Three well known brands in the SUP Racing scene and their most successful Boardtypes stay ready for an comparison within the next months.
3 different brands, 3 nose shapes, 3 different constructions, the brands Top of the Line Raceboards in noble carbon constructions head to head.
Test Framework
I’m a hobby SUP-Sportsman who’s highly motivated to gain expierience and wants to get better each time I’m on the water. What seperates me from many top athletes is not only their expierience and speed, it’s also my realatively high weight of 92kg+.
Mostly I’m riding my boards 500m away from my home at the river Traun, situated in upper austria and on the nearby lakes Traunsee, Attersee, Mondsee.
At the traun I’m mostly facing flatwater conditions and depending on the the water level the current can challenge my stability when hitting swirls, or switching sides.
Up and downwind I’ll post my expierience with those boards.
The Contenders
Fanatic Strike 14×21,5 (2019)
A narrow flatwater racing machine with 274liters of volume, big concaves on the bottom, a nosepiercing hull and a dugout concept.
This board rolls more than it’s competitors due to the fact beeing narrower, but it has great secondary stability and is the stiffest board I’ve ever tried.
Fin choice is crucial for me to get this board working properly for me, I’ll adress this during the tests.
SIC RS 14×24,5 (2019)
Beeing one of the most successful allround raceboards of the last race seasons, this board with it’s relatively simple bottom shape works quite well in every condition.
Initial stability is good and thanks to the open deck design with only slighty lowered standing area. This board shines in sidechop and when you don’t know what conditions you’ll be facing.
In sprints the high volume in the nose let’s you propell the board easyly out of th water and secures a good position at standing waterstarts.
Starboard Allstar 14×24,5 (2019)
The last Allstar with big concaves and a squared tail provides a lot of volume in the nose and shares the same weight as it’s competitors in the Carbon Sandwich construction.
Stability is key – this boards seems to combine the great initial stability of the RS with the strikes stability reserves when tipping a bit more.
What to expect?
I’ll do a speed comparison on a short track with 3,7km and some sprint tests from 200 to 1000m. You’ll get the garmin records to do some deep comparisons.
By now I’m having some troubles with the SUP App on my Garmin Fenix 6X Sapphire, so I hope garmin will fix that soon.
These tests should be helping people beeing new to the sport, to get some information and to give a little help in their buying decision.