my take on it is- lite weights for lite weight waves, heavier boards for heavier waves(not stupidly heavy). to me it seems the same as shortboard surfing. i had pretty lite weights(shortboards) for a bit, but went back to standard lite. what i found was if you stopped driving the board for any moment, speed washed off very quickly
cheers
ps.just thinking then that performance sups are closer aligned to shortboards than mals for sure

I agree with CMC. I made a lot of shorter SUP's out of PU. Really liked riding them. They came out any were between 8 - 11kg depending on Volume of the board.The feel was more acine to a proper surfboard, which i liked. I'm a husky man at 6' and 95 kgs, so it was a good weight for me. The boards have a nice neutral feel in the water, instead of the corky feel you get with pop outs. Liked riding them with traditional 3 fin thruster set up.
In saying that, im riding full epoxy customs, but i have taken in consideration the additional float eps has. Thinned the rails, tail and nose right down. Roide these with a 7" cutaway with gl equvalnt sides. Works a treat. im happy for a board (eps or PU) to be 7-8 kgs.I also like stringers in all my boards. I like the TWANG you get with that flex kick back.
I stopped doing boards out of PU blanks because i was resticted to 2 blank sizes from Burfords and they cost twice, if not 3 times the amount of an eps blank.
After thinking i had it all wired, Jacko from Roar let me jump on the 8'10 Naish for a paddle. Thought it was a great shape, well balanced and paddled really well. If i wasnt still riding around on a scooter i would have bought it on the spot!!! cant rember the point i was trying to make!
Ride what you like.
Next board i want to make is a 3 stringer, 9' 5 fin bonzer???
OHH forgot. I also like the look of foot dings on my waxed SUP. It fuels my midlife crisses and makes me think im still ripping gen X style. "i come off the bottom so hard, my fins they HUM".

CMC said...

My favourite topic.

There is no question in my mind that for 'feel' a PU core feels better.

I rode PU for my first 3 years and changed over not too long ago. There are so many things I miss about the feel of those boards. It's the way the rail sits in the face when trimming and off the bottom. My next board, well I don't know anymore.

It's definitely better for bigger waves. C4 has just got DMS to make their big wave model in Australia in PU/Poly.

For my money if I was truly pursuing surfing performance on SUP I would be hassling Burford to blow me some very light PU blanks and glassing them in epoxy. Feel and strength with a light weight, the ultimate feeling..... Just expensive.

I like PU over EPS personally, I think Ive been surfing PU for so long Im just used to it, tufflites ect just dont cut it IMO but mates havem and lovem but did say they took a little while to get used to them.
I think its just a personal thing with construction, I cant really comment SUPs tho