A side by side review of SIC's 14' and Hobie's new 14' race boards

[TallDude]

I've been given the opportunity to demo a brand new 14' Hobie race board and give them my feed back. A friend of mine I paddle with has the SIC racing flat water 14' board. So we've been trading off and comparing. I decided to do a little Pros and Cons write-up on the comparison. Here they are side by side.

The SIC is 14' x 26"  253 liters and about 23#, and the new Hobie 14 APEX 4R 7.50 is 14' x 27.5"  293 liters and 25#.

First of all, these felt very comparable in speed, or apparent glide, or amount of drag, or what ever you want to call it. They move pretty good. Not as fast as my 18' x 25" unlimited, but much faster than my old 14' Hobie dog. I would feel competitive on either board.
Everything else is different......

Lets start with the nose design. The SIC quietly parts the water with it displacement bow, where the Hobie causes the water spit as it skips over the surface with it pointed planing / piercing nose. The SIC has a recessed deck where the Hobie makes you feel like your up in the air a few inches. Almost all the race boards I've paddled have had recessed decks, so the higher foot level is taking some getting used to. In fact, a few people who saw me paddling the Hobie asked if it was an inflatable. It almost looks like one.
As far as tracking, the Hobie seems to track much better. Even my friend said that, the first time he paddled it. Because of the SIC's displaced hull design it foot steers more than I care for. Boards that have a lot of foot steering don't track as well, so you end up doing things to your stroke to compensate or counteract the over steer. The Hobie's planing hull design has almost no foot steering. Good and bad. If you want to just make a slight change in course, you'll need to achieve it via your paddle stroke.

Acceleration is good on both seeing they weigh almost the same. In the bump the SIC will grab and pitch in the troughs, but in all fairness they call it their 'flat water' race board. I think it does well in the ocean too. The Hobie hasn't grabbed and pitched me once. In fact, true to the Hobie legacy, the board surfs really well. I haven't tried the SIC in the surf, but my friend who owns the SIC 14 says, "It doesn't surf at all". The Hobie has hard bottom rails through the back 1/3 of the board. The SIC has very soft rounded bottom rails the entire length of the board.

The SIC has a little more rocker than the Hobie throughout the length of the board, and even a little more in the tail. They both have a V in the tail, but only the SIC has V throughout.
I won't get into the construction other than to say they are both well made. You can go the there websites and read all the good tech stuff.

In summary, I'm liking the Hobie more and more each time I paddle it. It was a little tippy at first and the high standing area didn't help. I've found the secondary stability and have been able to keep my cadence going in the slightly chopped up ocean. It's a little hard standing in a wind chopped line-up, even tests my balance paddling into waves, but really fun in and out of the surf. Being 6'7 I don't think I could handle their 14' x 25" wide version in the open ocean, but I will give it a go in the harbor one of these days. For a 240# guy, I never thought I would find a 14' board I could be competitive on. This Hobie is showing promise. The new Hobie is definitely a big guy 14' race board.   

[Area 10]

Interesting review, thanks. I'm surprised about two things in it. First, I find that the X14 (the 28.5" one) surfs very well for a raceboard. Second, it tracks very well compared to most comparable raceboards. So I'm wondering if your experiences are because you are not really comparing like with like, and you are a big guy. I think maybe a fairer comparison would be between the X14 and the Hobie, not the X14 Pro, which is meant for smaller guys I think. If you are too big for a board you will foot steer the board too much which will affect tracking. And surfing a board that is not stable for you will also be more difficult, and if you want stability a low volume 26" wide pro-spec board isn't the way to go. That Hobie looks more like the Naish Glide 2014 in the pics, maybe.

[TallDude]

Interesting review, thanks. I'm surprised about two things in it. First, I find that the X14 (the 28.5" one) surfs very well for a raceboard. Second, it tracks very well compared to most comparable raceboards. So I'm wondering if your experiences are because you are not really comparing like with like, and you are a big guy. I think maybe a fairer comparison would be between the X14 and the Hobie, not the X14 Pro, which is meant for smaller guys I think. If you are too big for a board you will foot steer the board too much which will affect tracking. And surfing a board that is not stable for you will also be more difficult, and if you want stability a low volume 26" wide pro-spec board isn't the way to go. That Hobie looks more like the Naish Glide 2014 in the pics, maybe.

As far as an equal comparison, it's obviously not in width or volume. I didn't have the wider version of the SIC X14 available to me, though I have paddled it. I've raced, paddled, and shaped so many different boards over that past 6 or so years that I'm really comparing both these boards to a lot more boards than just each other. So it's a review of each board, not really a vs and who wins. My friend who owns the SIC weighs about 180#. He has a few different race boards, but feels the fastest on his SIC. The Hobie is too much volume for him, but seems right for my 240# body. Like I said, I compare speed to my 18' x 25" unlimited which I shaped and glassed myself. Neither of them have as much glide or track as well as the unlimited. My older unlimited which I shaped had soft rails with a displaced bottom. It had too much foot steering. I had to paddle with my feet together. I found myself doing the same thing when I paddled the SIC in this review. If the SIC had harder rails near the back, it would more than likely have less foot steering because you change the foil to a larger radius. Thus reducing the steer. Harder rails can also slow a board down, so ?? The fun in designing a board. The Hobie has hard rails through the back and a non-displaced hull, so there is almost no foil developed. It's like a a big gun board with a chop tail. My old Hobie 14 by 29 has more rocker, a wider tail, surfs better IMO than the new narrower slightly flatter Hobie. I saw Colin McPhillips paddle & surf the new Hobie 12'6 x 25" for the first time. He was wet the first 5 seconds he hit the water. And each little white water took him out. He looked super unstable, but was charging it in the surf. He figured it out, but I think it's just how high the standing area is, that takes getting use to.
I will demo the 14' x 25" wide Hobie and will swap with my 180# friend. I'll see what he thinks about the truly equal volume and width comparison.

[PonoBill]

When you finally find a 14 that "works" for you, I bet you'll have the same conundrum I did--too slow. I can go almost as fast on a 12'2" surfboard as I can on a 14 raceboard, because I'm too heavy to trim the 14.

The few boards that will actually trim while I'm still on the deck pad feel wonderful, and I got really excited about their performance, until I realized where it fell in the spectrum--not much faster than my 12'2, a lot slower than my flatwater unlimited. Even an unlimited downwind board (NOT fast in flatwater) is a lot faster. 5.5 on a 12'2", 5.8 on a 14, 7.0 on a 18' Speedboard.

[yugi]

On the Hobie what's that thing in front (or behind) the handle? An insert for a mast foot?

[TallDude]

On the Hobie what's that thing in front (or behind) the handle? An insert for a mast foot?

The new handle insert on the Hobie has a built-in goretex vent at the front edge and a metal bar, like a large leash loop at the back edge for locking the board with a cable. There are a number of threaded inserts. One is obviously for a strap handle that straddles the inserted handle in case you prefer that type. There is a pair forward on the left corner of the deck pad for a 'through the surf racing' type of handle. The other ones, I'll have to ask the Hobie rep?

[TallDude]

Actually, I just paddled the Hobie again today and noticed that only the optional center strap handle has threaded inserts. The rest are leash plug inserts.