I'm sure you've been down this road before.
My question is, if the 14" Jav is for flatwater & the 14" Glide for downwinders, then what makes the 17" Glide an allrounder for both.
I only do flatwater paddling with absolutely no wind. I only paddle on rivers or bays (if glassy).
How much more stable is the 17" ?

Ya gotta ask yourself the question "Is it the 14 or 17?".

Simondo said...

You're a fraction top heavy for the Jav Scotty. The 17 is about 10% to 20% more stable than the 14 Glide. The 17 is a pinch narrower. But both are stable.

The Naish 17 comes into it's own in rougher conditions, and open oceans, and big wide open bays, and Down Wind.....

These 2 are more orientated to the flats....

www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/~b2gno/2010-Dc--15-3.aspx?search=uQNVTXNc1pVmLaT%2fQ5QGqg%3d%3d

www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/~blqax/2010-Lahuii-Kai-Orca-14-0.aspx?search=uQNVTXNc1pVmLaT%2fQ5QGqg%3d%3d

Cheers Simondo. You are reliable for a resonse. Appreciate that.
"A fraction top heavy ? Yeh, about 7/8's.
Those Lahui Kai's look tippy.
So the 17" Glide is open water only - not still ?
Does Lacey agree with the Dc ? Bias aside please.

Scotty88 said...

Simondo said...

You're a fraction top heavy for the Jav Scotty. The 17 is about 10% to 20% more stable than the 14 Glide. The 17 is a pinch narrower. But both are stable.

The Naish 17 comes into it's own in rougher conditions, and open oceans, and big wide open bays, and Down Wind.....

These 2 are more orientated to the flats....

www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/~b2gno/2010-Dc--15-3.aspx?search=uQNVTXNc1pVmLaT%2fQ5QGqg%3d%3d

www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/~blqax/2010-Lahuii-Kai-Orca-14-0.aspx?search=uQNVTXNc1pVmLaT%2fQ5QGqg%3d%3d

Cheers Simondo. You are reliable for a resonse. Appreciate that.
"A fraction top heavy ? Yeh, about 7/8's.
Those Lahui Kai's look tippy.
So the 17" Glide is open water only - not still ?
Does Lacey agree with the Dc ? Bias aside please.

i don't know how heavy you are, but you would get a fair amount of more support than the jav and the moulded ocra. most probably faster then orca, after that it depends on who's paddling at that level of speed.

like this- jacko would beat me on the jav and myself on the 15'3, but travis won the malfunction race on the 15'3 beating jacko on the jav. see what i mean.

jacko would be a good thing to beat travis if he was on the 15'3, but who really knows.

i know one thing, in the flats, the 17 wouldn't be anywhere to be seen against those two

cheers

ps i like the 17 naish for the bigger outside stuff

rager said...

I've got a Lahui Kai Orca like the one for sale and don't find it to be all that tippy. it's actually quite a stable board. If you do overbalance it tends to self right. Pretty good allround (flatwater/downwind) board for the money IMO.

Yes, they all "self right". Like Newton's Law of Physics. What goes down must come up ! (That's what I say to my girl anyway... )... Sorry... Anyway...

If you sink enough rail, you get to a point where it just pops back up at you.... Self Righting...

laceys lane said...

Scotty88 said...

Simondo said...

You're a fraction top heavy for the Jav Scotty. The 17 is about 10% to 20% more stable than the 14 Glide. The 17 is a pinch narrower. But both are stable.

The Naish 17 comes into it's own in rougher conditions, and open oceans, and big wide open bays, and Down Wind.....

These 2 are more orientated to the flats....

www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/~b2gno/2010-Dc--15-3.aspx?search=uQNVTXNc1pVmLaT%2fQ5QGqg%3d%3d

www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/~blqax/2010-Lahuii-Kai-Orca-14-0.aspx?search=uQNVTXNc1pVmLaT%2fQ5QGqg%3d%3d

Cheers Simondo. You are reliable for a resonse. Appreciate that.
"A fraction top heavy ? Yeh, about 7/8's.
Those Lahui Kai's look tippy.
So the 17" Glide is open water only - not still ?
Does Lacey agree with the Dc ? Bias aside please.

i don't know how heavy you are, but you would get a fair amount of more support than the jav and the moulded ocra. most probably faster then orca, after that it depends on who's paddling at that level of speed.

like this- jacko would beat me on the jav and myself on the 15'3, but travis won the malfunction race on the 15'3 beating jacko on the jav. see what i mean.


jacko would be a good thing to beat travis if he was on the 15'3, but who really knows.

i know one thing, in the flats, the 17 wouldn't be anywhere to be seen against those two

cheers

ps i like the 17 naish for the bigger outside stuff

I'm 123 kg and losing 2kg a week as i'm doing 3 good sessions with a pt + paddling.
Aiming for 110kg by start of spring and hopefully 100 kg by Xmas.
Am I too heavy for the 15'3 ?
I am guessing Jacko & Travis are
mid 70kg-80kg.

I had a mate paddle the 14' Glide last week. He had no issues. He would be between 110kg and 115kg.

Starboard Ace 14' x 27" plenty of volume for big guys, fast and stable because you stand so low.

Heaps of discussion and a test video here, also one of the dealers of Naish and Starboard did a comparison run over a timed 1K run with a whole range of boards including the Javelin and the Glide 14 - Ace well aced it by 23 seconds...

www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=12316.0

HumanCartoon said...

JonathanC said...

Starboard Ace 14' x 27" plenty of volume for big guys, fast and stable because you stand so low.

Heaps of discussion and a test video here, also one of the dealers of Naish and Starboard did a comparison run over a timed 1K run with a whole range of boards including the Javelin and the Glide 14 - Ace well aced it by 23 seconds...

www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=12316.0

I guess a thing that worries me with these clog-style starboards like the ace is what is it like climbing back onto them if/when you fall off? In my time on the K15 I found the sunken cockpit a bit of a PITA to get back in/on compared to a conventional board shape, although to be fair I fall in a lot more than most people. Cool as the ACE idea is I wonder what it's like to get back into from down in the water with those vary tall sides and deep cockpit (and all those funky contours
inside)? I also wonder what managing that huge nose in the ACE would be like in a decent crosswind?

I checked out the Starboard Ace on the net and thought the 390 litres was a misprint until I saw this vid. WOW, what a beast. Did'nt Cher dance on one of these in the 80's singing "Turn back time" ? My 14ft Laird Coast Runner is 286 litres and I think the 17' Glide is 321 litres. It is scary when along side the Bark.
I agree JonathanC, getting back in might take some getting use to.
I have found the sub 100kg paddlers tend to say "volume is'nt everything" BUT when you are 110kg +, volume is everything IMO.

Jonathan,

I know two fifths of stuff all about "paddledaddy" on The Zone.... But I wonder if he is orientated to Star-Board!?

No Sh!t, how is that 14 footer going to beat 17 feet (let's say Naish) in open down wind conditions, with like for like paddlers?

But I still think along the lines of;
- Engine 60-70++%
- Board to suit rider weight & conditions, 20-30%
- Paddle 8%
- Fin 2%
.... ball park....

Simondo

Hey Simondo, read the link I posted to the Zone discussion - pretty sure all those guys are not Starboard biased!!

You need to open your mind grasshopper...

Probably 90% of the time downwinding I'm faster on the 14' Starboard Open Ocean than the 17 Glide. The Javelin is much faster on flat water than the 17 Glide and probably faster downwinding most of the time if you can stay on it! But in really messy less than perfect conditions open water conditions I'll take the Glide for the steering and the stability in pitchy messy swell.

Don't get me wrong, the 17 Glide is a fantastic board, great all rounder, stable, an absolute blast in really really windy open water down wind conditions and its a bargain - I've got one, for all those reasons!

But the reality is that its a relatively heavy 2 year old design production board, go to any open water downwind race in Maui and see whats running

Here is the link, interesting stuff, bit of fact and lots of theories

www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=12316.0

Scotty the Glide 17 did do well in the local races, did we have state titles? But that is very much a function of the guys paddling and the boards they own. I'll say it again, the Glide 17 is a great board, but on flat water its not as fast as many of the 14's out there including the Javelin.

Good luck guys, bugger I've been digging drains in South Gippsland clay all day

Scotty Mac said...

Memory serves me correct, the naish 17 footer dominated the feb vic state titles, not in downwind conditions, just around a flat water course? Rekon a F18 was in the mix too.

The Naish 17 didn't dominate that race as the difference was ultimately a lunge at the line, the Naish rider Cam Hosking getting ahead of the F18 paddled by Dave Hunt by just a few inches. Rupert Lancashire finished a short while later also on a Naish 17. I think Matt Lumley was paddling a Javelin and he struggled a bit, mainly because it wasn't a flat water course at all, it was pretty rough. With due respect to the rest of the field, no-one else was going to challenge regardless of the board as these 4 are consistently the fastest paddlers in Victoria - between them, they won every race this summer. So I don't think it proves whether the Naish 17 is better than the Naish 14 or any other board necessarily, just that in those conditions that day, the 17 was pretty quick, as was the F18 and they were both better than the Javelin.

Regarding the conditions, there was a clear downwind leg as evidenced by the way that Dave on the F18 managed to get on a wave on every lap and run down Cam, who then rebuilt his lead in the upwind legs. Make of that what you will. As I mentioned, Lummers was having real trouble with the stability of the Jav on those upwind stretches.

I was fascinated by JonathanC's view that “the Glide 17 is a great board, but on flat water it's not as fast as many of the 14's out there including the Javelin”. So, being the kind of person who never believes anything until I've tested it myself, my paddling buddy and I today took out my Glide 17, and my Surftech Bark Dominator, to compare speeds, armed with GPS and heart rate monitors.

The results were very interesting, and not at all as we expected. Before we started we both said what we thought the result would be. Why? Well, because I'm a scientist by trade, and I know that people's expectations when carrying out an experiment can affect the results. So, I predicted that the Bark would be 0.1mph faster overall. And my paddling buddy said that he thought maybe there wouldn't be any difference at all.

Well, we went paddling together for about 2 hours, swapping boards at regular intervals. We were paddling mainly inshore at our local beach. Wind was lightish, F3-4 cross-onshore. We went cross-upwind, then cross-downwind, then straight upwind, then straight downwind, and then finished with some upwind sprints.

We have paddled a fair bit together in all kinds of conditions, so know our relative strengths and weaknesses well, which made the board comparisons easier.
The results were pretty plain. About 80% of the time the person in front was on the Naish 17. It was faster upwind than the Dominator, and when the bumps were noticeable and it was choppy it was faster downwind too. But when the bumps were really small and the sea was calmer the Bark had a clear advantage – much easier to accelerate it onto the tiny bumps. The slight extra stability of the Naish made it a little easier company over the full 2 hours. Well, until you have to lug it up the beach and onto your roof rack, anyway…

So, in the typical coastal conditions we get round here in the UK, we were pretty convinced that the Glide 17 has the edge speed-wise on what must surely be one of the fastest (if not the fastest) 14 ft flat water production raceboards out there.

Of course, this might not apply to absolutely glassy conditions, or inland waters etc. But I GPSed a 7 mile run in complete glass yesterday and looking back over the last year's worth of data, my 1km splits were at least as fast as anything I have managed on the Dominator.

BUT, here's the caveat – or perhaps I should say the secret to getting the most out of your Glide 17. I ditched the steering arms, and fixed the rudder before the comparison. When the steering arm(s) are fitted on the Glide 17, you cannot (at least at my weight, height and foot size) comfortably stand where you really need to be standing in order to be fast for flatwater. This spot seems to be somewhere between the balance point (handle) and the length midpoint, which is about a foot further forward. But if you remove the steering arm(s) you can stand about a foot or so ahead of where the mechanism otherwise forces you to stand. And it is then a good deal faster in flat water, and actually, the more forward standing position helps with paddle steering too. So, if you do that, you have at no cost a pretty fast flatwater board.

Actually, I'm going to ditch the steering mechanism altogether – it is pretty useless in the DW conditions we get round here – and get a standard FU fin box fitted. In my opinion the standard rudder is a bit on the small side anyway, for what I want.

Both of us were very surprised by this result. But it was perfectly plain. Which just goes to show that you can't trust your own judgements about speeds, you have to actually test boards side-by-side and in the conditions you paddle in, to be really sure. The Dominator felt faster. But it wasn't. I have some theories about why this might be, but that is probably quite enough for one post…

Oh yeah, I should also say that I have no affiliations to any watersports/SUP company whatsoever, and I love both my the Dominator and my Glide 17: very different boards, but both quite brilliant in their own way.

Funny you should mention that Jonathan, just overnight I got a PM from one of the Zoners who GPS'ed his 23" AST New against his brand new custom Bark 14' x 26" carbon 26 pound flat water racer, which for his weight and in the right conditions, he feels is considerably quicker than a Dominator. The results showed a slight edge for the Starboard racer. He was surprised because be thought the Bark felt quicker through the water.

I've no doubt that the K15 is quicker than the Naish 17, as Simondo and I have had a couple of head-to-head runs to prove the point. Simon is considerably faster than me when we are on matching 14' boards but when I get on the K15 and he's on the 17, I can comfortably keep up if not beat him. Of course, that's just flat water. In downwind conditions, no doubt the 17 leaves me for dead.