: I had a tiny peak for me alone, 50 surfers were crowding a better peak just nearby:

But now, Gong has reduced his lineup, and the Mob is currently offering a compromise, an hybrid of all these small wave shapes:
A very good shape for "shortboard"-SUPing in small waves.

I do not have good videos of it, only webcam captures, but it shows why on Hossegor sandbanks, the paddling speed is important to go fetch the shifting peaks:

Love that shape for a Groveler.

Thanks for that explanation colas , make sense to me.
Cheers.

I have to agree with Shlogger that is a great looking shape for a groveler. I would get one in heartbeat if they were available in my part of the world.

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colas said..
In my Gong quiver for Hossegor, you can see, from left to right:
- #1 a board for weak fast waves: 8'4" x 120L, semi rounded nose, wide tail but not extreme. A flat rocker. Similar to the Infinity B-Line and others.
- #3 a board for small fast waves: 7'3" x 105L, pulled in tail
- #4 a board for small slow waves: 6'10" x 125L, wide everywhere

Opps, sorry, I was meaning #4 and #5, not #3 and #4.
#2 and #3 are my "performance" shapes. They catch waves easily, but they are harder to generate and keep speed in small waves compared to a specialized shape.

Great watching you surf, Colas. Have learned much from you. A few more videos and you could well be the 'European' version of STC!!!

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colas said..
What I like for small waves, for a shortboard style surf (I let others speak of the longboard shapes):

- As short as possible. Shorter means slow paddle speed, so you have less mobility to flee the crowd to chase waves peaking outside of the normal lienup, and less leeway to go place yourself perfectly for takeoff. For instance, for fast waves breaking in some depth, you will want to keep board length (e.g 8'+). For slow waves breaking on a well-shaped sand bank or reef, you will want a 6'x" board

- As light as possible

- A round or semi-round nose. Avoid blunt square noses, they push water.

- For weak waves, a full square tail, Simmons-like. The more powerful the waves, the more pulled-in the tail.

In my Gong quiver for Hossegor, you can see, from left to right:
- #1 a board for weak fast waves: 8'4" x 120L, semi rounded nose, wide tail but not extreme. A flat rocker. Similar to the Infinity B-Line and others.
- #3 a board for small fast waves: 7'3" x 105L, pulled in tail
- #4 a board for small slow waves: 6'10" x 125L, wide everywhere


A better shape for the #4 (small, slow) was a rounded nose: a bit faster to paddle:


Here in action: Slow waves, 4s period:

And a Simmons of the same size: (second from left):


In action: I had a tiny peak for me alone, 50 surfers were crowding a better peak just nearby:

But now, Gong has reduced his lineup, and the Mob is currently offering a compromise, an hybrid of all these small wave shapes:
A very good shape for "shortboard"-SUPing in small waves.

I do not have good videos of it, only webcam captures, but it shows why on Hossegor sandbanks, the paddling speed is important to go fetch the shifting peaks:

Hi Colas, if I could get an 7'6 MOB down here in OZ it would be a great summer slasher to have in my quiver.

Cheers.

Steve.

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drivethebus said..
Hi Colas, if I could get an 7'6 MOB down here in OZ it would be a great summer slasher to have in my quiver.

Frankly, you have great boards also in OZ.

For instance, the SMiK Hipster twin looks like a great small wave board, and since they make also custom shapes, a Hipster Twin a tad shorter and thicker could be ideal for heavy riders in weak waves.

In the Sunova line, the Skate seems quite cool.

Etc, ...

But there are plenty of choice. I was citing the Gong models to "flesh out" what I said, to give an idea while looking for a board among the available ones close to you.

m.facebook.com/smiksup/photos/galvo-with-his-personal-desires-of-a-longboard-nose-morphed-onto-a-hipster-twin-/2678145139108722/

The Smik Galvo Gee Whizz model seems to me rather relevant as a shape for small summer waves. This is the style of shape that I will see in the future intercalated between my hister twin and my lord style ...
We see Galvo surfing her on one or two Smik videos in small waves and she really looks super fun to surf.

Here is an old video showing my idea of good small wave shortboard conditions, big enough to get some vertical turns in but not too powerful for a wide tail. I also liked colas video of the 7'6 at hossegor where he was able to get some good turns in on some open face.

Thanks as always for all the great info Colas, and everyone else that chimed in. SLS yeah that video of EA on a tiny Popdart looks so fun. I think I'm looking for sort of a small wave all-arounder if there is such a thing, cause due to tide swings and variation among the peaks can often surf both a small fast wave and a less-small soft wave in same session. SLS would you get Popdart or ST from L41? If I don't see anything come up on used market I'll prob get an L41 order going soon.

Here is Erik Antonson's text accompanying the Popdart video from the Archived Paddlewood site (thanks Colas for revealing the web archiver trick)

I've been sitting on writing the full review of the Popdart from L-41 for a bit now. I didn't want to write it until I felt that I understood the board, and have always felt that the board had so much more potential than I was getting out of it. It did, and after the breakthroughs I have had on the L-41 and in my paddle surfing in the last week, I'm stoked to give you my thoughts.To understand the process, we've got to jump back a few months. When I bought the board I was envisioning a shortboard feel. Thinking about the 2017 contest season, focused on "performance." My hope with the short size, it's a 6.10 x 26.5, and the stepped rails, was that I'd be able to drive it hard through turns, and fit in smaller spaces. And while using the framework of surfing like I would on my small Hobie or the 7.4 Starboard Pro, the L-41 was faster, but lacked the drive to draw the tight lines that either of the other boards could draw. I got out of the water frustrated on a few occasions, and then put the board away.That was late November and the next few weeks I was running retreats and coaching, which means I'm not focused on personal surfing. The sessions I did have on all boards felt flat, and I knew that my surfing was stagnant. Stuck in old lines and mental frameworks. This is about the time that Fisher Grant, who was here for 3 weeks in December (and coming back on Thursday for a few weeks of helping with the retreats) said I should hop on single fins for a bit. I bought Donna, the 6.9 Takayama, and for the next 22 days, only surfed that board. For the first few sessions I was stuck in the framework of shortboard surfing. It didn't work.Extrapolating on that point, my paddle surfing model has always been shortboard surfing. I come from a shortboard background and I've modeled the best in our sport, but their styles are largely shortboard inspired. (Not Colin, Kalama, Fisher and a few others).When I dive into a new skill, my approach is to start with consumption. I'll watch every relevant video, try to talk to anyone who is farther ahead on the learning curve and use that knowledge to prioritize my focus. In this case, on the single fin, with the goal of learning to draw more true lines, I went back a few decades. Gerry Lopez, Buttons, even old longboard videos. Modern inspirations were Colin McPhillips, Fisher Grant, Alex Knost and Devon Howard.My goal is to add a new framework through which to see waves.I'm not a martial artist, but there are so many similarities that martial arts provides a good analogy. If you had trained in Muay Thai for decades, you'd interpret a fight in a Muay Thai framework. If you decided to learn boxing, at the beginning you'd see boxing through Muay Thai, relating techniques and principles. Then at some point you'd see boxing from a boxing framework. The beauty happens when you transition back to Muay Thai and can analyze it with the boxing framework. Now you have a new framework in which to interpret your true passion.I want to learn the single fin framework and bring it back to paddle surfing. And for 22 days I went about as deep as it's possible in that short window. I averaged about 5 hours in the water per day and studied video another 2-4. I'm at my happiest in the middle of a binge learning session, and it was a great few weeks. (It's not over, but has to taper a bit as we're running retreats and I'm coaching for the next few weeks.)And this all comes back to the Popdart as the board provides an amazing platform for the lines I've been trying to learn on the single fin.So, my review on the Popdart is that it's an incredible surfboard. I've already written about how solid the build is, top level, but I've waited to talk about the ride. Once you learn the board, and stop imposing the shortboard framework, it's one of the best paddle boards I've ridden. The glide and carry in flat sections is unmatched. The board smooths out choppy paddle surfing.

This is my 8/3 x31 120 ltr Sunova custom. Got it with every bell and whistle inc vapour lite construction, wingers, channeled tail and drop rails. 6.5 kg and gos so well in most conditions, almost a one board quiver

Great looking board Rossall. It sounds like it has a high surface area to volume which as a taller guy I always like in a board.

Kitsuch, L41s have a great rep, but I believe the really wide tails require a considerably different technique to make them work well. It sounds from above that you are looking for a board to learn maneuvers in small summer waves that you can then transfer to your other boards in bigger surf. If that is your goal I think you would be better served by a more conventional performance short board shape. As you seem to like Infinity why no Wide Speed in the mix? The 7'7"x28"x100ltr. seems like it is in your size range and it would be a lot easier to make the change from it to your Blurr when the waves get bigger.

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Rossall said..
This is my 8/3 x31 120 ltr Sunova custom. Got it with every bell and whistle inc vapour lite construction, wingers, channeled tail and drop rails. 6.5 kg and gos so well in most conditions, almost a one board quiver

Very nice!

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Surlygringo said..
Great looking board Rossall. It sounds like it has a high surface area to volume which as a taller guy I always like in a board.

Kitsuch, L41s have a great rep, but I believe the really wide tails require a considerably different technique to make them work well. It sounds from above that you are looking for a board to learn maneuvers in small summer waves that you can then transfer to your other boards in bigger surf. If that is your goal I think you would be better served by a more conventional performance short board shape. As you seem to like Infinity why no Wide Speed in the mix? The 7'7"x28"x100ltr. seems like it is in your size range and it would be a lot easier to make the change from it to your Blurr when the waves get bigger.

Yeah the Wide Speed has the right dims and is an intriguing option, it reminds a little of my JL Worldwide but in the size I want. I think it costs about $2450 USD if I had to buy a new quad fin setup, so could be like $2750 w/ shipping, hard for me to justify that after having bought new Blurr like a year and a half ago. But feel for these brands cause their costs must be going up and they haven't increased board prices to keep up with other inflation from what I can tell.

You nailed it though, I want to have fun oversurfing small waves, I love getting a few pumps in and then doing top turn or usually cause I time it wrong a re-entry or float or whatever it turns into, then paddle out do it 40 more times. This is my ideal summer day. My Blurr so fun for this because of how responsive it is, but it can feel slow both going down line when wave doesn't give you good pumping opportunity, or coming out of bottom turn in weak surf (which surely is partly/entirely due to my technique) -- JL WW distinctly easier in this regard, but surprisingly the 9x28 New Deal is too, even though it has same tail.

I can relate to not being able to justify getting a new Wide Speed. Lack of cash and storage space is probably good in my case, otherwise it is hard to imagine how many boards I would accumulate. I have spent some time on a New Deal and I also found it to wrap a pretty tight turn when you get your foot back.

Thanks for text on video, didn't realize that guy was a pro or the board was so tiny for his size. You don't have to go super wide tail with L41 by the way but I think a tail wider than your normal board by 1-2'' helps a lot in weaker surf with few disadvantages until it gets bigger. I'm guessing the ST model is more versatile than the pop-dart based on some posts I read on the standup paddle forum from a guy who has one. I have the bruce wayne model with a fairly wide tail and nose but performance rocker and rails (kind of like sunova flow). For me its an all arounder but I can't get very vertical with it once waves get overhead but the rails are grippy enough to ride anything I can catch. I would have gotten the ST for a more specific head high and under board or maybe the infinity RNB.

Thanks for info guys. Ok think I'm doing this. Sounds like standard dims on ST would be 7'6" x28 x4.25 105L. Seems thick- I'm thinking thin to 4"? But I'm not sure what thickness on my other boards are- Blurr pretty fat in middle inside of the step rails, not clear how this is measured/averages across board and if comparable among brands

Congratulations on making the new board decision. I am pretty sure your new deal is less than 4" thick. I don't know on the Blurr, I have only seen one, never surfed it. I think the conventional wisdom is you want your groveler to be shorter, wider and have a bit more volume than your regular board. I wouldn't want to go longer than 7'6" and 105ltrs sounds like a bit more volume than your Blurr so you have to juggle thickness and width to get that volume. I am 6'2" so I would always rather surf more width with less thickness because I have the height to leverage a wider board and wider boards are faster, but you may have a different preference.

I think the ST has step rails, so I wouldn't sweat the thickness too much just go for the volume you want.

sisurf sounds like he knows a lot more about L41s than I do, so I would definitely listen to his recommendations on them. But just for the record my preference for thinner boards isn't about the rails. I just like the feel of boards under 4" thick. It is probably subjective(along with my preference for light boards) but nonetheless I always seem to like boards with less thickness. I think I read an interview with Rusty Preisendorfer years ago in which he explained that when he added volume to a board for a short heavy guy he added thickness. When he needed to add it for a tall guy he added width because being tall enables you to more easily leverage a wider board. So as a taller guy I have always bought into that explanation.