Same as 2014

In general, for a given design, the board you are on makes surprisingly little difference to your speed. The only thing that makes a big difference is length. Other things like width and weight do make a difference, but you are talking about at best about 1% or less. This is enough to make a difference if you are an elite racer who regularly finishes within a few seconds of your competitors after an hour of racing. But for the average Joe or Joan, not really.

By contrast, fitness and technique training can easily give you speed improvements in the 5-10% range. So if someone else has trained harder and smarter than you have, they are probably gonna kick your butt in a race pretty much no matter what boards you are on.

You will be fastest on a board that feels comfortable to you. It is easy to end up slower on a narrower board because you can't commit to your stroke, and tire more easily, if you feel wobbly. What is fast for an elite racer is not necessarily fast (or perhaps I should even say rarely) for the average racer.

Really, speed is all about technique and fitness. Unfortunately. It is easy to spend a fortune on a lighter, narrower board, and not be any faster at all. Or only faster by 0.01%, or only under certain conditions.

No-one who is trying to sell race boards is gonna tell you this though...

By the way, I quite often see a brand claim that their latest race model is far faster than the old one, and quote a "percentage faster". Around 10% seems to be a popular figure, although I have seen higher.

Now, unless the old board was truly tragically bad (eg. shaped like a brick and 36" wide), then this statement will be a BIG FAT LIE. So where you see such a claim, please feel free to ignore anything that that brand tells you from that point on.

As a guide, for the average casual racer in dead flat water, moving from a heavily-rockered planing hull/Ocean-type board to a displacement-style flat-water race board of similar width and construction will likely gain you speed increases of the order of 2 to 6%. Moving from a 12-6 to a 14ft board will give you a similar level of speed increase.

There isn't much evidence that a heavier board is slower than a lighter one in flat water, except perhaps over very short distances. And the jury is out on the speed increase you get by going narrower in flat water. There are too many variables there to give an accurate general figure, I suspect. But in totally flat water with no wind, for a person of average stature on boards of typical width, the speed increase is probably going to be something of the order of 0.1-0.5% by going down a board width in the range. But as I say, you might actually be slower, especially in long races and in chop.

The one situation where width makes a substantial difference is going upwind, especially in the ocean.

But the overwhelming experience (in my experience) of people changing to different width or weight flatwater race boards is surprise at how little difference it makes to your speed. So once you've got yourself a respectable board from a respectable brand that is designed for the conditions you will be racing in, spend your money on good nutrition and training instead, if you want to be fast.

Thanks Nick. Does the 28 wide have more rocker than the falcon?
The 26 did not feel stable enough in chop for me. I did like the feel of the board the rocker wouldn't be too unstable would it compared to the 26???? Wanting to purchase tomorrow but don't want to have doubts
There must be some differences even just small ones between the 2014 and 15, 28 wide right?