Went to a demo day yesterday and tried a few boards. It was my first time SUPing, but the second board I tried was a 14’ Bark race board and it felt fine – no stability problems(on flat water). Speed and tracking were much better than the novice boards. The more surf-oriented boards felt sluggish on flat water. One other board I really liked was the 12’ Bic Ocean, which felt like a nice blend of speed and maneuverability.
At first I tried stern rudders for steering, but realized that I was fighting the fin. Bow rudders were much more effective.
I am thinking about adding one to the family fleet. It doesn’t replace the canoes or kayaks, but is another way to have fun on the water.
Fun - Well put
SUP is fun!
The Tahoe boards I have have a large fin in the stern as well and a plumb bow with shallow vee hull so I know what you mean on the aft portion of the sweep. It just doesn’t move. Focusing on pushing your toes away on the front third of the forward sweep or a bow draw seems to have much more effect with that big fin locking the stern in place.
Still figuring it all out. Oh, and managing to have a bit of fun in the process!
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
www.the-river-connection.com
thoughts
Lots to learn…
The demo was on dead flat water, so now I’d like to try a few on typical inland lake chop. I’m wondering if the surf-oriented boards will slap annoyingly on the small stuff, and if the displacement bords will cut through it.
How do the Tahoe boards do in chop?
I was thinking that “if I got better, this could be really fun going downwind when we get some waves”, but then thought about the pain of going upwind with your whole body acting as a sail. Sitting seems like a useful option, but the SOT/SUP hybrids I’ve seen haven’t impressed me.
I’ve seen the flush anchor points on boards for attaching gear. Now the waveski guys may have already done this, but it seems that you could set up a board to attach a backband and some sort of foot stirrups and/or thigh straps and still have a flush deck. That gear and a breakdown double-bladed paddle could easily fit in a mesh bag on the foredeck.
Going to try a guided SUP river tour this weekend. Should be educational…
More slice, less splash
There is a difference in the feel and the effect between the displacement hull and planing hull design. Definitely less splash and bash with the plum bow sort of design without much pearling into the wave. I’ve paddled into chop but only have caught some boat wakes as far as riding waves. The Tahoes are very straight tracking so no cut backs or other surf techniques.
Something I thought was wild was that the board seems stiff enough to reverberate the vibration caused by the chop though out the length of the board creating something of a cross between a massage for your toes and minor earth tremor. This was in about 1 foot high chop.
My observations. YMMV
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
www.the-river-connection.com
Add a SUP
I also have a “fleet” of kayaks and just added a race SUP. Having a ball with it. Yep, another way to get out on the water. Enjoy.
First time
Glad you had a good first time out, especially on such a great board such as the Bark 14’. Do you know the cross bow turn? Much more effective than the bow/stern rudders to turn. Also apply edging to make slight adjustments.
playing
I was trying bow, cross-bow, draws, prys – all the canoe/kayak stuff I know, just seeing how they’d work with a long bent-shaft paddle.
I can see that edging and weight shift would help, but I didn’t want to push it in that setting.
Heeling
Different than in a kayak. Heeling the board to the outside of the turn results in your butt landing in the water on the outside of the turn. The stern edge digs in and summarily discards the rider. The board, having shed me like some annoyance goes right back to drifting away tracking in a straight line. Ankle leash isn’t a bad idea on flat water, especially with a bit of wind.
Heeling to the inside of the turn seems to have a bit better of an effect. Digging my toes into the deck pad and envisioning torquing my toes away from the paddle on a sweep or bringing them to the paddle on a bow rudder seems to provide the best result so far.
It’s warm today so perhaps some practice changing the pitch by doing a controlled lunge to the front of the board to raise the fin out of the water at the stern. Immersion awaits, methinks.
All fun.
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
www.the-river-connection.com
Not an expert, but…
when I paddled a displacement board it did respond to an outside lean similar to a kayak. With my planing hull board the inside lean seems to assist the turn, but stepping back and doing a pivot turn works the best.
Overpronated
Ok, so probably not the right term from a completely different mode of locomotion but in short my heeling the board to the outside of the turn was probably (definitely) over zealous. Oh, well. Just water.
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
www.the-river-connection.com