I have been checking the various sites around the place and am yet to see a real discussion on the merits of PU SUP vs EPOXY Polystyrene. The solution: stop searching, sign in to one of these myself and try to start the discussion myself.

Personally I have been riding stand up paddle for around 2 1/2 yrs predominantly when the waves are less than ideal for my regular short board. I am therefore more inclined to want to surf my SUP like a shortboard and hence when I ordered my first board looked for a shaper that could cater to what I thought would work for me.

It would seem to me that there are 3 main actual surf SUP styles emerging: 1/ Shortboard influenced 2/ Longboard Influenced and 3/ Sailboard or Kiteboard influenced.

I may be going out a limb here and this is off the discussion topic but on that note the 3rd category may in my humble opinion be causing the most riffs in the water as some of these guys (and I say some, most are amazing surfers and have common sense also) have simply never sat in a 'line-up' before and waited for waves. The results are putting the tools in the hands of someone unable to acknowledge the responsibilities of not catching every wave just because you can or constantly paddling to the inside and to the top of the pack at crowded point waves. At least this is my observation at my local break. A tool is a tool though regardless of the choice of equipment and the short and longboard crew are undoubtedly guilty also, perhaps more so ethically as they do at least understand the unspoken code to which they are defying.

Back to the topic. While deciding on the board to choose I spoke to many SUP surfers that I knew which all undoubtedly led me towards choosing PU for my SUP due to it's non-skittery feel and that you could use the rails like a normal board to carve rather than pivot on the surface.

Many of the designs I have seen particularly from sail/kite companies that have ventured into SUP as an added product line rather than a passion do not make allowances for the added floatation on the rails and hence make boards too thick. You see people trying to ride these and are basically left surfing horizontally as to sink a rail is near impossible.

The actual SUP companies using EPOXY make allowances and guys on these (Chapman, Laguna, C4, PSH etc) are able to carve and turn. For my money though the PU boards just seem to ride better on the wave. These companies also use PU and for the small amount of people I see on PU I always wonder why the default choice seems to be Epoxy.

My PU is lighter than most epoxies, is over 2 yrs old, has very few dents and the rails have not been chippped by my carbon paddle like most Asian sandwich const boards you see. So these arguments to me are null and void.

What are your experiences and feedback with EPOXY vs PU???