Anyone experienced these new designs? I'm thinking of making a board for sup surfing and the new narrow designs seem very popular now, I like the idea of getting good board speed to get on foil. how stable are they to stand on and paddle on to foil. I have a SMIK 9'2"x29" 124L surf sup which gets tricky in chop, not sure how the smaller size boards would fair.
never tried sup foiling so have no idea of how the foil set up affects the stability.
all advice appreciated.
thanks.
Some principles to think about.
1. Straighter water lines have a more stable heeling moment than big curves at the extreme. ie. a barge is more resistant to loading on the corners and a sup board shaped like a banana is hard to balance.
2. Stability increases to the square of waterline length.
3.High volume boards feel more effected by chop than neutral buoyancy boards.
4. heavy and large foils increase static stability.
5. In forward motion a foil/mast/keel/rudder foil shape generates stability proportional to the speed of water flowing over it. Therefore the faster you go the more stable it gets and the more deflection it can create.
So yes a long narrow board can be fast and stable. Probably not the best for standing around waiting out the back in a line up though, a broad ended sup would be much better for that.
The skinny boards are not designed to stand around on waiting for a wave, they are designed to prone paddle out to the wind/swell line then prone or sup paddle onto foil easily. I have a 8' x 19.5" cuda style and a 6'x28" e3 style. I would not use the cuda for sup surf unless I was very skilled and had a very calm sea state as it's just too tippy. Otherwise it's brilliant for dw. Horses for courses. You are trading stationary stability for paddle speed.
