I won the opportunity to order a Custom Sunova in a lucky door prize at Balmoral Paddlesurf. I received the board on Saturday and rode it for the first time on Monday. I was really lucky to get a couple of shots taken by @mrsspoy. Pretty stoked.

Great stuff Chris. Board looks awesome. Were you out the point?

Great score! Love the nose on that beauty.

Nah Casso, just Dee Why beach. I did check the point that morning though. Have you been out there at all lately?

where's the speeed nose and outline ? Or does it only have the tail part ?

still can be a fantastic shape I think.

Envy!!!!!

You scored, dude! Those Sunova's are beautiful boards! What are the dimensions?

7"10x 25 1/8x 83.5 litres. I think the customised nose adds 7 inches extra length, so it is a standard 7"3 plus the modified nose. I find the square noses on slate style boards can catch in steep drops, so that's why I had it changed.

83.5 litres - #pro
slay on

It's difficult to see, but in the first shot, the concave is quite unusual to what I am used to. In fact I have never noticed concave quite like it before. The curve is quite steep close to the rails and quite (very!) flat in the middle of the board. I'm not sure if this is a Burt classic curve or shape specific.

Can anyone illuminate me on the functionality/history of concaves like this?

So from the wide point up, its a different board, look good, but a lot les stable I think

did you ride a standard speed before changing the shape?

There is no concave on my square nosed Speeeds.... but I like it on the pointy one!

My original 8'11 Hobie RAW had a very pronounce concave under the nose....
I felt like it gave lift and stabilized the nose as I weighed forward, while paddling into a wave.
It was one of my favorite features... it was fun to noseride as well.

I straightened and added a reference line to your picture.... from that distance and angle it is hard to see, but the line helps define it.

Thanks for ordering that.... looks like a good customization!

Those four concaves in the tail are wicked looking. I assume that is just to help the water flow faster, right? Anything else they do?

I have had fun getting the feeling for how those sharp channels affect the turns on my Speeed. The outer edge is so sharp and vertical, that the channels act like another set of side fins providing forward thrust through the turns. The length and depth of the channels remind me a lot of a Bonzer set up that I had back in the 70s. Those fins were only about an 1 ½" deep and 8" inches long, and they were placed at about the same position along the rail line. They are not the best for sliding the tail around. They want to trap the water flow and force it to accelerate off the tail rather than slipping sideways off the bottom. This forces the board to accelerate forward through the turn with great projection. Maybe a better alternative than bigger thrusters or an additional set of fins which would also create more drag. If you look for them, there were some great videos on this site of Bert Burger talking about the bottom shape of the Speeed model, and the role of these sharp edged channels.
For any skiers out there, the rails back by the channels are like having a super sharp edge on your skis with no base bevel; loves to carve and generate speed, but not as easy to slide around on. Bert balanced this by putting what I think of as a huge amount of bevel on the rails in the front third of the board, making the front very forgiving especially when dropping in with the lip, where the bevel keeps the rail from hanging up when it hits the base of the wave.

I have found that the channels really give control when floating down whitewater after a roundhouse or floater.... very manageable.

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deansunova said...
did you ride a standard speed before changing the shape?

Yeah, a standard 7"11 shop demo. I liked it, thought I could go smaller. I complained to Bert about the square noses catching and he agreed the nose lift would work. I wanted to keep the width of the 7"11 and chop some length off or take some thickness out to make it less volume but he convinced me to scale it down. He was correct. I thought 25 1/8 would be too narrow, but I think I could scale it down further again. Really stable for its size. My new regular short sup is a Jackson Close which is a little over 26 inches wide and less stable than my 25 inch wide speeed. Those parallel rails and flat rocker really keep it stable I suppose.

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supthecreek said..
There is no concave on my square nosed Speeeds.... but I like it on the pointy one!

My original 8'11 Hobie RAW had a very pronounce concave under the nose....
I felt like it gave lift and stabilized the nose as I weighed forward, while paddling into a wave.
It was one of my favorite features... it was fun to noseride as well.

I straightened and added a reference line to your picture.... from that distance and angle it is hard to see, but the line helps define it.

Thanks for ordering that.... looks like a good customization!

Cool, brah! I wish I could use photo editing tools . Are you sure there is no concave on your Speeed? Is it an earlier version? Mine is meant to be a true Speed except for the add on nose.

I think STP's ruler is bent:) My 8'5" has a full nose to tail concave, although it's very subtle.