2009 Stand Up Paddle Race, Distance, and Downwinder Board Showcase–Part 2

In the last segment we revealed our high-tech weighing and measuring processes aided by a $39 scale, some home-made calipers, and a tape measure sacrificed to rapid corrosion after being submerged in the saltwater pool at Ponohouse. So now it’s on to the beach.

We had a few people who had conflicts arise and had to cancel–that was particularly unfortunate because we lost some boards to evaluate in the process. specifically, a C4 Vortice, a Starboard point, and an SIC F18. We also had one shop on Oahu pull out for economic reasons, leaving us short the Bark and Infinity boards.

I’ll explain why that is all perfectly OK due to Mark (Kiwi) Jackson’s brilliant idea in part 3, but for now, we’ll tell you a bit about the boards we tested and the people who tested them. People first:

Our morning session was intended as a BOP-style four leg around the buoys test, but with the prevailing wind we modified that to an up-and-back run between the canoe club flag buoys at Kihei Pier. Our testers were:

Jennifer Konohia, 142 pounds, 5’6″, age 37. Jennifer is a skilled paddler with both canoe and SUP experience. She races a SIC Ku Nalu and generally beats me. I was surprised at her weight, she looks much lighter, must be a lot of muscle on that slender frame.

Jack Dyson, 177 pounds, 5’10″, 50+. Jack is a very experienced paddler with many Maliko races and channel crossings under his belt on all kinds of paddle craft, including SUP.

Dave Schultz, 230 pounds, 6’5″, age 30. Dave is a relative newbie, but he paddles well (and hard) and has excellent balance.

Alan Sidlo, 180 pounds, 5’6″, age 48. Alan is a very experienced flatwater paddler from Chicago. He has extraordinary balance and flexibility, probably a result of his mis-spent youth as a pro skateboarder.

Bob Babcock, 279 pounds, 6′ 4″, age 51. Bob has been paddling SUP boards in all conditions on the east coast (Cape Cod) for about two years. He has some balance issues related to an inner ear tumor but was comfortable on all the boards and paddles hard and well.

Bill Babcock, 248 pounds, 6’3″, age 62. Been paddling SUP boards for about three years or so. I spend a lot of time in the water, SUP surfing, downwinding, cruising and fishing.

Also in this picture are Randy and Chan Strome (founders and administrators of the Standup Zone), Frank Forbes (owner of Lightning Bolt Maui) and Randy Royce. The came about noon for the downwind session and brought some additional boards, but we had to cancel the downwinder due to very unfavorable winds. It would be hard to write this article while on a board drifting towards Tahiti.

The boards on the beach are:

Penetrator 572 by Stu Campbell–Australia 18′ 8″ X 26.5″

F16 MKII by Sandwich Island Composites, designer Mark Raaphorst 16′ X 26″

Foote Maliko 12 by Bill Foote 12’6″ X 28.5″

F14 Productionby Sandwich Island Composites, designer Mark Raaphorst 16′ X 26 3/4″

Naish Glide 12 by Naish, designer: Iggy 12′ X 29.5″

F16 MKI by Sandwich Island Composites, designer Mark Raaphorst 16′ X 26″

Foote Maliko 14 by Bill Foote 13’11.5″ X 27.5″

Starboard 12’6″ Starboard 12’6″ X 30″

The Starboard 12’6″ was included as a sort of standard representing a stock SUP board. It’s a board with a lot of stability and good glide.

Where did everyone go? It didn’t take long for folks to grab a board and get in the water. the only board I hadn’t ridden that remained on the beach was the F14, which I assumed would be slow with my bulk on it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though Mark Raaphorst recommends it for riders under 200 pounds, it was fast and maneuverable with my 248 pounds weighing it down.

Jenn and Jack hit the water. Not sure what Jenn is on, but Jack is taking the Foote Maliko 14. He wound up taking this board out numerous times. He was as puzzled by it as I was

Bob on the new F16 MkII. This board is more stable, but seems perhaps a little slower than the F16 MKI. Fortunately SIC is making both style of boards, so customers have a choice. Strong paddlers sometimes will sacrifice a little board speed to gain stability if it means they don’t need to take balancing strokes–keeping the power on can be more important. Conversely, people with extraordinary balance don’t mind sacrificing balance to gain efficiency. It’s remarkable that the board that is the gold standard for open ocean racing now gives it’s users that fine tuning choice.

The Penetrator sits hull up. That’s a little seaweed on the edge. You can see what a radical board the Penetrator is. The displacement hull, nose rocker, tail rocker, and curved rails means the waterline length and width of the board is a function of weight. As the board tips it gains stability because the width from the centerline in the Tipping direction gets greater. And as the nose plunges into the back of a swell the nose buoyancy increases quickly, causing the nose to rise in a straight line.

A challenging but very exciting high-performance board.

Jenn on the new production molded F14. This board is very agile and fast. The rudder response is immediate and proportional. I was amazed at how well I could control it. It’s also a very light board at 29 pounds, ready for the water with rudder, pad and steering mechanism.

Taking the F16 MKI out. It’s immediately obvious why this board wins so many races. Fair stability, easy steering, great acceleration and super glide.

Jenn brings the production F14 back. There are a lot of custom F14′s around Maui, it’s a size that offers a lot of advantages in some racing organizations. If you remove the rudder and put a fixed fin in the box (it has both a rudder mechanism and a fin box) it qualifies for the Stock class. Any organization that doesn’t allow 14 foot boards to run in stock generally has a specific 14 foot class separate from the unlimited class. So the 14 foot board has competitive advantages virtually everywhere.

Jenn takes the Foote Malko 14 out. This is a VERY surprising board. it was built for high wind, big swell conditions, and it excels at swell riding. Jeremy Riggs has an ultra-narrow 12’6″ version of this board that he’s used to win every Maliko stock class race he’s entered. I thought it was just the Jeremy factor until I paddled this board. The surprise is that it’s smoking fast in flatwater. It weighs 27.5 pounds, accelerates like crazy (which certainly helps to catch swells) but it also glides amazingly well. Everyone in the showcase that paddled it remarked on how amazingly fast it was.

More on that later.

Jack Dyson sticks the wood to the Foote Maliko 14. I think this was the third time he had taken it out. He liked it.

I return the F16 MKI while Bob paddles the F16 MKII. Bob liked both of them, but said the MKII would be the one for him. He loved the stability and thought it was just as fast.

Jenn on the Foote Maliko 14 and Jack on the Penetrator. Jack said what he liked best about the Penetrator was the speed thrills and the incredible glide, but he didn’t like the rudder control because it threw his balance off during right turns.

Jenn wanted to take the Foote Maliko 14 to the North Shore and play. She didn’t like the mid-mounted leash.

Jack, coming in fast on the Penetrator. Sometimes it seems like the thing could use some brakes. It will coast right up onto the beach if you don’t jump off and grab it.

Jenn looking tiny on the Penetrator while Dave puts some heat into the F16 MKII

A pair of F16s–Bob on the MKI, which he struggled with due to it’s substantially lower stability and Dave on the MKII, which both of them loved. I fact Dave said “I will be saving up for this one”.

Dave heads out on the Penetrator while I bring Gumby, the Foote Malkio 12 back. Dave called the Penetrator “unforgiving, fast, great glide and very responsive for it’s size, but very, very tippy.”

Gumby is just a pleasure. It glides pretty well, it’s very stable, but it’s character only comes out in good sized swells, where it starts to really perform.

Jack preps the Naish Glide 12. Jack called this a good intermediate board, with fair glide and good stability–perfect for cruising

conferring on the best course to take since the wind has switched–again.

Dave prepares to take the Foote Maliko 14 for a spin. Note the tail-down attitude of the board, even with just Dave’s hands pressing on it. It’s more like this board has rake instead of rocker.

I paddle the Foote Maliko 14 past the piers of old Kihei pier.

jack and I decided to race the Foote Maliko 14 vs. the F16 MKII on some downwind legs. Amazingly, the Foote was able to keep up with the F16 in this little sprint.

We swapped boards and tried again–same result, Jack beat me by a small margin in both cases.

One of the local canoe paddlers that Jack knows came by and tried a few boards. Sue took a lot of pictures of this guy–no idea why.

Alan Sidlo on the Penetrator. Alan loved this board, I’m sure his excellent balance had a lot to do with it. He called it “exciting from the word go”, and said he particularly liked the self-righting nature of the board, the way it catches itself when it rolls.

About this time Randy and Chan showed up to do the downwind segment. Chan brought her custom F14, so I had to try it. I think this thing is 24″ wide or less. That’s it underwater beneath my feet. I was very pleased to be able to remain on top of this thing, I guess all this time on the Penetrator is paying off. This board had all the stability of a telephone pole.

Here’s Chan’s F14 compared to a production F14

Chan on the Naish Glide 12. She called it “very fun, stable, great all-around stock class board. Fun glides, easy to carry.”

Randy Strome on the Penetrator. That board even just LOOKS fast.

Randy Royse, Jack, Jen, Chan and Alan. At this point the downwinder is looking kind of questionable. the wind keeps switching directions. by switching I don’t mean changing a few degrees, I mean switching from east to west. That’s something I’ve only experienced in mountain weather or on Maui. in both cases it’s caused by wind sweeping around a mountain from both sides. The wind direction on the leeward side of the mountain changes radically when the actual wind direction moves a few degrees.

Randy carries in the Penetrator. Looks huge.

I carry in Chan’s micro F14. Weighs nothing. I’m struggling to keep it from blowing away

“Let’s go guys, the wind’s fine!” Randy is always up for it. One word of advice–don’t follow him. At that point the winds were pointed straight at Tahiti.

We canceled the downwind section. I didn’t even FEED these guys. we planned to do a little lunch on the beach before the downwinder, but then there were so few people I thought I’d just take them to a restaurant on the beach near Sorrentos when we pulled out from the downwinder. But then we canceled the downwinder. Yikes. So I just moved the time for the party up to 4:00 pm and told Diane everyone would be VERY hungry. We had a nice party, even though only the North shore contingent came. Ponohouse is a long haul from the south or west side. especially after a day on the water and a party, the drive home can be very, very long.

The next segment summarizes our learnings and announces our new board testing program. I’ll also be setting up a review section for racing boards. All coming soon (though the surf is looking pretty good for the next few days, and that always spells trouble for the schedule).