After posting my review on this board on the Style thread, I got a couple of messages from other Seabreeze users asking to create a new thread with this review, just for the sake of making it easier to find.
Having said this, this review is a blend from the one I did for the Speeed 8'5" (in what comes to aesthetics and construction evaluation), and the Style XL one I posted two days ago.
Really thin nose and tail, not a lot of nose rocker, plenty of kick tail.
The rails are pretty nice, not too thick, not too thin.
While i was (and still am) pretty excited about this shape, it is the 9'6 x 28" that i'm really looking forward to demo, as I like smaller boards. The wave where I tried it is kind of a difficult to read wave. A righthand point break, with a kind of steep take off on a bubbling portion of the reef, followed by a fat although fast section that usually closes out on a white water mush. Except for the first 20m of wave, not really the kind of wave I like. Being the fist time I was surfing it, it was way trickier than i looked from afar. While the fat section looked like it would provide a perfect spot to ride on the nose, the wave was actually too fat, being that the first section was too steep for a board I had never tried (with the reef lurking underneath). Not only the shape was different from my normal ride, as the size of the board was a completely different world from what I'm used to (my everyday board is a Brushed Carbon Starboard 8'0 x 28" Pro). This being said, let me tell you what I think about this specific board:
My stats:
- Height - 1,92m
- Weight - 104,5kg
- Age - 36yo
Construction, Weight, look:
Look:
These boards are beautiful. They look even better in the flesh and all the surfers in the water were asking me to check the boards. The glassing looks really good and as someone described, while the bottom will flex a tiny little bit if you apply pressure with your thumb, the deck is really rock solid. Sunova claims this is done on purpose to maximize the control and feedback from the surface. The balsa wood boards/stripes are perfectly matched and the black lines from the glassing just makes the board look even better.
There will be differently colored valve screws. Sunova makes a silver one, a grey one, a blue one and an orange one (maybe a couple more colors, but these are the ones i've seen so far). While they all seem to be made from the same material, the blue and the orange have a more premium look, and in my opinion, the orange even makes it look more high tech.
The silver rail line looks really good, but i'm a huge fan of carbon so I was sad not to see it all the way to the deck.
Traction Pad:
This has to be the grippiest surf traction I've ever tried. I can almost bet that if I would flip myself upside down under water, I would still be glued to the board. Really impressive. It has something like a diamond pattern with some very thin grooves in between the diamonds. It is really comfortable to stand on, but I think it can become too grippy for those who like to paddle on their knees or on their stomach.
Carry Handle:
Sunova uses the Liftsup carry handle from Brian Szymanski. I think they're quite nice. Really good to grab and carry the board, as they should be. Easy to operate and it stays in when you push it in. Once in the water, you forget about it except for the fact you will never get your toes caught inside the handle box.
On a negative note, if you want to retrieve your board using the carry handle when you fall off your board, just think of some other way to do it as it is not happening. After trying them a few more times, and being aware of this fact i realized I don't use the handle to retrieve the board so it is a non issue.
Also, after some more opportunities to try them, these handles will bring some of that nice and fresh salt water on the roof rack of your car... Just as other handles will.
Weight:
The board was stored on a board rack inside a warehouse with a lot of gear lying on the floor. When someone was handing the board to me, i was becoming ready for something heavy. It is really light for a board this big.
These boards are light. Really light. For a reference, when compared on the scales, the 8'2 x 28 1/2" ACID XL @95l was about 600g lighter than my Brushed Carbon 8'0 x 28" @105l.
If you are still having second thoughts about the build quality of the boards, just look around and read any feedback for the Sunova SUP boards construction.
I'd rate them 5 out of 5.
Fins:
The board comes with a 2+1 fin set up. The side fins are pretty big and the center fin almost looks like a sword - it is BIG. I got one of my favorite fins on the box (an RFC Rake 7'0) and went surfing. The boards come with the original FCS plugs glassed into some kind of cherry wood veneer (it's what it says on the website). Nicely done by the way. I still wish it would bring the FCS II boxes which are a bit more robust and versatile than the original ones.
Stability:
Coming from my 8'0", when I climbed on the board, it felt stupid stable. So stable I could paddle while standing on one foot. I felt the stability should be close to a starboard whopper, which I own but haven't surfed for almost 8 months. I think this is due to the board having such low nose rocker. Punching through white water waves is pretty easy, as is finding the sweet spot for paddling.
Paddling:
All of the boards I usually surf are way smaller than this one, so it felt really fast. So fast I would sometimes find myself paddling almost as if I were on one of my race boards. With such big fins tracking is phenomenal.
Catching waves:
While paddling was really easy and fast, I struggled to get into my first couple of waves. At the time, i couldn't really understand why, but it got better during the session. Now, one day later, i think it was a mix of having a much bigger board under my feet, which doesn't have a lot of rocker, on a spot with a tricky take off zone which I had never surfed.
Surfing:
Once I got my first wave, first thing i did was the bottom turn. Actually it was a bit more of a mid face turn. Felt that trademark Sunova magic carpet ride, and then went straight into a full on rail carve and... SPLASH!!!
Tried it again with the same result and started realizing that this board is not an high performance short SUP board.
Instead, i started using the very pronounced kick tail a bit more in order to turn and tried to surf it more like a log. That's when I started to make sense of it. It is indeed a noserider.
Turn gently of the tail, cross step to get yourself on the tip of the nose and then back to the tail. Carve smoothly, and a bit more of tip time. I must confess I didn't spent enough time on the board to become used to such a long and wide board, but on one of my last waves I managed to get a proper hang five-to-ten-then-five-again right on to the critical section while keeping the things under control. On my last wave, i got an hang five to a close out reentry and decided to go and get my board to try to see how the wave was like on a board i'm familiar with.
Some people had told me that this board was slow.
Not being fast either, the board has the kind of speed one would expect from a good noserider: just enough to engage the board on the wave and then walk to the nose. Actually, it was the first SUP board i tried that felt like that. Really nice.
I think that those who are looking for a SUP with a real log/longboard kind of feel, can stop looking around - here it is. I think it should be a brilliant board on points like Noosa, Malibu and all those epic longboard spots we know off. Here in Portugal I know a couple of spots where it would be a lot of fun. I heard a friend is getting a 9'6" in the next container that is due to arrive in Europe. Really looking forward to see it up close and personal.
This is a big board...
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Not really on the tip on this one.
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Carrying some decent speed!
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All photos by Vanda Abreu who was really kind and let me post them on the Seabreeze.
Cheers,
Johnny
