My wife has one but 11'4". Nice flat water touring board for light weights. Sits a bit low in the water with me on it but is still fine when its flat. I have a 12' Starboard tourer. Never felt the need to put a sail on it but I'm sure it would make a great light wind cruiser. Nice and light too. She also loves the colours which is probably the most important thing to her.
Cheers Swindy. Just bought this for waves and get the kids going. Its the SUP sail. Not sure how old but it will do. Its 11'3 and 75cm wide.
Thought im better off with this before forking out 1 to 1 1/2 grand for the Lt or the bic
I've got the 11'4. More of a flat water board for SUPing, my 100kg finds it a little unstable in any kind of chop.As for windsurfing, I replaced the SUP fin with the 30cm freeride fin out of my Kode and I love it on light wind days, planes beautifully with 9.5m up while no one else can get on the water. Doesn't go around corners so well.Have tried to teach a few of my mates on it but had the standard "no centerboard" issues.....drifts downwind at a pretty high rate.
Hey Moz.
Found my inflatable SUP with the centre fin option, great for Adults to learn on. But have found that my 8 year old with the 1.0 an 1.5 sails he has, that the board is too big for the small sails to allow him to steer it. He is doing much better on a 120l board.
I also have another SUP that doesn't have the centre board option (similar size to yours) and I find it hard to get up wind on it. Rounded rails and small fin are hard work when the tide is heading the same way as the wind.
Great fun cruising around in the small rollers though, when the conditions are good.
Cheers, Brad.
Cheers brad and Bflood. Sort of a 50/50 board. Bit of sailing and fun SUP for all the famy. Centreboard would be good but do without. Ill try a better fin in it as it is a US box fin. Might let my 8 year old on the formula as well, see how he goes.
Select to expand quoteAusMoz said..
Cheers brad and Bflood. Sort of a 50/50 board. Bit of sailing and fun SUP for all the famy. Centreboard would be good but do without. Ill try a better fin in it as it is a US box fin. Might let my 8 year old on the formula as well, see how he goes.
Be careful with peewee on the formula. My son started on a Starboard Start (first gen 100cm wide) just under that age. It was really hard to get a kid sized rig back far enough to tack unless we used a small rear fin and this was with the center fin. Without a centerfin, it's going to be even more so. And remember to scale the rig to a kid's size. What might be a 6 for a 80 kg sailor will be a 2ish for around a 30 kg sailor. Also, make sure they can turn around before you send them out. They basically go forever since they are too small to fall off. :) My son used to have to turn around and step off the board to get off.
I've seen hacks where people would attach some sort of fin with suction cups, etc. Google it if you wish. Otherwise, a formula board is a great idea.
When teaching kids to progress on a big board a centreboard is a must. Otherwise they spend all the time going off wind because the board is too big to foot steer and they cant get the sail in the right place to steer without a centreboard. The WOD is excellent for kids. A 1.5m just works when set as far back in the track as possible with a single bolt base
120lt freeride boards are also great. The only difference is you need to teach foot steering straight away. They cant sail steer like on a Longboard.
that said. Anything that gets them on the water having fun is the aim.
long. Short, wide just use what you have because kids have fun as soon as they are moving just remember they learn super quick and pass that very early stage where the gear doesn't matter faster than adults do.
Also no matter what board fins bigger than 30cm aren't the best choice. My 10year old doesn't use anything bigger than 26cm. His most used fin is 20cm.
Should have mentioned that my 120l has a centre fin slot. Kode with full EVA deck.
With two short fins he is able to steer with the small sails comfortably.
Plenty stable enough for uphauling too.
the kids on the gold coast are learning on freeride boards without centrefins and the guys i have spoken to in nsw have also done similar. kids are going from learning to planing in the straps in 3 months and it's the speed that gets them hooked.
my own kids and their friends locally have gone via the longboard road and thier time frame to planing has been longer.
regardless of which method used it seems nothing beats consistent time on the water.
