Hey guys, Im 30 years old and am currently riding an old Naish (7'11 by 33) SUP thats almost shaped like a potato chip! I love this board but its getting way too smashed up. I also have the Fanatic 8'10 all wave which I do not get along with in the waves as feels a little too long. I am wanting to purchase a new SUP that is high performance in small waves as when the waves have juice on them ill be on my short board (so basically for trigg when under chest height, every other day!). I DO NOT want something too small that makes it hard to get on waves, as I said earlier I want it for the smaller stuff. However I do want some performance as I am a short board rider (I realize this is always a trade off).
Im 80kgs.
Currently Im looking at the 8.5 starboard pocket rocket, is this a small wave fun board suitable for my weight or could I go smaller and still surf fat waves.

What are other suggetsions and dimensions.
Cheers!

Hey Jono

Pocket rocket is a nice board but I'm not sure it's the one for you, I think you would be better off on something like the 8'6 (or 8'0) pro or maybe some kind of minion/vangaurd style board.

I have a few ideas I will give you a call.

Personally I think the Minion (and boards shaped like that) are the go. You'd be a better surfer than me, but I reckon the Minion provides a good combination of stability and surfability. Mine is 7'10" x 29" but I am 23 years and 10 kg worse off.

Hey Jonathan, I've got a PR and surfed many different SUPs and always came back to the PR for various reasons. I've seen your kiting and surfing skills and recon you need something a bit more performance based. The Starboard Pro would be perfect. Go and demo one from the chaps in Osbourne Park.

8.2 JP pro is weapon in small waves if your a shortboarder

My recommendation would be a short SUP (for looseness in small waves), with a fast (flat) rocker (to take off easily on weak waves), with a wide tail (for power in fat waves) and a wide nose (for stability to compensate the short length).

Simmons, "Tomo", "mini longboard"... all these kind of shapes. Something in the 6'6" / 7'6" and 105 / 115 liters range. Deep Minions, Atlantis Bam Bam, ... Be careful, a "Tomo" shape in 8' will feel a bit cumbersome, you need to drop in length to mitigate the extra wide nose. On these wide tails, your foot is on the kicktail, so a 8' will feel a bit like a barge with the nose so far out in front...

For my 100kg, these are my boards of choice: 6'10" Simmons / 6'8" One (modern fish), both 125 liters. The Simmons for a more stable platform and relaxed ride, the One when I feel more agressive. They are slow to paddle but get into the wave quite easily as the wide tail gets a lot of leverage on the "bump" on the incoming wave. But this means you must say goodbye to just paddle blindly into the wave till you drop, and more place yourself properly and time your paddle to the wave.

More info at: www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/Review/New-610-Simmons-SUP/

For instance, I was the only one out having fun in these conditions with the Simmons:



The wide tail is what gives you the "turbo boost" in fat waves, but unlike prone surfboards the paddle help to control these wide tails

Fast steep waves don't work that well for these shapes more a soft smaller wave

Wow heaps of good advice! Definitely changed my opinions and have given me a good insight on what to look for. Colas sweet vid and i see what you mean with tail volume. Kent ill buzz ya tomorrow. Cheers heaps guys

Your welcome to have a go of my wide arsed 7'10 x 28 DC for a feel of that type of board, it is remarkably stable for the dimensions and still paddles into waves well.
Definitely wouldn't want to try and charge anything of size on it though.

Jono
think about waves for perth, and which ones you ride.
for example:
mettams - fat left when small, but then turns into a bit heavier racier section to closeout left, then there is the right which is fast and sucky. SO a board like Colas good for the small fat days but when it gets big and or right hander fast n sucky would be a handful.

trigg/scarbs/secret harbour/wedge beacheys - fast waves. you want a board to get you up and going quick, but then you want a board that will whip around quick. dont want too fat a tails or you wont turn it in time, low volume again to be able to bury it quick to get a turn in before it closes out and is all over.

toms/avalon reefies etc - well you see many different shapes and sizes but anything will work there. for me i liked my IOPS pin tail when big, could really drive turns but now love my World Wide in any size really, getting used to it more on backhand decent size. she slides out if you push hard but focus on fluidity and it rides well. if only we had more right handers as it rocks on teh forhand.

cott - depends on size, a simmons or short miniony board would work, but anything will really, lets face it cott is only good a small handful of times a year when swell is massive and somehow crowds are out of town.

But what to buy as a 1 board? hard decision. at end of day you will compromise with whatever with some conditions. My shortlist was JL WW, SB Pro, SB hypernut, Deep minion, Deep JC.
Shorter list was JL WW, Hypernut, Deep JC.
ENded up getting JL as a good allrounder. Happy with it, but think 1 would have been happy with either of the 3 in my short list.
Not sure how the minion or hypernut would have gone in head and a half at bombie in exmouth, but how often do you get that right? sometimes i wish i did have the 7' boards but for the beachey sessions just to be able to manouver it round quick in the line up, and to throw around on wave. but now if busy i just surf instead, have given up on the agro, hate and potential fights between surfers and sup even tho we are all chasing the same stoke.
My board is 110 litres, didnt think id do it but now can stand on it for 1-2 hours. Once you get balance down you can go short.
BUT it is dependant on the waves you wanna ride. choose a board for that.

sum up my advice:
want a beachey board - my shortlist above, as small as you can go, i.e. 8' ww, 7'2 hypernut, 7'2 JC.
want a point break board for down south or up north like gnarloo or exmouth - stun gun or SB pro
all rounder - one of all the above.
that being said price is big factor. 3600 for a carbon wave board that is going to hit rocks, sand banks, get hit by crazy or kook surfers, mals etc. is insanity to me, id be too scared to ride the thing. lets hope things change there.
DC's look good but no idea how you order, price or waitlist.
good luck!

Have you looked at the new Fanatic All Wave 7'11"
I am not sure what model your old one was but 2015 has a new shape with performance rails and tail.
I bought it for a beach break board in Sydney. I have had it out in mush to shoulder high, its great.
I have the LTD carbon which is nice and light.
At 80 Kg and the wrong side of 50, I found it reasonably stable but need to keep moving a bit while waiting around for a wave if it isnt smooth.
It surprised me how well it paddled, I use the quad setup (usually sold with thruster fins) and it tracks really well for a short board as a quad setup.
I have no problem catching waves with this board, the single concave entry seems to work and even with the wide nose, doesnt push a lot of water as it drops in nicely on the takeoff.
Fanatic have really got there shape right with these models.
http://www.fanatic.com/product/allwave-5/
If the waves got a bit of juice and suck, then you would need a more performance board like the Prowave.

I tested a few boards like the JP Slate/Minnion but found it didnt suit my style, it was great down the line, pumping for speed but I felt you really had to jam the tail to get it turning. But Hey I am not 30, you might love that aggressive riding. I realised during that demo time I like carving style boards.
The beauty of the Minion/slate shapes you can go even shorter with the boards for similar stability.

If you can demo one it is worth it, I had no intention of buying an Allwave as I demo'd an earlier model several years ago and it was just too thick and chunky with little performance (so was there Prowave at the time compared to JP's.)

There are also some great sales on the 2015 model runouts at the moment. The 2016 model is the same shape.

Very interesting comments.

Actually these wide tail shapes are great in small fast steep waves, as the parralel rails in the tail give them insane speed to make sections... but the drawback is that they are not adapted to vertical surfing (hard to tighten the curves)
For head-high powerful hossegor, I was surprised how reducing the volume could make these boards work: my 105l Tomo (for my 100kg) was quite fun (but needed commitment). However a 125l board was more fun in small waves, the 105l bogged down somewhat comparatively.

And like "Flying High" says, at size these wide tails need to be driven agressively, and extra volume is then extremely cumbersome.

Fins are also quite important. The traditional keels of the Simmons were too powerful for me at shoulder-high waves, switching to C-Drives with their thin tips allowed me to tackle bigger waves, as well as putting them on the rearmost plugs (base of the fins 2" from the tail).
Having many fin boxes is a must for a one-board quiver.

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