SUPers: surfing a touring SUP?

I’m thinking about a displacement hull touring SUP; the BIC Ace-Tec Wing. Having test paddled it, I feel confident in its stability, and love its tracking and efficiency but I’m not sure about its surfability. When surfing, it would be Lake Erie 90% Atlantic 10%.


pics
This guy is doing it:



http://www.bicsup.com/products/ace-tec-sup,3,101/12-6-wing-ace-tec-sup,1037.html


Probably OK for small waves …
I have very little SUP experience, but surf with quite a few folks who do SUP now. You would want to stick with small surf and riding swells on a board that size. At your experience level don’t take a 12’ 6" board into a surfline up with other surfers. Practice catching small waves and swells before they break in an open area.



It’s not going to be optimum for riding waves and learning control but you can learn to catch waves and stay upright. On a board that long you will be able to catch very small waves. On fast , walled up surf you are not going to be very happy.

board+wave
What seadart said. Most surf boards (sup’s included) have a certain range of wave size and shape that they work best on. That’s why many prone surfers have a quiver of 3 or 4 different boards to choose from depending on the day’s conditions. The kind of board you are talking about will surf but it’ll have about as small a “window” of surf-able waves as any other kind of board. It’ll work best in small, mushy, spilling waves. But you’ll have a blast on those.

Saw one on a truck rack…

– Last Updated: Oct-21-12 8:36 PM EST –

this past saturday. Looked interesting. The waves were breaking clean chest to shoulder. I am sure there was a reason why it was sitting on the truck rack. The owner was probably riding a more surf appropriate SUP.

Saw some good SUP surfing this weekend. They were clearly holding their own with the traditional boardies (in fact, better. They needed to let more waves go by for the boardies sitting on the inside. The good ones were showing etiquette, thankfully...).

sing