After about a month or so toying around with a fin system to increase the speed of my 7ft Coreban Hyper in all kinds of surf, the weather gods sent Huey my way on the South Coast 100 kms south of Sydney Australia. 6ft plus waves!!!What board do i take? Obviously my Sunova Soul that was the one I researched for ultimate control when things get big. But wanted it for a good all rounder too.
Met my mate at the car park & could hear the waves crashin. We could see some nice waves up to shoulder high peeling into the entrance of our local lake. This was rare as it usually is only knee high when the surf is pumpin! So being a bit apprehensive going out & getting smashed we surfed the entrance until my mate decided to go out. WTF!!!!!! I thought. Oh well mates stay with mates.
Luckily there was a break between sets & a nice deep channel that was gouged out from the previous flooding rains to get out the back & met up with the short boarders who were having a ball on the right handers. But there were sooo many of them!!!!! At least 20!!! But only 2 long boarders taking the lefts. The lefts have been the best I have seen yet as this break is predominately a right hander with locals Mick Lowe & Sally Fitzgimmons turning up when it fires.
On the big sets the lefts would wall up & peel. But if too big they would close out. So the choosing to do or die was fun without worrying about the short boarders.
Anyway to cut my long story short, my Sunova performed exceptional yet again. It was easy to catch the waves & the stability & manouverability was easy.
I took a few late steep drops that freaked me out looking down at nose dives but those I had the courage to stay on just projected me along the base of the wave face to make it past the break back to the wall to have a fun ride.
My only regrets was me!!! I should have had the confidence to stay on board & trust my Soul!!!
Oh, just to let you know, I find it quite difficult to surf lefts.
If you want a board for most conditions then this is it. It catches waves easily, paddles easily, good stability, turns when you want, carves when you want & is able to recover from critical conditions.
Saying it as it is.
Seajuice Im stoked your reviewing the soul..
Ive been looking at the sunova range and I was tossing up between the 8'6 skate and the 8'6 soul. Im currently riding a 8'3 Naish x32 and loving it but when the waves get bit bigger it gets a lot harder to ride also paddeling into big waves its a bit to bobby and does not track too straight Im 5'11 and 95 kg reasonable supper so Im looking for a allround board I have a 9'2 JP surf thats 30 wide and thats epic to catch waves it paddles so straight and fast but its so much slower to turn on the wave..
I was not sure if the skate would be to Fish like and not handle the bigger stuff but from the sounds of it the soul is the board.. Im going to have to hassle my local dealer and see if they will have a demo soul I know they have a skate but think its quite big.. keep coming with the reviews..
Hey slugga its Richie i sold ya the hokua.Ive just purchased the sunova speed,seriously check this range out.The speed is probably not what you are after but i gotta say the feel of the sunova is something else.Im just about to research my next purchase and im pretty sure itll be one of the models you are looking at .Good luck Rich
Hay richie mate how are you?? Yer I'm loving the naish I'm running some shapers fins as thruster set up feels great but on bigger waves it gets a bit skatie and man it's slow to paddle it's a hard balance loose to surf slow to paddle and it turns on you when paddling into waves not like my Jp that paddels straight whenpaddeling into waves I like the sound of the soul or the skate tiny bit longer than my 8"3 but straighter rail bit less rocker and bit narrower.
Have you ridden any of the sunova range yet apart from the speed.. I'm taking the naish to Bali next week I'm pretty pumped got the nanny booked for the kids so I can surf all day will be fun surfing the beachies on the x32..
Oh yeah i think it will go great in Bali beachies and ive only ridden 8.10 speed as i was wanting to replace old 8.10 fanatic allwave.The sunova is a big step up in performance allround but its still a biggish board to some.Im leaning towards a skate or soul a bit shorter maybe mid eights.ive been playing around on the 8.8xl32 hokua carbon and its pretty good but my mind is still lost in longboarding i think after so many years of riding them, so i always get a bit undecided on which way to go.One thing i will say is the sunova feels alive and fast fast fast underfoot so id imagine the other models would be pretty bloody good.If you feel like having a paddle on mine no problems.Have a great trip and catch you over summer somewhere.
