Starboard Ace GT 17'4"

I had the opportunity to paddle the new Ace GT 17'4" yesterday for about 5km of a cracking DW run at Gerroa about 2hrs South of Sydney.
I came away very impressed indeed. It flies!! I was dubious about it as first as it doesn't have a rudder and all my previous 17'4" experience in DW conditions have been on ruddered SIC boards and the SIC will be the obvious comparison.
It picks up runs soooooo good. It's literally like a bigger, more stable version of the new 14 x 25" Ace.
I found it very easy to paddle onto runs and it kept its speed up nicely doing that Ace thing where it goes over the top of the bump in front and onto the next one. Its a very very nice board to paddle.
A taller/bigger paddler than me that could quickly stomp the rear of the standing area could keep the nose up easily enough with practice I reckon.
I did find myself caught out a few times by the nose purling as it has a relatively low rocker compared to an SIC Bullet 17'4" and lacking the rudder it is a bit less manoeuvrable in confused chop and the Bullet obviously surfs better from the tail in steeper drops.
That said, in the right, lined up conditions I feel it could possibly be faster than the Bullet as I think it required less effort to get onto the smaller runs. A perfect DW machine for bay runs or mid strength lined up ocean runs.
The Bullet however would leave it behind in the bigger, steeper ocean stuff and channel crossings that the Bullet excels in.
Well worth a look if you can get the opportunity to try one. :)
You can see one in action in DJ's latest vid featuring PTWoody on his GT. :)

Great review Kieran and you are spot on in relation to the GT's DW ability and overall stability and feel - especially compared to the Bullet 17'4".

The other element to this board that shouldn't be overlooked is its all round ability. Where it stands out from the Bullet, is in its flat water and cruising ability. The relatively flat rocker gives it excellent glide on flat water you could consider use the Ace GT as your everyday board - training, cruising, time trials, DW. [which I now do]

I have used it in SUP 5.0 time trials and kept pace with 25" race boards [14 foot] quite easily and the length and stability give you confidence to maintain stoke rhythm and power.

The obvious drawback as a one board race quiver is you won't be able to enter the majority of race divisions currently on offer in events - so you may need a 14' to go with it ! A clever design from Starboard and just good fun.

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Area10 said..
The obvious question with a board this length, and without a rudder, is how does it fare in cross-chop and cross-wind. Could you paddle across swell and wind of around 20 knots or more, or is this basically a fair weather board?

We had a fair amount of side wind at times the other day that was blowing us out.. I noticed PT out wide a couple of times but he seemed to have no real problem getting back across.. I asked him after about it and he said it was fine and better than he expected concidering the high sides and long length.. It looks more like a 15-16' board because of the narrow piny tail.. Personally I think rudders are over rated and I really only used mine occasionally on my 17' Glide.. If you can surf a board left or right on a runner you can usually get by without a rudder.. IMO..

It will be interesting to see how hard it is to make direction changes on this board concidering it's not really a planning hull shape (well I guess it actually is because it's almost DW Fanatic and DC like in bottom shape) and also concidering the Ace tail shape.. Paddling across swells on this board should not be a problem either..

PT said it was fine and he's only paddled it twice..