SUP board weight

[Steve]

Hi guys,

This is a terrific site! This is my first post (of what I imagine will be many). I'm curious about the weight of your boards, especially some of the higher volume production boards, like the C4's, JL's, etc. I see little or no reference to this in specs. I have two boards, both shaped by a top local shaper. The first was a 12' PU/PE board with dimensions and template similar to the Laird. But without the epoxy it is ridiculously heavy, topping out at 37 pounds. The glide is exceptional, although I feel like I'm trying to turn a freight train, and the walk to the water is daunting. My second board is a 10' EPS board 27" wide. It weighs in at only 21 lbs, less than a lot of my traditional longboards, and it is a joy to both transport and surf. When prone surfing, I'm often taking out very light HP's right now -- 9 X 2 1/2's that weigh about 12-13 pounds, and though this second SUP obviously doesn't surf like those boards, there are moments when I can really toss it around. I'm wondering how light the SUP's will go as skill and materials improve. One footnote: I'm 165 pounds.

[photosettle]

I have a custom 10'2" that weighs just under 24lbs w/  a deckpad on it.  My guess is the deck pad is between 1 and 2 lbs?  It's about 28" wide. 

[Tony DaKine]

To add on to this, I'm curious as to what people prefer - heavy or light? In general I prefer lighter boards but I can see the advantage of a heavier board for certain conditions and objectives.

[Rand]

C4 Waterman has their 3 new boards at 18 lbs.  Our last few boards in the 9-9-6 range have been in the 16-18 lb range as well.  That feels like a nice middle ground weight to me.  It becomes hard to seperate out just weight from all of the other factors.  Too much volume and the board rides high, and if light, gets blown around badly in even a light breeze.  A lower volume lighter board will sit deeper, which gives an odd kind of stability, and yet allows it to jump right up and go when you need it to.  I jumped back on a heavy Polyester board a few days back, and was shocked at how heavy it felt (not all bad, but what a difference).

[Steve]

Thanks for the input guys. Rand, the 9' at 16 pounds sounds about what I'll be interested in soon and great for carrying 1/2 mile to a break on my head.  I'm holding onto my 12' as a second board to have for friends and anyone else who wants to have a go at it. And it is great to have something for endurance workouts, although I surf so often I don't usually have energy left for that.

As far as the relationship between weight, thickness and volume, I'll leave the details up to the shaper, but as I mentioned above, I've gotten into a high-performance mode with knifey rails for prone surfing and I'm trying to replicate that to some extent on the SUP. But I do take out noseriders too for regular surfing and just adapt style. When I have the big boards, I'll often get up and stand in between when waiting for waves just to see if stand-up paddling it would be a possibility. My biggest board is 9'10" X 3 1/8 and I can't stand without moving for long, but I'm getting better. Do a lot of work on stability balls and who knows!  And on a corollary note, I did take out my 10' SUP one medium sized day last week without the paddle. It was strangely exhilarating to be prone surfing with something so bouyant.