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  Don't consider those absolute times in a vacuum. Tenorio is very close to the speed of the best pros.

   Its not in spite of or because of. She had one other top female paddler there and she has a past history of being an endurance beast. In a tighter battle the last percentage points are going to come into play but that race was won by the padddler on the board, not the board under the paddler. The 23 was overkill in those conditions, it's an ocean board for her.

   25 is usually the best compromise. The few actual good days of DW that Florida gets per year will be challenging on a 25 but the other 95% will be fine. I have a Vapor and it handles anything Florida can throw at it. The flying fish boards are fun DW boards and surf really well but are more technical than the vapor being more race focused.  Having "downwinded" the Florida chop in pretty much every condition on boards ranging from 23 to 29" I prefer the vapor as the one board quiver.

^ outside UK & US people weigh less on average. So that advice depends where you are.

It's not so much a practical rationale based on body weight and subsequent stability though but there seems to be a general reluctance (psychological or perceptive I'd say) of buyers to buy sub 25 narrow race boards. It's possibly due to such boards requiring more attention to paddle when you're not racing and recreational use seems to be just as important to many.it might take a few more years for recreational paddlers to realise that 24 or even 23 width boards aren't the challenge they used to be.

Unless you are of very slight build, narrow boards are a royal PITA.

Why make it any harder than it has to be? If you are chasing a podium position with every fibre of your being, then sure. But most people just want a board they can use for lots of things and makes paddling a pleasure.

If I go under 26" wide I actually find my toes often hanging off the rails on one side, or cramped up against the sidewalk. I'm quite a wide build. It's uncomfortable. So wtf would I want to go any narrower? I'm not going to be winning any races  at my age, so what is the point? I'd rather have a (fast) board that is comfortable and I can sell easily.

The race-obsessed are such a small minority of paddlers. There are probably five times the number of "ex-racers" in the UK as racers. They want a fast board, sure, but also a flattering one, at a good price.

The first thing the average Joe learns, when they take up racing even semi-seriously, is that the results are 99.8% the paddler, not the board. So unless you are really battling for the top spot on the podium with someone who is within less than half a percent of your speed, it really isn't going to matter much.

Michael Booth isn't going to stop winning if you put him on a SIC RS rather than the Starboard Sprint he normally uses. The elite paddlers swap teams regularly, but at the end of the year their positions are pretty much the same, whatever they are riding.

  Some lessons have to be learned. We're all guilty of trying to buy speed at some time or another. I even knew better and still did it my own self. Cognitive dissonance at its finest.

  All things being equal, and they never are, I had two boards of the same make and model 23 and 25 and in a flat sprint for one minute the 23 averaged .15 mph faster through 8 runs. I also didn't use the 23 in about half the races I did because races are rarely flat and windless. Touring it's utterly pointless to paddle a marginally stable board unless it's for the "challenge". Racing is so utterly chaotic and unpredictable that you should  err on the side of stability. You're also 6'2 not 5'7 and coming from a 28" wide board with not much paddling experience. 23" boards, despite the new hotness of 21.5 and 22" boards are still tip of the spear equipment.

  I'll come out and be the first to actually say it. Don't buy a 23. Start out at 25 or if you really feel you need to then get a 24. A 23" board won't offer you anything more than a 24 or 25 will besides instability. Your racing results are going to ride entirely upon your fitness, not your board, provided said board is intended as a race board. The difference in speed between them is far less than you probably think it is.

Did anyone see the new 2019 Naish Maliko?

https://www.naishsurfing.com/product/maliko-140-x26-pro-sandwich-carbon-stringer/

Look same as last year, maybe some minor modification to the nose but more changes in construction
it seems. Graphics are Heinous imo.

I think they are the same but with colourway changes. The grey of the Maliko looks awful. It's like someone got a can of spray primer out and threw it all over the board. Two years in a row like this suggests to me that Naish have given up on the race market and what they have is good enough for the market size on offer.

  Considering the effort they used to go through to make the boards look good thats a plausible assumption. The paint scheme on this one is a bit of a WTF to me, it just looks weird and completely uninspired.

[It's almost squirrely. It's almost twitchy. It feels really wobbly]

"It's almost squirrely. It's almost twitchy. It feels really wobbly. But somehow it's still cool and has a ton of stability. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense."



http://neverboredinc.com/bark-vapor-ghost-126-test-drive/

  I'd say that's a pretty accurate first impression of it. The real magic is that it just never really feels that way once things get festive, it really doesn't make sense.

  While I realize you're asking about a direct comparison and I have no experience with a V2 I will say the vapor is ridiculously stable. It will handle some truly nasty conditions. Other than flat water speed I don't think that board really has a weakness. Could be lighter, could pressure ding a bit less readily but that doesn't really have anything to do with it's capabilities.

I don't think any of you guys would have any problems paddling a 14x21.5 board. But whether you could be fast when paddling it in typical race conditions is another matter altogether. There are plenty of people who seem to measure their worth by how narrow a board they can stay on top of. But that's not worth a damn in itself. You have to be faster on it than you would be on a 23-25" wide board. And that's the tricky bit

  I drew the line at "do I enjoy paddling this board?". I raced a 23 in flat water but it just wasn't worth it as I had to train on it as well and I never really enjoyed it. The 24 was essentially as fast with all the added stability benefits and it was a board I wanted to paddle, not one I needed to. I never beat anyone paddling the 23 that I didn't already beat on the 24 anyway and the best performance I had was on a 25 because conditions were mixed and the guys on 23s struggled to keep up in the open water portions and couldn't make it up in the flat water.

  You already have a vapor. That board is outstanding at pretty much any non racing activity. That's the one board I won't sell.

  Vapor. It's great at pretty much everything downwinding in Florida. Covers everything we get and is superb in the ocean in general.

  I went to a 23 for a bit but abandoned it after a few months. It really took any enjoyment out of paddling. I only ever paddled it because I needed to, not because I wanted to. If I were competing for wins I'd probably have stuck with it but there's no board I'll be ever be able to average 6mph on.

@AREA: the board you are referring to sounds like a fun fun fun board. If it were a hollow construction, I'd jump on that rather quickly. I am thinking long term here, so durability has got to be way up there on my list.

For this reason, and speaking of multi fins - I am thinking of finally looking a into ventral fins - and giving Allison a call to see what he would suggest. The 2.0 has MANY great attributes - and it's only downfall is staying on track in high wind. I am pretty sure I can make all its positive come to life and take care of its negative with a little bit of imagination.

  Installing a fin box in a hollow board will be tricky.

I think I know why the SUP paddle power meter was never released (beyond limited market) and how to fix the issue. The easy way to add a power meter to a paddle would be a strain gauge on the shaft. I did that with my paddle pod and never got values that seemed usable. Over long-ish distances attempting to measure the force while paddling with consistent effort applied to the shaft the strain gauge values fluctuated wildly. The relatively consistent accelerometer values and vibration curves didn't show any useful correlation to strain. I only measured the acceleration of the paddle blade, not the board, since what I was trying to measure was relative performance of the blades.

...

Said in another way: I bet Travis or Tituan cover a lot more ground than other paddlers for a given amount of force applied to the paddle shaft.



[disclaimer: I'm an engineer]

  If I had to take a guess I'd say they're applying more power. Just judging by looks Travis has got to be physically stronger than most of the other guys. It's probably less that they're covering more ground for a given amount of force and more that they just have higher force in general. Whichever explanation is correct when I saw Travis paddling in person I was amazed at how little effort he appears to be using.

I would argue it's not physical strength really. The actual force being applied is very low. Anyone on here could apply the same force..... just not as long in duration. It's an aerobic activity at the end of the day. If you look at Connor and Kai, they are hardly packing the muscle on. It s a technique thing but also power to weight and aerobically driven.

  In general a stronger person can apply that force more efficiently. If you can lift 500 pounds and I can lift 400 and we're working with a load of 300 you'll do reps with a lower effort. I perhaps need to drop to 200 pounds and lift at a higher rate to match your total work output. A part of a plan like paddle monster is gym work to add strength.