Would appreciate some input on board selection.
Currently riding 8'2 x32 JP Surf Wide 124L (quad) and JP 8'10 x 30 Surf 126L (thruster). Both great boards, however...
The 8'2 is tiresomely slow (zero glide) which also makes it require a lot of input to catch a wave. On a wave its fun.. but if the wave is too small/fat it stalls (again, zero glide). The plus side is it's stability and it turns on a dime when turning to catch a wave. Love surfing quads.
The 8'10 has way better glide (i use for training on the flat) but is a bitch to turn around to catch a wave. It also suits bigger waves but i only surf small stuff (under head high). Also waaaay less stable. Not a fan of thrusters.
Hoping I can replace the two of these for one... that has:
- Stability.
- Glide/fast and catches waves easily
- 4 or 5 fin setup
- Turns easily to catch oncoming wave (is this also due to quad vs thruster?)
Is there such a board? Smik Hipster Twin looks good, just not sure about glide/catching waves. Sunova Speeed also looks good but prop too tippy. SP25 also, but glide??
Would go up or down in litreage and length.
I remember demoing the 8'8 JP Surf Wide and it did everything but felt way to corky for my then 75kgs.
I am 6ft, 80kgs, 51yo with dodgy joints (hence need easy-to-catch-wave board). Not a performance surfer but enjoy top to bottom surfing. Rarely in pocket.. mosly down the line.
Thanks, much appreciated.
Tim
Thuffam,
Mate I'm 5'9 about 93kg. I have the 8'8 sp25 and can't say enough good things about it. Sure it was a little tippy when I first got on it but I quickly mastered that. I was 100kg then. Lately I've been using as a quad and love it. It just catches all waves from fat and slow to head high. The last little wave I caught was about angle to knee high and it ran right across the face of the wave. There's plenty of reviews on this forum. Good luck.
Thuffam,
Mate I'm 5'9 about 93kg. I have the 8'8 sp25 and can't say enough good things about it. Sure it was a little tippy when I first got on it but I quickly mastered that. I was 100kg then. Lately I've been using as a quad and love it. It just catches all waves from fat and slow to head high. The last little wave I caught was about angle to knee high and it ran right across the face of the wave. There's plenty of reviews on this forum. Good luck.
Thanks Steveo
Yeah I was originally concerned about stability of the Sp25... but because I was looking at the 8'5x30.5 (126L) because that was the same litreage I have been using.. but think these days I would prefer more stability at the cost of a bigger board and the extra length should hopefully increase glide.. so the 8'8 is looking like a really good option for me.
And i much prefer a pointer nose for punching through white water over the JP wide which just bounces off it.
What is the glide like? It looks quite a curved outline.
Would be interest to hear from someone who has ridden the Hipster Twin in similar size.
Thuffam,
The Glide if fine and the pointy nose cuts through waves. For me, and at my leve,l being intermediate I love this board. Have a look at some videos of Supthecreek (Rick) on Seabreeze surfing the same board.
Cheers Stevo.
Hi mate, seeing as I own a Hipster Twin you can guess my vote
My 8'6 has plenty of guide, no the fastest but catches any bump or wave I paddle for. Stable waiting around out the back and fun as advertised on a wave. The board turns when you get your foot back over the fins, and is flat enough under your front foot to get over dead sections on waves.
I have the shallow tail model, the new pin tail as shown on the WSS board's website look fantastic.
If the twin set up is something you really don't want, the Starboard Spice might fit the bill as you can run it as a quad or thruster.
You can find a review of the Hipster I posted a little further down this page.
Cheers.
Steve.
Hi mate, seeing as I own a Hipster Twin you can guess my vote
My 8'6 has plenty of guide, no the fastest but catches any bump or wave I paddle for. Stable waiting around out the back and fun as advertised on a wave. The board turns when you get your foot back over the fins, and is flat enough under your front foot to get over dead sections on waves.
The 8'3" size might work well for you.
I have the shallow tail model, the new pin tail as shown on the WSS board's website look fantastic.
If the twin set up is something you really don't want, the Starboard Spice might fit the bill as you can run it as a quad or thruster.
You can find a review of the Hipster I posted a little further down this page.
Cheers.
Steve.
Interesting. I have both the same boards you have, the same size and run them the same way. I have the center fin on the Surf in the forward position, helps with turning for the wave. My Kanga is the board I use for what you describe, it's 8'9. It's like a swiss army knife for me. It doesn't excel at one thing, but kind of excels at doing lots of things really well if that makes sense. Can't decide if I prefer it quad or thruster yet.
Maybe a Quatro Glide 8'2 could be a good board for you. (2021 version)
I have the 8'6 x 32, 130 liters, Pro, 7,8kg, which gives me, Intermediate-advanced, 54yo, 6'4, 93 kg, sufficent stability if it's not getting too windy and choppy.
The board does not do anything special, not the best gliding, not the fastest or the best turning, but to me a perfect allround board.
Can't tell about the new models, that got on the Quatro webside recently.
Thanks everyone
The selection these days is amazing.. just not easy to choose.
Yeah I was looking at the Kanga too... but think maybe the SP25 & Hipster have more glide/better for smaller/fatter waves... just not sure which.. and which has better glide as i do like to paddle a few k's for exercise too.
Tough one to call. The Kanga is good in small/weak waves but requires input to paddle. The longer STC video has a great description of the Kanga - the larger sizes seem to surf really well and maybe more suited to longer paddles for exercise. Another curve ball is the Steeze - billed as an 'all rounder' it has effortless glide, is stable and gives loads of performance off the tail. It's my can't be ars** board and has surprised me on days when I thought I should of taken other boards. It sort of makes me want to surf in an easy relaxed way.
Reading all the comments and other forum posts.. it looks like the Smik Hipster or Starboard Spice would suit me best.. but sizing isn't easy. Ideally there would be one in the 125L range that is 31" or more wide and 8'6 - 8'10. The Hipster 8'6 looks close enough but at 134L is gettint up there.
Spice has a small selection 8'2 is on the small side... coming off my 8'2 JP wide i know this length has not enough glide for what I'm after.
So the 8'8 Spice is looking good.. but at 140L is way higher than I was hoping for... but... and this is significant... the Hipster costs 2450 and the Spice 1700...thats enough for me to not care about a bit of corkiness... and I get a comfier ride and catch more waves.
As my son rightly pointed out, no point going for a higher performance board (smaller) which reduces your wave count over the inverse: lesser performant board with much higher wave count.
Also, the images on the SB site show , interestingly, how the Spice shapes differ significantly across the sizes. The 8'8 looks like it has more parallel outline which suits me.
Thanks all.
Ended up buying an 8'8 Smik Spitfire.
Demoed an 8'8 x 32" x 140L Spice on flat water (choppy 15knots) but , while super stable, didnt feel right.. just felt huge and corky (fair enough as I'm 80kg and usually ride 125L). Also, in the non-carbon build it felt quite heavy. It did meet much of my criteria though.. good glide (although you felt the weight) and super stable, and i could pivot the board 180 degrees easily with 2 paddles... and if i put my foot on the rear, even easier (which suggests it could be lively on a wave).
But the board had an odd feeling to it.. can't put my finger on it..maybe "disconnected".
Then demoed the Spitfire...in completely unfair condition on an open beach..was super choppy with side wash, white water coming from all angles, so much that i bailed on trying to get out the back. However, what a relevation.. for board with similar specs 8'8 x 31.5" x 129L.. just holding it, it felt significantly smaller (pulled in nose) and lighter (carbon build).
Jumping on in the messy chop.. piece of cake (super stable) and it paddled nice and straight (more than good enough glide for what i wanted) and punched through the white water easily. I decided to just catch a reforming white water which it did almost by itself.. so that satisfied my criteria for catches small waves easily.
And the complete opposite to.the spice not feeling right... just jumping on it after a couple of paddles it felt fantastic.. was a no brainer. Obviously a very well designed and refined board.
Will report back after a decent session or two.
Nice one mate, the Spitfire is on my radar for my next board so I will be keen to see how you get on.
Steve.
Had my first proper session in chest high waves... Two words: Wow, Agressive.
This thing is a rocket. Never experienced a board that accelerates so fast.. its literally like someone kicked the board from behind as you drop into a wave... I fell of the back on the first 2 waves - learned as soon as it catches the wave crouch down very low and dig your toenails into the deck!
Glide through the flat spots? It carries just so much speed it flys though the flat spots agressively ready to carve up the next section.
I replaced the thruster setup with quads.
It turns on a dime and just felt like it wanted me to push harder.
I was wondering how it would feel - length/bulkwise compared to my 8'2 124L board.... it felt waaay smaller and simply more like an athlete.
I can see why they called it Spitfire - normally I don't mind proners dropping in on me as SUPs are much slower than them.. not this board... they will become Spitfire fodder.
One suggestion to Smik... install a loud horn that says get the f out my way ;-)
Oh.. and super comfy in the chop out back.
I can see this improving my surfing vastly and now want to hit more critial sections.
Haven't stopped smiing.
... more sessions on the Spitfire...
Again, wow!
Was in 2-3ft small stuff this morning. There were a few 1 footers that i thought I'd try... bugger me, it took off... but changed its attitude to a long board style ride, not really wanting to carve (obviously in such small mush). But interesting to see how it behaved.
On the set waves though, chest-shoulder high, just amazing fun. Took my steepest drop yet, was expecting to go over the falls based on previous experience of late take offs, but again, it just took off, and to my total amazement, zoomed across the face before it closed out. Never done that before, what a rush.
Incredible stability.. only fell off when paddling out in the impact zone but never in the choppy crap out back.
Prob set a PB for number of waves caught... literally as fast as i could paddle back out to lineup I'd spin around and catch another. Would estimate 11 waves in 30 minutes... i was exhausted after that (had a 15 minute paddle there and back home either side).
On the flat water doing interval training, i find it fairly slow but good enough glide (as my main criteria for glide is mostly for wave catching) eg a 2.8km paddle took 32 minutes.. i would have done in prob 4-5 minutes quicker on my old, narrower (8'10x30) board.
Next... have swapped out the quads for the thruster setup but moved the centre fin forward for looseness.
I should prob post this on Spitfire review post.
Stay tuned.
Your tempting me to sell my older board for a Spitfire to go with my Lord Bonza!!!!
Tried the thruster setup.. with centre fin forward.
Nice and loose but it felt slower paddling.... why do thrusters seem slower than quads?.. no idea if its actually slower or not, just feels that way. The thruster setup certainly helped it track straighter when paddling.
Had some fun catching reformers in close.. as was pushed for time. For a performance board this would definitely suit beginners too. Everything ive read about the Spitfire says its a big wave performance board but while that is definitely where it excels, unlike others of this type, this one is fantastic in the smaller stuff and stable.. I suspect largely because I got a bigger model (8'8x31.5x129L). I think a huge amount of what I'm benefiting from this board is its light weight.. from throwing it around on a wave, super easy takeoff (I'm finding from standstill i can catch a wave with 1 stroke... never thought that was possible) and i often walk 0.5km with it to the beach.
Had to cut session short as kept falling off in serious side chop.... but wasnt till i was walking back to the car that i realised it wasnt the board.. but rather that i had been paddling on the lake last night for 2.5 hours.. legs shagged!
