First board - which option

Hi there, hoping for some advice for my first SUP purchase. I'm 5ft 2 - female and weigh around 62kgs. Most of my paddling will be on open water - bays / rivers. My experience to date has mostly been on Red 10"6 inflatable boards - which I was quite comfortable on.

I went out on the weekend and was presented two conflicting options - and I would love your thoughts...

Option 1: Fanatic Diamond 9"6
Option 2 : Red 11" Sport

I walked into these shops thinking I'd be getting a hard board -- however I think I've been talked into inflatable.... Both boards are soo much lighter than those I'm use too - which is great !!

Would love your thoughts. Thanks.

Hard board all the way ...do you notice with some of them they offer you a free puncture repair kit ...

10.6 Alana .

The patch kits tend to be supplied with inflatables due to the glues and patches being very specific for the particular materials used in manufacture and at times can be difficult to source, unlike epoxy and glass etc which is fairly easily to find. Quality inflatables from reputable brands Red, C4 Waterman etc etc tend to be much more durable than epoxy boards and much much more difficult to hole. The performance, especially for beginners is also very close to what you would find in many epoxy boards (except in surf where a hard rail is difficult to achieve).

Saying that Hard (epoxy) boards to tend to feel a bit nicer to paddle and do tend to look better.

If you have the storage and can manage a hard board on and off the car then go hard board, previous posters have given good examples and there are plenty more boards in the 9'6-10' size range to choose from for someone your height & weight.

My experience with Mrs Cartoon (about same ht/wt as you) was we started out with 10' hard board (Naish Nalu) but she has a dodgy elbow so was always worried about getting it on and off the car on her own. So we sold the Nalu and bought her an inflatable which she is very comfortable on (but guess who gets to do the inflating )