Messages

1

Classifieds / Infinity 14' custom raceboard XXL $450

« on: May 24, 2023, 11:53:31 AM »

This is a premium custom race board made for a very large paddler. Ridden by a 6'7" 260lb rider for touring and ocean racing. (Note: the "crazy pin" pin stripe detail is something that Steve Boehne use to do, on purpose, as a distinguishing detail for his brand. Epoxy over EPS foam, carbon fiber down the underside for extra stiffness. Kind of a steal at this price.

14'x32"x5+"

Also listed on Los Angeles CL: https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/spo/d/los-angeles-infinity-sup-race-board-14/7620095303.html

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Gear Talk / Re: Smaller Surf SUPs for Bigger Guys

« on: December 10, 2018, 07:36:14 PM »

This is a topic that is near and dear to me. I'm 6'7" and 265# with a BMI of 28 (so, not getting down to 240# any time soon) and I've been SUP'ing since 2006 (Little Dume, AKA LairdLand). I'm also 59 years old, but I can still run a 7:50 mile and scull 2K in under 8 minutes.

When I started, the common wisdom dictated a whole lot of board, and I had a custom Infinity made -- probably one of the first 200 standos out of that shop. I had ridden the original prototype SurfTech Laird (really. i did.) and was trying to scale it up a little for my size. Yeah. It was comical: 13'10", 36" wide, 5.5" thick, Imma guess 350liter, basically a blown-up single-fin. No handle, and Boehne had to mail me my vent to install myself because we were all making it up on the fly and people were just getting a clue about SUPs blowing up in the sun -- hey, I was a "pioneer" consumer. It was a total dock. It was also a ton of fun. Jesus, did that heavy thing carry some momentum through the section. I sold it to a morbidly obese lawyer who was trying to drop 100 pounds -- i hope it worked.

Then, a couple of custom Infinity quads in the 11'x34" range. But that doesn't help your question a bit.

Twelve years later, I have a Laird Bully 12'6" (245 liter (!!) which still feels like a dock, but it's my go-to "small wave theft device") and I'm pretty sure it's discontinued. I also ride an Infinity Wide Aquatic, which at my size is amazingly surfable for a production all-rounder. The Starboard Atlas comes on my radar a lot, and the WarDog boards in SB catch my eye a lot, too. I'm in Malibu, so it's a split whether to go to the OC orbit or the Santa Barbara orbit.

My, how I do go on.

TL;DR: I say Infinity Wide Aquatic 10'8" for small, easy days, and check out WarDog in SB for a stick for higher-stakes days.

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Gear Talk / Laird Bully model -- any opinions?

« on: March 25, 2014, 08:37:49 PM »

I'm always on the lookout for a good big guy surf SUP. I saw the Laird Bully specs and thought that it might work out for somebody in the 260# range. But there's precious little info/reviews on it. Anybody ridden one, or have an opinion? Thx.

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Gear Talk / Re: Guidance Sought: Downwinder for Pituitary Mutant

« on: August 17, 2012, 05:25:38 PM »

Hey, I know it's been a while, but I thought I'd follow up on this threat for all the people who gave me advice.

I ended up with a 14' custom raceboard from Infinity. Initially I thought it would be too much of an indulgence, but I shorted Facebook, so, constraint relaxed.

Here's the 14' beast Boehne cooked up for me. It's pretty beefy, 32" wide, which, at my height, is reeeally necessary. Also hella thick. I took it out today, paddled from Paradise Cove around Pt. Dume to Broad Beach and back, and it completely kicked my butt; it's *hard* to keep it right-side-up in chop and cross-swell. Damn. I am totally worked. I'm sure it'll get easier, but I'm feeling a little like I did after my first session or two of regular old surf sup years ago. And I sure am glad I didn't get a narrower production raceboard. Ended up right where I wanted to be: enough float, challenged, but not over-challenged.

Carbon fiber deck patch and bottom stringer. Sunken deck. He also did this treatment where he just paints the shaped foam, glasses it lightly and adds a very trippy "drunken pinstripe" treatment, which I wasn't sure about, but it's kinda growing on me. Unique for sure. A pal said that the first time i take a chunk out of the rail and have to patch it, I'll thank him, because I can just redo the pin with a sharpie...

Thanks to everybody who helped me figure this out.

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Gear Talk / Re: Guidance Sought: Downwinder for Pituitary Mutant

« on: February 13, 2012, 09:33:25 AM »

Hey, everybody who replied: YOU ROCK. Thanks so much for the guidance. Hugely helpful. Many of the replies confirmed what I already suspected, but I also learned a ton of new stuff, too. Thanks for the dialog. You guys are the best.

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Gear Talk / Guidance Sought: Downwinder for Pituitary Mutant

« on: February 11, 2012, 06:30:12 PM »

I'm 6'7", 260lbs @10% body fat, SUPing for eight years now. Would really love to get into the rough water racing/downwinder scene, but none of the off-the-shelf boards seem right. Looked at Naish Glide 14', Coreban Alpha Race 14', but at ~270 liters displacement, they don't seem quite floaty enough. I'm close to giving up and going custom-made, but was wondering if I was missing anything. Am I doomed to a custom job? Any expert guidance appreciated.

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Gear Talk / Re: Deck Pad -- self install -- Tips and Tricks?

« on: September 09, 2007, 02:16:00 PM »

For whatever it's worth, I just did my SUB with HydroDeck grey diamond. My SUB is a serious beast -- 12'6"x32" -- and none of the standard deck systems seemed to be quite bit enough. So I got the $100 40"x60" (with 3M adhesive) traced a pattern and made a single piece as big as I could. I made a stomp-pad-style tail with some of the leftover. It came out pretty well. Nothing fancy, but I spent like 30 minutes on it.

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SUP General / Re: Hi from LA

« on: July 31, 2007, 01:52:20 PM »

Hey JD,

So, of course I have to plug your dimensions into the spreadsheet. Your Ron House is almost exactly the minimum functional floatation, according to the calculation (actually, it's .3% shy). Your new board reads as 8.33% excess functional floatation.

If I rode your Ron House, I'd be at only 83% of my functional floatation -- couldn't manage it at all. Though, before I made the spreadsheet, I might have tried to ride it.

I'm kind of glad I made this thing. It's going to make my next purchase better.

Thanks for another data point.

BY

9

Gear Talk / Re: Calculating SUB dimensions for paddler's weight

« on: July 31, 2007, 11:00:23 AM »

Shapeshifter,

You anticipated exactly. When I first did the formula, I went with the simple assumption of 1 Kg = 1 Liter water. Kept wondering why my buoyancy calcs kept coming up long. Figured I must have gotten a factor in the volume model wrong.

Got up. Made a sandwich. Then it hit me -- doh! -- I'm assuming fresh water. Salt water = more dense = more floatation. So, you can tell I'm not a maritime engineer.

Should just be a simple conversion factor, though. I'll figure it out and plug it in.

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SUP General / Re: Great white sharks discover SUP surfers

« on: July 30, 2007, 03:13:56 PM »

Aw, yeah. Barry White on the eight-track.

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SUP General / Great white sharks discover SUP surfers

« on: July 30, 2007, 02:56:30 PM »

Slightly scary SUP incident in Malibu involving great white shark...

http://forums.iwindsurf.com/viewtopic.php?p=63290

The part I liked is that the shark just bumped the SUB a few times -- the GW was 10'-12', apparently smaller that the SUB -- while the paddler seems to have answered back a few times with his paddle blade.

Oh, and nobody got killed. That's also good. Is this the first official GW/SUB encounter?

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Gear Talk / Calculating SUB dimensions for paddler's weight

« on: July 30, 2007, 02:32:33 PM »

Hey all,

This originally grew out of a discussion on the General category, but I thought I'd re-post it to Gear.

---

Okay, Rand got me to thinking more about the problem of figuring out the optimal SUB dimensions vs. the paddler's weight.

So I totally geeked out. I built a spreadsheet. I used some simple formulae to approximate board volume based on length, width, thickness, and weight. The formula assumptions seem to hold up pretty well, as long as the SUB is more or less a normal shape (like, I don't know how it'd work on a SUB fish, with the wider/weirder tail). I also included an adjustment factor to bridge the absolute buoyancy (how much volume vs. weight to float you with the board just barely, but fully submersed), vs. functional buoyancy (the minumum volume you need to stand in flat water, with the nose slightly out of the water, tail flush, with an inch or so of deck out of the water). Oh, and keep in mind I'm thinking about surfable SUBs, not racing or pure paddling SUBs.

So then I started plugging in numbers. I started with my Bruce Jones Superfloater which, at 12'x26"x4 7/8"x45lbs, I've never been able to stand up on (remember, I'm 260lbs. Also, Laird saw me struggling with the thing out at Dume one day, paddled by and commented, "not enough board"). So, according to the spreadsheet, that board is only 82% of the functional floatation I need.

Then, I plugged in the numbers for my Infinity Kukuhoe, at 12'6"x32"x6"x65lbs, which has alway felt like a little bit of overkill in the floatation department. Spreadsheet says it's 121% of functional floatation. Which kinda feels right.

So then I just started plugging in numbers to find the optimal floatation dimensions for my weight. The optimal size, with just 3% excess functional floatation, turned out to be 11'6"x30"x5.5" and a perhaps optimistic 40 lbs.

I'm pretty sure I can tune this spreadsheet up a little bit, but it's probably pretty good as a first cut.

Okay, and I did get out paddling twice this weekend. Didn't sit in front of the computer the whole time...

BY

13

SUP General / Re: Hi from LA

« on: July 30, 2007, 02:26:43 PM »

Okay, Rand got me to thinking more about the problem of figuring out the optimal SUB dimensions vs. the paddler's weight.

So I totally geeked out. I built a spreadsheet. I used some simple formulae to approximate board volume bases on length, width, thickness, and weight. The formula assumptions seem to hold up pretty well, as long as the SUB is more or less a normal shape (like, I don't know how it'd work on a SUB fish, with the wider/wierder tail). I also included an adjustment factor to bridge the absolute buoyancy (how much volume vs. weight to float you with the board just barely, but fully submersed), vs. functional buoyancy (the minumum volume you need to stand in flat water, with the nose slightly out of the water, tail flush, with an inch or so of deck out of the water). Oh, and keep in mind I'm thinking about surfable SUBs, not racing or pure paddling SUBs.

So then I started plugging in numbers. I started with my Bruce Jones Superfloater which, at 12'x26"x4 7/8"x45lbs, I've never been able to stand up on (remember, I'm 260lbs. Also, Laird saw me struggling with the thing out at Dume one day, paddled by and commented, "not enough board"). So, according to the spreadsheet, that board is only 82% of the functional floatation I need.

Then, I plugged in the nubmers for my Infinity Kukuhoe, at 12'6"x32"x6"x65lbs, which has alway felt like a little bit of overkill in the floatation department. Spreadsheet says it's 121% of functional floatation. Which kinda feels right.

So then I just started plugging in numbers to find the optimal floatation dimensions for my weight. The optimal size, with just 3% excess functional floatation, turned out to be 11'6"x30"x5.5" and a perhaps optimistic 40 lbs.

I'm pretty sure I can tune this spreadsheet up a little bit, but it's probably pretty good as a first cut.

Okay, and I did get out paddling twice this weekend. Didn't sit in front of the computer the whole time...

BY

14

SUP General / Re: Hi from LA

« on: July 26, 2007, 12:28:06 PM »

Rand,

Thanks very much for the input. I think you're totally right about volume: it's the least sexy, most relevant SUP metric. It's also the most difficult to measure (dunk tank, anyone?). But I bet you could approximate by taking a dozen or so measurements.

It's interesting; SUP is a little like aviation in that you *really* need to balance/tune the board specs for your weight/style/strength. I mean, I'm really big, but I can grab a pal's 9'6" longboard and fake it as a conventional surfer. Can't fake it as a SUP surfer, though.

Continuing to graze on this question. Will post what I find.

15

SUP General / Re: Hi from LA

« on: July 25, 2007, 10:04:28 PM »

Hey there. I just discovered this forum, too. I'm really liking it.

I SUP around Pt. Dume in Malibu. I discovered it a year ago -- tried to do it on my longboard, but no way. I'm 6'7" and 260lbs, and I had to get a custom board to float me. I'm pretty sure I own the largest SUP ever made, but I'd be happy if somebody checked me on that. My SUB is 12'6"x32"x6". I got it at Infinity. It surfs pretty well, though I can tell that in another six months, I'm going to want something a little smaller.

I'm interested in the question of the theoretical minimum board to float a paddler of a specific weight and ability. Right now, I have only very crude metrics (up to 200lbs, 10'x28"; 225lbs, 11"x30"; 250lbs, 12'x 31"; if you can carry the SUB under one arm, it's too small.) But I'm really interested to know if anybody else has thought about this question in terms of displacement, materials, surf style, etc.

This is my first post, so I'm probably going to figure out that there's already a thread on here somewhere. But any input appreciated. And thanks to the founders/moderators for putting this forum online.