If you're 65 kilos you can ride a 9 foot prone longboard. if you;re 110 kilos you can ride the same 9 foot prone longboard. But weight and hight is an incredible downer on board size and volume. who's riding the smallest board to weight here?

i know a 130kg fella on the back of a 9.5' mana...

I was riding 104 litres at 88-90kgs. Needless to say it was a bit small. The board was amazing on the wave but a nightmare to paddle in anything but clean conditions. The best SUP in performance I have ridden. I think if I Surfed SUP daily rather than 1 or 2 times a fortnight it would have been manageable though.

I loved this board so much though that I went back to Dan McDonald (dms) and ordered the exact same board again but upscaled it from 8'6 x 28 x 4 to 8'11 x 29 x 4 1/4 and kept everything else the same, we sat and designed it together on Aku Shaper CNC program. Custom made bamboo veneer sandwich construction.

Aaaaah the beauty of customs... The test will be how the performance translates from one to the other with the increased float and stability. Adds about 25 liters.

CMC said...

I was riding 104 litres at 88-90kgs. Needless to say it was a bit small. The board was amazing on the wave but a nightmare to paddle in anything but clean conditions. The best SUP in performance I have ridden. I think if I Surfed SUP daily rather than 1 or 2 times a fortnight it would have been manageable though.

I loved this board so much though that I went back to Dan McDonald (dms) and ordered the exact same board again but upscaled it from 8'6 x 28 x 4 to 8'11 x 29 x 4 1/4 and kept everything else the same, we sat and designed it together on Aku Shaper CNC program. Custom made bamboo veneer sandwich construction.

Aaaaah the beauty of customs... The test will be how the performance translates from one to the other with the increased float and stability. Adds about 25 liters.

I've noticed on my boards that the rail profile makes a huge difference to stability, probably more than the total volume. I tried a "down" rail sharp edge rail instead of a 50/50 type that I usually go for and the instability seemed to magnify. So it's 7'10x 28x4 and 95kilos(all muscle). Nice on the wave but a real handfull.

Just dropping in guys......I'm 86 kilos and very comfortable on 108 liters. I'm thinking that outline and bottom contours play a role. Have smaller boards but agree with CMC, difficult to deal with in less than stellar conditions. One more element that also seems to make a difference is how the board is made and from what types of materials. I'm partial to my carbon sandwich constructions.......

goatman said...

Hey Jason, that is about right. I reckon Dogmans are even sinkier - no wonder he needs a scooped out deck!!

The sinkiest thing I ever saw was Jacko on the 8'0 Naish - suppose to be 95 liters but I reckon more like 80-85 liters, don't know how heavy Jacko is but as soon as he stopped paddling it would just sink.

Hey Logman, yours sounds pretty low volume! I have come to the conclusion I wouldn't go any sinkier - rather take it out of the rails and tail and keep it in the middle. Not everyone's cup of tea though.

It's funny though I find some of the fatter rail designs more tippy when there is a bit of chop as they seem to get bounced around when your are paddling/standing. The low volume rails though more prone to sinking are at least predictable.

i was thinking jacko too. i jumped on and at 77kgs i went under to about a third of the way up my shins. my last sup was just under the 100 litres.
cheers

Got one wave on Kristi's old Imperial SUP at Merimbula 2 years ago, I'm told the board was 89L, and I was 90kg at the time but the board was way too small for me!! I think my knees were almost getting wet trying to paddle it.
I had a Naish 8'10 at the time and 110L at 90kg was about as small as I could go.
CMC you must have been pushing the limits on 104L at about the same weight.

how are the calculations done ? how many litres is an 11,6" x 32 x 4 3/4 " [ apart from absolute shhhhit loads] ???

is this a computor generated number?

or pulled out of someones clacker

dtm said...

you honestly cant just look at the litres as widths play a big part in stableness of the sup.... say if you have 2 boards at 119 L .. and one is say 9' x 27 and the other is 9' x 30 the 30 inch wide is way way easier to stand on .... just thought id throw the spanner in there!

im fat about 70kgs and i ride under 100 liters

Dan is 100% correct, as you'd expect being a shaper. Not only could a board of the same litres be a way different shape but a board of the same length width and thickness could be different litres. It could have a flat or rounded deck or be thicker or thinner in the nose or tail. Any change to a design over such a huge length and width adds volume quickly.

Hence litres should be used as part of the dimensions not on their own as an indicator or it being a thicker it thinner of example of those dimensions.

im 85kg riding 8 2 31 4 at about 113liters
for me its all about the width .not really interested in anything under 30 wide.for me anything under that is hard work no matter what size you are.

dtm said...

you honestly cant just look at the litres as widths play a big part in stableness of the sup.... say if you have 2 boards at 119 L .. and one is say 9' x 27 and the other is 9' x 30 the 30 inch wide is way way easier to stand on .... just thought id throw the spanner in there!

im fat about 70kgs and i ride under 100 liters

last year i was riding 27 1/2 wide.so much more fun on wider boards
without any loss in perfomance imo!
will post some vid of a 9'0 x 32 x 4 board

Basically, to barely float you need in liters the sum of the weights in kilos of you (and wetsuit etc), the board and the paddle.
Realistically you want 10 liters more than this figure otherwise any chop will be hell.

My most challenging board is a 7'10" of 118 liters for my 100kg. Paddling around, taking off and surfing is quicly learnt: I struggled to do 200m with it the first time, and after 5-6 sessions I was paddling 6km with it. The hardest part for me is going through whitewater: it pierce throught OK but keeping balance in the boils need a lot of practice.

The smallest one I tried was a 107l 7'6" x 30"1/4 that was surprisingly easy: thin, wide and rockered are very stable shapes.

Volumes in general are computed via the CAD software to machine-shape the blank, so actual volume is often higher than the stated one, once you add the glass layer (and the pad, which adds some buoyancy)

colas said...

Basically, to barely float you need in liters the sum of the weights in kilos of you (and wetsuit etc), the board and the paddle.
Realistically you want 10 liters more than this figure otherwise any chop will be hell.

My most challenging board is a 7'10" of 118 liters for my 100kg. Paddling around, taking off and surfing is quicly learnt: I struggled to do 200m with it the first time, and after 5-6 sessions I was paddling 6km with it. The hardest part for me is going through whitewater: it pierce throught OK but keeping balance in the boils need a lot of practice.

The smallest one I tried was a 107l 7'6" x 30"1/4 that was surprisingly easy: thin, wide and rockered are very stable shapes.

Volumes in general are computed via the CAD software to machine-shape the blank, so actual volume is often higher than the stated one, once you add the glass layer (and the pad, which adds some buoyancy)

Thanks Colas, good infomation

log man said...

CMC said...

Oh and logman I reckon it's all relevant. Taj Burrow rides 5'11 x 18 1/4 x 2 1/8 Jordy Smith rides 6'3 x 19 x 2 1/2. Jordy is about 90kgs and is arguably at the same or higher level than anyone else. Jackson Close must be pushing 95kgs now and smashes guys on 7'0's on his 9'0's. Finding the right rail thickness volume etc for a surfer particularly those chasing performance is super important As you say that's why top SUP pro's even though it looks like they are on production boards usually are not.

Controversially I reckon some pro's that aren't on customs that are doing well on production boards would do even better if they had the ability to work with a shaper and fine tune.

Yeah CMC, I take your point "its all relevant" but in SUP if your say 100 kilos you aint ridin a sub 8 foot board. and if you do your riding a board that's rail is so fat that it makes carving a line difficult.

I agree with CMC, a bigger bloke just rides a scaled up version of the smaller bloke's SUP. Remember the bigger unit has more weight and power unless he is overweight and unfit. Fitness and strength play a massive part as you can ride a relatively more refined shape for your size/weight.