The Rocket Ship has landed in Portugal

[Area 10]

Try one and let me know - although a top rider like you will want the 24.5” wide version for sure (or the 23”). It’s crazy stable.

IMO a fast board isn’t about any one thing. It’s the combination of things in just the right amount that makes a design work. I think that Mark got this combination just right. In particular it’s hard to make the fat ass concept work well - get the tail rocker wrong and you are towing an anchor. A couple of the early JL designs would be a case in point there IMO. But the RS manages to make it work, which means that you get this stability and easiness of handling. It feels refined, like someone has spent hours and hours honing the design, rather than that someone got to the point where the manufacturing schedule decided that “that’s good enough”.

But, are you going to get on it and think “this board is completely unlike anything else that I’ve ever paddled before”? No. But that’s not the point. This is a board that makes going fast easy and painless, and is a sensible and careful combination of established features. There may well be boards that are more effective at one particular thing (eg. downwinding, pure flat water etc). But are there any boards that are more effective at a *majority* of things? If that board does exist, I haven’t tried it yet. That, after all, is the brief of an “all waters” board - to be pretty damn good at everything rather than necessarily the absolute best at any one.

IMO you lose more in a race when you find yourself in conditions/situations that really don’t suit your board than you gain when you are in conditions which really suit it. Speed is easier lost than it is gained. Given the variable format of most SUP races round the world these days, this is why “all waters” boards are so effective, I think. So you want a no-nonsense all-rounder with no major weaknesses. I think that is what Mark R set out to design, and IMO he succeeded. What he has also created at the same time is a board that just enhances the pure pleasure of paddling, and could be used casually too.

Anway, this is only my opinion. So try one yourself and let me know what you think.

[yugi]

Review of SIC RS vs Starboard All Star (2017)

http://101surfsports.com/index.php/about-us/blog/474-which-is-faster-sic-rs

[C.I.Sup]

Thanks A10!  That was exactly the type of input I was looking for.  I am looking for a one board solution (for now) that will allow me to what I do most of the time but still give me the ability to start learning to downwind.  If I really get into it, I will buy a dedicated DW board down the road.  Sounds like the RS could be the right solution which is great since I loved my SIC X14.  I am heading to Portland next week and am going to hop over to hood river to demo the RS.  They said they had a 28" and a 26" I could try.  Didn't even ask about a 24.5" because I assumed it would be too narrow.

Thanks again!

[Area 10]

Thanks A10!  That was exactly the type of input I was looking for.  I am looking for a one board solution (for now) that will allow me to what I do most of the time but still give me the ability to start learning to downwind.  If I really get into it, I will buy a dedicated DW board down the road.  Sounds like the RS could be the right solution which is great since I loved my SIC X14.  I am heading to Portland next week and am going to hop over to hood river to demo the RS.  They said they had a 28" and a 26" I could try.  Didn't even ask about a 24.5" because I assumed it would be too narrow.

Thanks again!

Glad to be of help.

You are NOT going to need the 28” wide version. That is no doubt a wonderful tourer/race board for the bigger guy but if you loved the X14 it will be more board than you need. The x14 is 296L. The 14x26 RS is 306L. The 14x28 RS is 330L, so you’d be pushing around quite a bit more board than you’d need.

You might even find that the 24.5” version would be OK for you. That width is a bit of a challenge for me in the messy sea conditions I often paddle in. But if I paddled pure flat water most of the time and/or wasn’t such a wobbly top-heavy old geezer, that’s what I’d be getting - and I like the X14 too.