New Sunova Ghost, first day review-

[nalu-sup]

This is a very long initial first-day review of my new board, written for other detail nerds out there. If you are not into detailed reviews, just close this post and happily move on. (Consider yourself warned!😁).

Yesterday I picked up my new Sunova Ghost 8'10" x 31 ⅝ @ 137.8 liters. This morning, I decided to take it out for a paddle, even though the forecast was for the surf to be flat. The very low tide and some welcomed 'new-board' karma combined to supply me with some glassy, tiny, knee-high waves to explore a tiny bit of the potential of this new board.👻

The goal for this board was to find a balance somewhere between the great surfing performance of my 8'8" Sunova SP25, and the super stability of my Tabou 9'0". Mysteriously, even though all of the specs on the Ghost are bigger than the SP25, the volume is listed as being virtually identical, which happily is not what I experienced this morning. Based on today's short test, I think the Ghost nailed my goal of blending more volume and stability with at least equal, if not better, surfing performance. Below is a first-day review using comparisons with my SP25. Both boards had an NVS Peregrine thruster set with fairly upright 4.5" sides, and a 4.35" center with almost no tip rake. (I have a new NVS set coming for this board with Peregrine 4.7" sides and a 3.7" Knox Stabilizer center fin, which are the sizes I like on most of my other boards.)

Me: 74 years old, surfed my first wave at Waikiki in 1959 and have surfed most days from May through November since 1976. 5'11", 162 lbs (73.5 kg), two metal hips, back surgery, two rebuilt shoulders, a plastic eye socket from a surf injury, and multiple concussions which mess with my vision and my balance.

Stability: The moment I hopped on the Ghost (137.8 L), I could feel that the dimensions tell a much bigger story than the volume number alone, since it has just the right amount of increased flotation and stability that I wanted over the SP25 (137.7L). The Ghost is 2" longer, ⅜" wider, 1 1/16" wider a foot off the nose, ⅛" thicker (due to a domed deck), very slightly fuller pulled-down rails, and weighs 1.5 lbs more. Seems about right for the increased stability I was looking for. As I had hoped, it does not feel as corky as my larger Tabou, which has too wide a nose and much thicker rails than I would like.
With all my surgeries and new body parts, getting to my feet is not easy on the SP25, and it was noticeably easier on the Ghost. Once up, it was noticeably more stable than the SP25, due largely to the large increase in width in the front half of the board, as well as being 2" longer with slightly fuller rails. (To confirm the difference in flotation and stability, my wife, who usually surfs a 114-liter board, found the SP25 to be challenging this morning when we switched boards, and found the Ghost to be super comfy.)
The Ghost is not nearly as stable as the 145-liter Tabou, but has the priority benefit that I expect the Ghost to surf a lot better, more like the SP25 (or better?).

Paddling: Great paddling speed with more glide than either the SP25 or the Tabou. The paddling speed reminds me a little of my old 8'10" Speeed. Even though the Tabou is a much bigger board, it does not paddle as fast or glide as well due to an abrupt rise in the very wide nose-rocker which causes the board to plow water and decrease glide. When the wind came up today, I had to paddle quite a ways into the wind chop to get home, and the Ghost handled that beautifully.

Yaw: Even with the tiny fin set that I like, the 8'10" Ghost has minimal yaw, much less than the SP25, probably due to the more curvy outline of the SP25.

Wave catching: With a flat forecast, I expected to just paddle around this morning with no hopes of catching any waves. When I reached the usual peak, I was surprised to see a tiny one-foot roller coming in that may or may not break. I decided to see what the Ghost could do if I paddled for this tiny roller. It easily caught the roller long before it broke and quickly accelerated to a surprising speed for a gutless little wave. I ended up catching a dozen knee-high waves more easily than if I had been on any of my other boards. Impressive, even though that is not the size of wave I would normally bother to surf.

Surfing: I will have to wait for some decent-sized waves to get a feel for how the board surfs. A few of the knee-high waves had enough of a drop to feel nice bottom turns that brought me right back up to the lip, so I am optimistic. Cutbacks and roundhouses were sluggish, but I attribute that to the tiny, gutless waves. I am excited to get this board in some decent surf and see what she can do.

Tales of the tape:
Even though the Ghost is 8'10" compared to the 8'8" SP25, the functional rail line is actually ½" shorter on the Ghost due to the 2.5" diamond tail compared to the square tail on the SP25. My theory is that the diamond tail gives two more inches for glide and stability when the board is flat, but yields a shorter rail line to aid in tight carving when up on edge, a nice combination of features if it works as I expect.

The Ghost is described as having a fairly flat tail rocker, but when I measured the boards lying flat on the floor, the Ghost has 1" more rise in the tail than the SP25 which is quite a bit. I am hoping this will show up when surfing decent waves.

Fin placement is an interesting topic. The Ghost is described as having the fin cluster moved forward, which I think is relative to the Sunova Creek. However, fin cluster measurements depend on where you measure from, the end of the rail line or the tip of the diamond tail. If you measure from the tip of the diamond tail, the fin cluster is about 1 ½" further forward on the Ghost compared to the square tail of the SP25. However, if you measure from the end of the rail line where the diamond tail cuts in, which I think is a better reference when carving up on rail, the fins are very slightly further back on the Ghost compared to the SP25. On today's tiny waves, I had to reach my rear foot back the same amount on the Ghost as I normally would on the SP25 to get the best performance.

The Ghost is described as having a very flat deck, but it is actually moderately domed compared to the SP25 which has a truly flat deck. I prefer the slightly domed deck on the Ghost, partly because the slight dome gives great tactile feedback in terms of exactly where your feet are relative to the mid-line and the rails.

The rail profiles are similar in general, but there is a definite difference in how the rails go up to meet the deck. The SP25 has pinched-down, low apex rails, with a paneled upper section that slants up to meet the flat deck at a definite angle. The Ghost has a similar low apex rail that gradually curves up to blend into the moderately domed deck. The end result is that the Ghost carries slightly more rail volume as it curves up to meet the deck. This allows the SP25 rails to penetrate the water slightly easier than the Ghost for my weight, while the tiny bit more volume in the Ghost rails provides a bit more secondary stability. For me, both work very well and both are slightly underwater when standing. Both rails allow for an initial tippiness that makes it easy to go rail-to-rail on a wave, while creating a nice secondary stability as the rails sink enough to encounter the volume of the thicker decks. (One of my other boards has a similar low rail profile but with a center thickness of only 3.7", which creates similar primary stability but with less secondary stability.)

A big shout-out to the team at Sunova. Like all Sunovas, I love the wood grain on the deck and bottom. Whoever picked out the wood for the deck of my board took the extra trouble to match the curvature of the wood grain to the curvature of the outline template in front of the deck pad. I love it, and appreciate the craftsmanship involved in picking out a sheet of wood whose grain would match the outline of the board. Very well done!!
At first, I was not sure I would like the darker color of the wood compared to my previous Sunovas (Speeed, Flow Version 1, SP25), but I have come to love it, especially highlighted by the gold colored rails and deck pad.

There is only one thing I would change. For a decade now, all stock boards from Sunova have come with the same original 5" fin sets that are way too big and with way too much rake for optimal performance, even for big guys like Creek himself. These are high-quality fins, but all of my Sunova fins sit in a drawer because they are just too big and with too much rake to allow for high-performance SUP surfing on boards much over 8'. I am not sure how many people will agree, but I find that the average-sized SUP needs smaller fins than the average surfboard because the longer rail lines of SUPs provide plenty of drive. All the dozens of SUPs I have ridden between 8.5'and 9.5' worked better with smaller fins with less rake which allows for tighter turns and more maneuverability. I would love to see Sunova ship boards with fins more suitable to the board size for best surfing performance. I would agree with Creek who prefers 4.7" sides with 3.5" to 4" centers with not too much rake all around. If Sunova wanted to ship me some fins in that size range, I would be happy to test them.😎

[SUPvol]

That's a great review and a ton of information -- keep us updated on any new info. I have a Ghost that will hopefully be arriving in a couple of months -

[nalu-sup]

I finally got my new 8'10" Ghost out in some decent (not great) 17-second chest-high surf: enough to get an initial feel for how it surfs. The downside of these test days was the sizable and crazy amount of wind-chop and cross-rollers coming from two different directions. The ocean was so wonky that I would not have stayed out on any of my other boards, but the stability and paddling power of the Ghost made it doable (at least for a while).
As mentioned before, it is a fast paddler and the best I have ridden at catching waves, whether they are tiny or messed up with cross-chop. It handled everything from catching swells long before they broke, to late takeoffs dropping in with the lip through cross-chop.
Yesterday had the first waves big enough to drop in with sufficient speed to try some decent bottom turns. With the rear foot back over the front fins, where the bump in the rail outline is located, the board was happy to make tight turns right back up to the lip. It's nice that the deck pad has a small strip of a different color and texture to tell you the location of the front fins and rail winger. It is easy to feel how the board likes to turn around that subtle winger as it is designed to do. The board does look and feel slightly bigger on the wave than my 8'8" SP25, due largely to the wider and thicker nose right in front of you, but the bottom turns feel just as good, or some even felt slightly better than the SP25, because of the bump in the rear of the Ghost outline. The Ghost was fun and easy to snap turns into all the mini-bowl sections created by the cross-rollers. The shoulders of the waves were too slow to try any fully-carved roundhouses, so I am still waiting to see how that goes.
One thing that is quite noticeable is how much more forgiving the rails are on the Ghost compared to my other boards. When taking off or riding on waves with a lot of sizable cross-rollers like the last two days, it is easy to catch a rail, especially on re-entries. There were several instances where I could feel a cross-roller trying to grab my rail in a way that would have likely caused a fall on my other boards. The Ghost seemed happy to adapt to the cross energy without it catching the rail and dumping me.
The one thing I was feeling a little short on that first day was being able to generate as much speed as the SP25 by pumping the board down the line or by driving hard off a bottom turn. For the second day, I changed the front fins from my NVS Peregrine 4.75" front fins that are very upright with minimal tip rake, to some Futures Colin McPhilips 5" fins that have a little more surface area and tip rake but are still relatively upright with much less tip rake compared to something like the Sunova fins. (Colin is my favorite SUP surfer, as well as being a multi-time World and US Champ in longboarding.) This fin change made a world of difference, and I was able to generate a lot more speed through and around sections. My best theory is that the Ghost is about two pounds heavier than my SP25, so it needs a little more drive from the fins to accelerate it out of turns. I kept the little 3.6" NVS Taylor Knox trailer fin in place, though I may try putting in my Peregrine 4.25" center fin for even more drive. That fin has a cut-off tip, so hopefully it won't stiffen things up too much. I was curious to see if the additional drag from the larger front fins would negatively affect the board's glide, but on the way home, it was still able to glide 50 yards back to the beach on a few inches of no-longer-breaking swell energy after the wave closed out at the end of a ride.
So far, the Ghost is everything I was hoping for in terms of more stability in wonky conditions, better paddling speed and glide, while not losing any surfing performance compared to my SP25.

[Dusk Patrol]

Thanks for the detail.

It's reigniting that "I should try that board" feeling     

[nalu-sup]

Yesterday I had the first chance to get the board out in some good quality surf. Not big at waist to chest high, but clean and fast over a shallow reef at low tide. The board was fast pumping down the line, which allowed me to finally test it out on some roundhouses. The board blew me away with how quickly it snapped around 180 degrees, which I think was a combination of the bump in the rail outline helping to release the tail, and being able to completely release the tiny 3.6" trailer fin I had switched to. I got three of these on one wave so I decided it passed the roundhouse test. One thing I am working on is how far I need to move my back foot from rail to rail due to the widish tail. If I do that, the board loves tight turns; if not, it just yawns at me.
I am very happy with the current fin setup with largish 5" front fins and a tiny 3.6" trailer fin now that I have tested it in decent waves. The performance of these fins feels like a hybrid of a traditional thruster setup with a twin+trailer setup. I would say the board now outperforms my SP25 in terms of how tight it will turn, as well as in glide and stability.