I saw the '07 Naish SP 91 at the demo day and was fascinated. Really fat and thick nose. Skinny pin tail. Looks alot like the Carbon Art speed machines.
Has anyone ridden one?
I wanna go fast (and it looks quick) but don't wanna compromise comfort.
Cheers
MKSEVEN has got one. He seems to love it as his speed board....what you say mark!
I've had mine for a month now, very happy with it. It is a slalom board not a speed board, in ultimate off the wind (particularly when it gets choppy) the dedicated sub 50cm speed boards have the advantage. That said I am very happy with it's potential, any day that has shown decent potential has resulted in good peaks. Across and closer to the wind it seems as fast or faster than speed boards, it is certainly very easy getting back upwind (comfy, good speed and pointing) to have a decent run back off the wind.
If you are used to short nose boards and feel confident in knowing they wont dig into the back of the next swell you'll love the board. It is very easy to ride, quite possibly the easiest slalom board of it's size i've ever used (almost waveboard easy)- it is controllable in the air and across the chop. Although i'm terrible at gybing, they carve like a dream. The only negative is I really don't feel the board is 91L, it seems alot smaller (though it could be i'm alot fatter). I don't find the volume a problem, the board is light and pops up onto the plane with the slightest gust. At 95kg I use the board from (I think 16knots+) with a 6.3m sail. I think the board would be at absolute limit with 7m, it could probably take bigger but feels that it might be pushing too much water.
Conclusion: 2 thumbs up, love it. Plug a powerful enough engine into it and I reckon the board will fly. The naish fin ain't too shabby either, it feels a bit soft for all out speed but once the chop picks up the control is welcome. I stepped from traditional slalom boards onto this and definately can keep pushing this board harder through nasty conditions than before.
Thanks for the feedback mkseven. Sounds perfect for what I want. I'm 75kg so the "small" 91L should be perfect.
As good as the Starboards seem, I couldn't bring myself to have the same board as everyone else out there.
The only thing that concerns me is that Naish have gone against the squashed nose on the '08 models. I wonder if it wasn't working for them, or they simply weren't selling well because of it.
Cheers!
So i've been told the short nose concept has been dropped due to public misconceptions about the very short boards. Robby disagreed and believes the short noses have lots of advantages and few disadvantages but in the end selling things is what it's all about. The 08 slalom pros are priced a bit more aggressively too. Personally I love the short nose concept, especially those with rocker. The slalom pro has more nose rocker than the hybrid slalom.
If you want a 90L board at 75kg I wouldn't consider much else, if it's you're medium to high wind board maybe you should look at something a touch smaller again- Exocet warp slalom 80 or Fanatic falcon 78 both seem to be awesome boards also.
