Stand Up Stories 2: An Eye on the World of Stand Up Paddle Surfing

Posted on June 29, 2007 @ 1:55 PM

Beware of Landfill!

By Olaus McLeod

These are exciting times! Every time I scour the ‘Net, I come across an amazing and radical new Stand Up Board (SUB) design. These are mostly the latest custom-shaped offerings from legendary Hawaiian and Californian shapers, each another step in the evolution of this great new sport. The trouble is that, with the break-necked pace that such designs - and notions of “what works” – are developing; many mass-produced SUBs are already looking decidedly old-school.

Last October, I bought one of the first SUBs to arrive in the UK – a signature model by a World-famous manufacturer. Being my first SUB, on which I caught the bug for SUP Surfing, I was initially delighted with it. Very soon, however, I realised the limitations of the board. Yes, it was very stable – and therefore great for learning to paddle on – but try to drop into a wave and crank an enthusiastic bottom turn, and if you hadn’t already buried the nose on the take-off, you’d often catch a rail! I learned to surf around the quirks and vagaries of the board though, and had a lot of fun on it.

I couldn’t help but think that this board was a bit of a disservice to a first-time paddler, however. NOT what you’d call a “safe pair of hands” - that is, a board with predictable handling qualities, geared to maximising the SUP experience for the novice. I researched the board a little further and found out that this particular design was actually a good couple of years old. With SUB designs evolving, literally on a daily basis, this board amounts, pretty-much, to a has-been!

At 12’ x 31” x 4”, this board is enormous! In the two years since it was designed, shapers have concluded that you can hack a whole foot off this length, without any degradation to a SUB’s performance. Also, making the board a tad narrower and slightly thicker, allows a far more manageable and much lighter weight SUB – one which paddles just as well as my first board; but turns far more easily – and with much more predictable results!

My feeling is that, for most people – unless you are a REALLY big guy, in which case the above dimensions will probably work better for you – a board that is 11’ long, 30” wide and about 4.5” thick will be just about perfect as an all-round SUB. It will accelerate your learning process, allow plenty of glide for a great A to B core fitness workout, and be manoeuvrable enough to hold its’ own in reasonably-sized surf.

The above thought process has inevitably led me to cast my eyes over the production boards, currently on the market. Sure, there are some great ones out there. However, almost daily I hear about new SUBs – many launched by long-standing and well-known surfboard companies, hell-bent on jumping on the SUP bandwagon – who have clearly NOT done their homework!

One major manufacturer has suddenly decided that a 12’ longboard, a core model in its’ range for years, should be re-branded and marketed as a SUB. I know a number of people – both first-timers and highly experienced surfers – who have bought this board in good faith, keen to get into SUP Surfing – when it is patently obvious that it is NOT a SUB! The board is only 26.25” wide, which frankly makes a mockery of the Stand Up concept – it is SO unstable!

To me this typifies the injustice of major companies with huge marketing budgets, pushing ill-suited products at poor, unsuspecting customers. The customer, newly switched-on to this great new sport of SUP Surfing, puts their trust in such major corporations and parts with their hard-earned cash. In return, they are palmed-off with a board which is NOT appropriate to the job, leads to a high frustration level in the first-time paddler, and maybe even turns them right off the sport – TOTALLY UNNECESSARILY!

Which brings me on to the whole “landfill” thing (a term ingeniously coined by a well-respected shaper friend of mine). If you are new to SUP surfing, you will be well-advised to avoid any so-called SUB which is much narrower than 30” and less than 4” thick. Trust me, there are LOADS of boards out there which do not fall into the 11’ x 30” x 4” – 4.5” ballpark. As SUBs these boards will, in time, fall by the wayside - in a Darwinian sacrifice to the greater good – and will be worth little more than landfill!

Paddle on…


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