On the JP, I would need to know the volume...

My experience:
- low volume boards are hard to paddle because they drag a lot of water when moving. It is like paddling a board with a floating anchor. They take off easily once you get the hang of "popping" the board into the wave like a cork, as on a prone shortboard, but paddling around is a workout.
- narrow-nosed boards (like the JP pro) are hard to paddle because the pull on your paddle will make the board nosedive easily and catch a rail. Thus you must paddle them with the nose out of the water, reducing even more the useful volume. This explains why you need more liters to feel the same balance on a pointy-nosed board compared to a wide-nosed one, especially the ones with parallel rails up front.
- low volume boards are easier in chop because there is less parasitic movement from the board deck going in and out the water and changing its balancing characteristics constantly. but they have no "stable zone", they are always rolling to the right or left. So it is easier to keep the balance, but it is more work, and it is tiring faster.

As for your case, I guess you should aim for narrow boards (to help in the fast rail-to-rail in cutbacks), but with enough volume to spare your shoulders the effort of moving a floating anchor. For my 100kg, 1m67 high, 56 years my limit is a 7'4"x28" x118 liters pointy nosed, which is still manageable and give me more rail-to-rail performance than I am capable of exploiting. So I guess this means for a narrow JP Pro shape, 15 to 25 liters more than your weight in kilos.

I have also the other option: a wide-nosed 7'5"x29"3/4 x 105 liters which is as stable to paddle around, but more tiring and less smooth but with more accelerations. I prefer the wide and low volume one by personal taste, but the narrower would be more suited to you I guess.
And of course, narrow AND low volume is not worth it for me: I do not have the level to go into surf powerful enough for these boards to bring advantages to offset the stability disadvantages.

Loz79 said..
doable as I've seen it done but by elite riders. Will be a challenge I reckon.

It is doable, but is it worth it?

For the record, I once switched boards with a guy that had a pointed nose Imagine Impact 7'10" x 27 3/4 x 84l
So 15 liters less than my weight, and a negative flotation of ~ -25 liters
I was able to stand up on it around 20 seconds max before losing my concentration and falling.
So I just paddled prone, and standup up just before the wave, to take off in the next 10 seconds.
It worked, I got 3 waves, didnt missed one, but:
- Once on the wave I was so mentally exhausted that I had no juice left to ride aggressively
- I felt that the board was much more capable of performance than I was able to do, in big part because I was not mentally prepared to know what to do, how to place my body and efforts with such quick turns.

So, I can ride a 84 liters pointy-nosed board. But I did not it feel worthwhile as it was too big a jump for my current abilities, going down in size but with more manageable steps were much more productive.
It is a good training from time to time however. Try to find an old prone longboard with enough volume and practice paddling around to boost your balance.

Note also that not all the pro are on sinking boards. Keahi uses mainly a 92 liters board for his 80kg...

I've surfed both, the wide body at 32 wide with quad setup was more of a fun board for me. A great board but way too wide with too much volume for someone my weight to surf critically with it...Chalk and cheese comparing it to the 8.0 jp pro.it's a huge jump tho between the two, be careful not to bite off more than you can chew or you will not have much fun! I'd be looking more at the 8'6 jp pro at your weight...

Yep, it is much narrower than the wide body and around 110 litres from memory.. the 2015 Is a bit different to the 2014 model and they seem to have not changed much since.. much more of a "performance" board...Maybe try to pm Piros on here, he knows the JPs much better than me...

JosephBetts said..
It feels way to big and sketchy to attack some of those sections because the board fees very unpredictable.

Definitively, less of everything helps controlling the board in the foam (length, width, volume), but I am not expert enough to have more advice: I tend to avoid hitting the foam and the associated injury risks. In my limited experience, wide extremities seems to help, though.

In the JP line, maybe you should demo the slates?

JosephBetts said..
You reckon I could handle the 7'2, 28 slate being 95 litres and 10kgs above my weight...would the tomo shape give it enough buoyancy or you reckon that still would not be enough.

It should be OK, if you mean you weight 85kg. I had a Gong Mob 7'6" (a prototype) at 105 liters for my 100kg, and it was quite stable, after the initial session where I had to get accustomed to the strange new feeling. Definitely much stabler than a pointy-nosed 120 liter board. The JP Slate at 26" is narrower than the Gong Mob at 29", but since the Slate nose seems wider, it may compensate a bit.
You will need to work on your stance, notably use the #3 described in twitter.com/erik_antonson
And it will be noticeably more tiring than a 105 liters board. But it is worth it if you want to surf in critical parts of the wave.

I have now a kind of hybrid, the Gong Fatal, with a wide nose but medium tail, and it fells less stable at 105 liters, but still usable everyday for me.

So the wide extremities, especially in the nose, helps tremendously on the stability. I would add that they add more to the ride than a simple noserider-style nose. The rails can be used in their full length in turns without slowing the board, and it gives a welcome stability in agressive turns.

References (to get the actual dimensions for comparison)
Mob:gongsupshop.com/epages/box1707.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/box1707/Products/GON7SUPMOBSPPRO76
Fatal:gongsupshop.com/epages/box1707.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/box1707/Products/GON7SUPFATPRO73

A video on the Mob, I thing I weighted 95kg for its 105 liters at the time: