New Hala boards look interesting..

Aren't they just doing what ULI have been doing for years?

And the board looks more like a trampoline in the video than a SUP. I notice that the camera was hastily moved away from showing the flex in the board just at the critical moments, so we were just left with guys looking like they were being propelled into orbit. As a demonstration of rigidity it's right up there with putting noodles in boiling water :)

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Area10 said..
Aren't they just doing what ULI have been doing for years?

And the board looks more like a trampoline in the video than a SUP. I notice that the camera was hastily moved away from showing the flex in the board just at the critical moments, so we were just left with guys looking like they were being propelled into orbit. As a demonstration of rigidity it's right up there with putting noodles in boiling water :)

No.. no.. and no..

Well, it's remarkable that two people can watch the same video and come away with completely different impressions. The flex in the board looked worse to me that you get in eg. a Red Paddle board of equivalent length. But since none of the manufacturers provide actual rigidity data they can all say whatever they like. And they do.

ULI have been laminating Kevlar stringers on their boards since they first started, and the principle of what these people are doing here seems pretty similar.

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Area10 said..
Well, it's remarkable that two people can watch the same video and come away with completely different impressions. The flex in the board looked worse to me that you get in eg. a Red Paddle board of equivalent length. But since none of the manufacturers provide actual rigidity data they can all say whatever they like. And they do.

ULI have been laminating Kevlar stringers on their boards since they first started, and the principle of what these people are doing here seems pretty similar.

Well I guess there you have it.. One optimist.. and one pesimist..

Or maybe it's what you are used to paddling... My ULI is pretty darned stiff even at 15 PSI (although it weighs a ton too). But at 25 PSI I don't reckon my 16ft tandem Starboard bounces any more than the board they show in the video. I wonder what pressure these Hala boards can go to. It's odd that they don't mention it when talking about rigidity.

Maybe someday a brand will use: (a) stiffening battens, (b) composite stringer, and (c) clever internal cross-stitching like Mistral, (d) rate their boards to 40 PSI, (e) Wiki rails like ULI. And then we may actually have a board suitable for downwinding. And we'd all want one :)

How's that for optimism?

Yes I'd like to order an inflatable with all those attributes. But also multi chambers so a puncture at sea wouldn't be so fatal. Until they introduce that feature, it won't matter how stiff the board is, it would still be risky to take on an open water downwinder.

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PTWoody said...
Yes I'd like to order an inflatable with all those attributes. But also multi chambers so a puncture at sea wouldn't be so fatal. Until they introduce that feature, it won't matter how stiff the board is, it would still be risky to take on an open water downwinder.

I agree entirely. And have made this point elsewhere myself - and been roundly attacked for it. I guess everyone has to make their own risk assessments.

A hire firm local to me was considering using inflatables as an alternative to hard boards. But the summer before last a mother was paddling an inflatable at the beach with her small daughter on board. The mum was busy paddling when she suddenly heard a loud hiss and a very frightened squeal from her child. The kid had been fiddling with the valve and had managed to deflate the board. Fortunately they were not far from shore. So the mum waded in with the kid crying and pulling behind her a limp iSUP. The local hire place decided to stick with hard boards after that, and the mum, perhaps not unreasonably, was asking why the valves weren't child-proof and how it could possibly be a good idea that pressing just one button could deflate the entire thing. I guess the answer is that people will buy the boards without thinking about all the crazy things that can happen in the water.

But I suppose that if you are never going to stray further from shore than you could swim, even if you are tired and the weather turns bad, or you have a safety boat with you, then iSUPs are perfectly safe. Although you'd probably not be able to drag it to shore with you so I guess if it did go psssst in the water then you'd probably lose the entire thing, which would be a bit costly.

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Area10 said..

PTWoody said...
Yes I'd like to order an inflatable with all those attributes. But also multi chambers so a puncture at sea wouldn't be so fatal. Until they introduce that feature, it won't matter how stiff the board is, it would still be risky to take on an open water downwinder.

I agree entirely. And have made this point elsewhere myself - and been roundly attacked for it. I guess everyone has to make their own risk assessments.

Besides the safety aspect, a multi chamber approach would also allow for some out-of-the-box thinking on design. Take a look at the Badfish multi chamber shape and compare to an Ace. I think a sunken hull inflatable could be a really good downwind option. But combine those two acquired tastes and you will really see the haters on the attack. Especially if it happened to be coloured blue.

That's a good idea, PT. I'm not sure how a high-sided inflatable would fare in cross-winds, but it would be worth trying. Maybe a multi-chambered board would allow you to have a board that could be adjustable for width. That would be radical.

I'm the owner of a blue Ace (and a blue inflatable). They are both niche boards: The inflatable is an Unlimited -and not one of the multi-people ones, this is a board one person can paddle, 16ftx32", and in fact makes a great distance tourer if you want to carry a lot of kit, as well as a tandem board or a big guy cruiser. Both the Ace and the UL inflatable are fantastically effective at what they do, but certainly not to everyone's taste. It is to Starboard's credit that they will produce such niche and interesting boards. It is also inevitable that boards at the extreme like these will attract criticism as well as praise, I guess. That's the nature of niche designs. Remarkably, if I had to lose one of them, I'd keep the inflatable, actually. (Although obviously if I were a serious racer it would be the Ace I'd keep. There's a reason why it was Annabel Anderson's favourite board.) IMO UL boards are where the advantages of inflatables REALLY take off. UL boards are a pain to transport and store, and they tend to pick up dings left, right and centre out of the water just because of their sheer size. But an inflatable instantly solves all those problems. The manufacturers just need to find ways to make boards stiffer, and then everyone can have unlimiteds. Praise is surely due to the "blue brand" for exploring that aspect of the market.

Starboard do seem the manage to attract a lot of attention sometimes - both good and bad - but no-one is going to say they aren't innovative.

While on holliday my wife and I used red boards apart from pulling the valve I doubt it would ever sink they are made tough and I did abuse the hell out of them somewhat.

But from memory the red boards also have a cover over the valve I can't remember

From the comments on the video: "Allow us to explain. ULI does have a stringer, but their Kevlar stringer does not more than double the stiffness of their board. ICT (in this, our simplest layup) is more than TWICE as rigid as ULI's Kevlar. ULI's website claims that Kevlar improves rigidity by 47%. The board in the video is 204% more rigid than a board without a stringer, or a104% improvement over baseline AND a 57% improvement over ULI's claims (which we have not evaluated). Many companies have done stringers of various materials for years, but none have ever done a stringer that achieves these results. This combination of thermoplastics and carbon is unrivaled, and patented. And this deflection testing was done at 15 PSI, not 20! I imagine the results would be improved at 20PSI, though few people can even pump their boards that high, so we tested at the more standard 15.

ICT is better than Aramid stringers. Using kevlar (aramid) or other high tensile strength stringers on inflatables only solves half of the problem. They do great in tension, so the bottom of the board is fully improved as a result of the aramid stringer. However the top side lacks compressive strength as aramids offer very low resistance to compression. ICT solves this problem with true high modulus (compressive strength) carbon stringers top and bottom. This provides as much compressive strength as is possible and gives stiffness that is unequalled in inflatables."

All inflatables will bend our red race is quite stiff but will still flex a lot of there is chop, but it's a great board and I have done many miles on it now.

One word though.. Electric pump

hi Foam
I have a imagine 10' and I found getting that last 5psi into the board with a standard air pump quiet a workout. The manual states not to us electric pump is this just being ultra conservative?

Inflatables are great . But where possible keep them inflated. I pretty much only deflate when going on holidays and there's no space in car.
Other wise permanently inflated in garage

And if you must inflate/deflate for each session, a screwless fin (e.g, the ones by FCS) will save your day. handling the US box system (and losing the screw & tab in the sand) becomes old fast.

On the stringer technology, what I heard is that a skin a bit more stretch resistant everywhere is as good or better than high tech stringer only on some places, both for stiffness (you can thus also inflate at higher pressure for heavyweights), and durability (better stress of the load). But I am no expert.