I recently got some vid of paddling my new 2015 14' x 28" GX Javelin..

At the begining of the vid I was standing with my toes right at the front of the pad (way ahead of the handle) and had the tip of the nose touching the water in an attempt to get maximum water line and lift the tail slightly.. I found that I got a nice little wave off the nose.. No real splashing or boofing.. and no real sprinklering from water sucking around the rail.. Once I moved back to the handle it lifted the nose slightly.. I found when paddling hard v under the nose and the sharp rails would cause the water to squirt out the sides and across the surface.. Still no real splashing like most other round or soft rail boards (like the 2014 Jav and most other brands) but it wasn't as pretty as when I had the nose touching.

Some may find this interesting viewing.. I'd be interested to hear what others think.. and where they find works best on their new Jav's.

Interesting, I've seen the same thing.
What does the tail release look like with each position, not sure looking at video, which is which. Maybe annotate video.
I've been standing at the handle, or just forward and the water just sheets apart as per your clips.
Only had one smooth paddle so far.
As to speed, I don't have a decent speed app on my android, so a little difficult to tell, but the top speed I've recorded over an hours paddle is 2km/hr faster.
So happy with that. That's at the handle.

Markmyword said..

Desflurane said..
Interesting, I've seen the same thing.
What does the tail release look like with each position, not sure looking at video, which is which. Maybe annotate video.
I've been standing at the handle, or just forward and the water just sheets apart as per your clips.
Only had one smooth paddle so far.
As to speed, I don't have a decent speed app on my android, so a little difficult to tell, but the top speed I've recorded over an hours paddle is 2km/hr faster.
So happy with that. That's at the handle.

Just in regard to the speed app on your phone. Have you tried Google "My Tracks". Works brilliantly on my phone and posts your GPS tracks to your email so you always have a record of it.

Thanks, will try it.

Kind of like the balanced look when just the tip of the nose is at waterline...seems to be less rock forward (push into the water) and hence less wasted energy

DJ I had a very similar question when I got my 2014 Glide: what was the most efficient trim. www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/Correct-trim-for-most-efficient-paddling/
A few different opinions in that thread, but I tend to agree with PeterP - have the tail release right on the waterline seems to make the most sense to me. The water resistance from eddies at the tail are going to be more significant than resistance at the nose.

Lacy Lane said...

"dj I think the board looked better when you were back"

Somewhere around the 2:30 mark looked best to me. But I would really like to see a tail vid at the same time (new DJ project?).

same as baddog, around the 2:30 on. while having the nose down sort of looks fast because your slicing rather than splashing is was displacing a lot of water from the nose when you were forward which while looks clean takes effort.

He has The best techinque in paddling hands down. That I've seen on vid, in person Pete dorries amazing technique and rhythm that looks effortless but so quick

I finally got to try a Javelin 14x28 LE. I'm very glad I was able to demo it, because if I'd have bought it unseen I wouldn't have been happy at all: It was not at all what I was expecting.

First, despite being the uber-expensive LE construction, it was not a light board. Not heavy, but not light. I paddled a Jimmy Lewis U-Boat straight afterwards which is about 1700 AUD cheaper in the UK and that was SO much lighter.

Second, this is a BIG board. When I think of 28" wide boards I think of eg. a Bark Dominator or a Jimmy Lewis Stiletto. The Javelin 28" is a whole different scale larger. The rear is pretty fat and it carries its width a long way forward, with considerable volume in the nose. The board felt to me a fair bit larger than my 28.75" wide SIC X14. It paddled like it too.

I tried the board in small light choppy seas. There was a nanoswell of about 6" running. I did upwind/downwind circuits back to back with a 2012 V2 Naish Glide GX using a GPS. I also had a paddler with me who I know well, of similar ability.

Upwind I had to try various positions before finding that I was fastest stepping back a bit to keep the nose from burying. This surprised me because on some other boards with inverted noses they have worked best slicing through the water. But the Naish seemed to work more like a planing hull board upwind. I had difficulty making the board work upwind and my friend could pass me easily. But when I swapped the Jav for the old Glide (14x27" GX) I pulled away from him upwind. The new Jav 14x28" presents a large volume in front of you to push upwind, so you'd need to have a bit of power to make it work IMO.

Downwind was interesting. I found I could stand quite still and let the board do the work, ploughing the nose, and it worked fine. There was no submarining unless I got it crazy wrong. But to get any real speed up I had to move about a lot. I was expecting a board that would be fastest in small downwind conditions. But instead it felt like it would be happiest in something with more juice. I swapped the Jav for the old Glide (which I'm not really familiar with), and was 0.1-0.3mph faster on the older board on average. The old board was easier to turn, although less stable for sure.

And that leads to the third surprise. The first review I saw of the 2015 Javelin said it was tippy. Well, I couldn't disagree more (and my two friends who tried it agreed it was stable). It's almost certainly the most stable 28" wide board I've ever paddled. The only time it wasn't was with cross-chop and wind, which seemed to catch it out more than I was expecting. If one of the aims of this board for Naish was to dispel the "Jav = tippy" impression in people's minds from years gone by then they have certainly achieved that.

It's a good-looking board in the flesh. One of my friends said he thought it looked much better than in the pics. But I'm not personally keen on the matt black finish - tends to show every mark I find. It felt very stiff indeed, and the standard of finish was great.

So, in summary, this was not the board I was expecting at all. I was expecting an uber-light, perhaps twitchy, flat water racer that was fast in very small downwind conditions, and great upwind with it's reverse nose. But instead I found myself feeling too small for the board (I am about average size I guess) and it felt almost like a touring board for a big guy rather than a racer. I'd like to try the 26" wide version, because this board was too big for me, and I was faster on the V2 glide in these conditions (but of course this was not flat water). It felt like this board might well be great in big DW conditions, but this is just a guess.

I was considering ordering one of these unseen. 28" is usually just about right for me (my balance is not great) and the choppy conditions I paddle in. But I'm very glad I didn't before paddling one because I'm thinking that the 26" wide one would actually be the right size for me. So if you are thinking of buying the 28" wide board, I'd really suggest that you demo one first.

Interestingly I was the guy who said tippy.
Well, about 8 or 9 hours board time later in all conditions except a full on downwinder, I haven't fallen once
So I really should amend that post

Had mine out in 40-50 knots today.. It was awesome..

Area10 said..

Carvers said...
Interesting to read Area10, but to place your experiences in perspective: what is your height and weight?

I am around 76kgs and 1.75m tall. That's 168lbs (12 stone) and 5ft 9" for our US friends.

Seems that you already have given the answere to your problems on the 28. Try indedd the 26. The only ones that are in the Netherlands right now , are 26 LE's and only to try not to buy And I think in general you need some more hours on a board to get to know it. Especially on this kind of (race) board with it's typical shape.

Thanks for replying, i will certainly first demo the 26 and 28 before i buy It. Looking for the GX version. i like your comments. Because people are warned that buying a Jav. through the internet can become a dissapointment without demoing first. And these boards do cost enough money.

Naish says 24.2lbs for the Jav 14x28 LE. But it felt a bit heavier than that to me. But I didn't have scales with me. I had a SIC x14 SCC with me and the Naish felt a similar weight to that, maybe even a little heavier.

The Jimmy Lewis U Boat is 22.7lbs. I lifted it up next to the Jav and it was very noticeably lighter. (But of course it is a much narrower board.)

Weight isn't everything of course, and since the LE Jav is full PVC sandwich maybe it will be more durable than say the X14 (which has only a deck PVC sandwich). But given that the LE is massively more expensive than these other boards, I just thought I'd mention it, in case the reason you'd want a LE is specifically because you want a super lightweight board. The one I tried certainly wasn't. Many of the carbon Starboards are lighter than this Naish was. But maybe this particular board was unusual. Mostly the Naish boards have not hit these shores yet so it's possible I guess that it was some kinda prototype or early factory version. Or maybe it had taken on water. If someone out there owns a 14x28 LE Jav then maybe they'd be willing to weigh it.