Is there a general consensus on SUP Surf Foil board design yet?

Long and skinny has become the go to for DW boards (where paddle speed is critical) but I’m interested to know if anyone who SUP Surf Foils has compared board designs.

I’m currently surfing a 7’10x19@110L DW shape (pictured) but can’t help but think there might be a better shape where surf performance is the priority. It surfs surprisingly well and enables me to catch pretty much any wave I want but I do on occasion tap the nose or tail and I feel the pump could be a little more efficient. I also wouldn’t say no to a little more side to side stability in bumpier conditions.

The dims I’ve pulled out of thin air would be roughly 6’6 x 22 @95L

If anyone has ridden similar shaped boards would I be giving much up vs the DW shape (or on the flip side gaining much?)

It’s not easy to find much info on SUP surf, best I’ve been able to do is watch some footage of locals in Hawaii and even then you’ll see a mixture of the older square shaped designs through to barracudas.

I know they’ll all “work” but removing DW from the criteria, what’s best?

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Hey buddy,

You need to check the Gong Intruder.
Might inspire you.

Looks like what you’re looking for.
I have the 5’8 50L and it’s awesome.
I mostly use Foildrive, it multiplied by 2 my number of take off vs my prone 35L.

Gong is cheap af.
But deliveries to Australia might be painful. (same for me when I buy an Amos…).

Note: Gong construction quality is not the best.
Boards can be fragile.
But if you handle them carefully , they will last years.
For us Europeans, it’s a good interim purchase to validate a shape/size before moving to a more expensive custom board.

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Good point to bring into the conversation!
I think there’ll be a balance between how narrow you can go and how short but still keeping that balance that DW boards have found of paddle efficiency while going to the point (many times far away) and take off ease.

I’m 70-73kg and I’ve been moving from short to longer boards in my DW Journey. From what you mention I think AFS have some really nice offering of shorter DW boards that are very hybrid for winging and sup surfing, I had the v1 Blackbird 6’2" x 21.5" 90L and it was a great board for sup surfing … And was surprisingly good for DW too, sold it to keep experimenting and worked on a custom made locally 6’11 x 18" x 96 which is what I’m riding now… Better for DW and still good enough for sup surfing

On the 6’11"

This is from an old 6’2" x 22" x 90L - first design. This board was wider and more unstable than my new 18" - rails design play a huge role on stability, also added length

Goods and cons when sup surfing it
It carves and pumps really well, but feels that it’s stuck on straight line track for too long and the flat tail sticks too, new cuts on the tail rocker should help with this.
18" let’s me lay some nice carves, but would go 1 or 1.5" more inches wide to get more rail to rail leverage on my feet for such a big board.
Forward length, not such a big issue, since the positioning it way forward on the feet and mast.

Now I’m about to get a custom 7’6" x 16.7" I designed for myself, very specialized for DW… And feel will need to fill the gap for sup surfing - working on a 6’0" or 6’2" x 18.5 or 19" x 82 - 85L dedicated to sup surf / Parawing / and crazy bumpy DW

AFS whitebird might be of interest to you as well.
Or the short BlackBird !

Hope this helps

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I definitely haven’t tested enough boards to know what is best for supfoiling in the surf and I don’t do it anymore. The benefit of the DW boards was definitely the fore/aft stability but I agree, side to side was tough when I used them.

Omar nailed it with the blackbird/whitebird comments. I would look at the whitebird for stock gear right now. If I was to get a custom I would probably go 6’9"x22/23" and however much volume you need which is almost exactly the dims on the largest whitebird. For me, the 6’4" blackbird would concern me about being too short and unstable for my skillset.

You could also ask Sunova to make one of the short Aviator DW boards wide for ya:

I think it’s a 10% fee to alter the dims.

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I weigh 75kg, i can SUP but never ridden sinker boards,Race or DW.

I bought the AFS Whitebird 6.8 x 23 x115ltr.
Lenght ,volume distribution and Box position are spot on for a balanced ride.Feels very surfy for it’s lenght.
Sadly i found it too narrow for my ability and bumpy lineups.Lots of falling is exhausting and frustrating.

My DIY SUP is 6.8 x 27.5 x 110ltrs,perfect for me.
There was a Sunova Aviator Pro with those dims…discontinued i think.

I will not go narrower or shorter on next build, just refine shape and get it under 5kg.

Your SUP ability and conditions are key.
Try before buying if possible,just to find your width ballpark, and IMHO go an inch too wide rather than an inch too narrow.

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Fantastic thanks everyone, I wasn’t sure if SUP surf design had been completely overshadowed by DW board design so it’s good to see there’s some others thinking about it as well.

Finding any board in those kind of dims to demo is next to impossible around here so if I did commit to getting another board it would be a calculated risk (I’d really want to know beforehand that it will be a noticeable improvement over my 7’10 x 19)

Somewhat frustratingly I already have a custom wing board in my quiver 5’10x20 but at 80L I just think it’s going to be a bridge too far to SUP reliably.

Appreciate the off the shelf options you have listed I’d actually found myself looking for “old outdated” DW designs eg Amos Phantom but most likely if I can convince myself of the balance of dims that will provide an optimal SUP surf experience then I will go down the custom path.

The issue is in “theory” I know what the alterations of dims will effect as a whole but by how much for the better or worse I don’t know without riding one.

Thinking about my criteria:

Paddle Speed/Glide: My current board allows me to pretty much get on any wave I want. So I’d be willing to give up some of that (shorter/wider) but obviously not to the point I regress to the point I only catch as many as I would proning

Performance: The 7’10 board performs a lot better then I initially expected. But there’s no doubt that turns are quite drawn out. I would hope the new board would shorten the radius of the turns allowing me to hang around the pocket a little more.

Pump/Swing Weight: I’d love to see some improvements in this department, I don’t expect prone board levels of pump but there is a fairly noticeable difference in my pump between the two setups. Bigger issue is if I get low on the mast I’m more likely to tap the nose or tail on the 7’10. I’d expect the drop in volume would help swing weight and maybe the reduction on length would buy me some time before tapping

Width/Stability: I don’t find the 19" particularly hard to stand on but will still often find myself paddling out on it prone and sitting down in between sets. I do wonder if bumping the width to say 22" will add much in the way of stability (realising I’ll lose some with the drop in length and volume) and on the flip side how much reduction in glide the width will create.

Thanks for the food for thought, anyone that has ridden both styles I’m all ears for pros/cons

I was just wondering the same thing. I’ve been SUPing on the small days with my DW board just to get more familiar with the board. With the water in the upper 40’s, I’m not mad at being out of the water most of the time vs my prone board.

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Considering I’d been a long time SUP Surfer going all the way back to @Erik Paddle Woo days!

For some reason I was late onto the SUP Surf Foil train concentrating more on prone and winging for the first year of foiling.

It wasn’t until I got this board during the brief moment I considered getting into DW (which I’m now holding off until the need to shuttle in cars is a distant memory)

I thought I’d do the same and test the board out in the surf first. My prone now mostly gathers dust as wave count is at an all time high on the SUP and I find myself much more at home on it in all conditions both big and small.

My experience on width on SUP foil boards - it’s that counter intuition may hit here - 22" may seem more stable, perhaps it is, but when a chop/bumpy water hit you on the side or strong currents mess you up - I’d rather be on my 18" thick hard rails board, than on the old 22" thinner rounder softer rails - Also my 18" board has a T-shape rails on the last 3rd of the board (Tail) which ends on a pin tail botttom but squared top tail with really hard edges, this for me feels also anchors and adds a lot of roll stability when standing up.

my 2 points here are:
22" may bounce more rail to rail just because it’s wider - 18" might better anchor and add counter intutively more roll stability - this is just from my experience.

Rail shapes influence a lot that rail to rail stability - so basically - it’s not just the numbers.
Obviously there’s always some sort of trade off but this is my experience.

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This is fantastic information mate, there’s a good chance I may end up sticking with my current board but I’m sure with some testing there would be a design that would suit performance SUP (great reading your first hand experience)

I wasn’t sure how much those extra few inches of width would effect things also considering the stabilising effect of the mast and foil beneath but great point on the rails I’ll admit that’s not a strong part of my knowledge beyond the basic planing vs displacement style bases.

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Gotta keep experimenting - hard to try imported stuff here as well - so I build a board every year haha -

this is my latest design - my shaper builds it for me locally

7’6" x 16.7" x 93L
Let’s see how it goes - that’s the nose by the way - I expect it to be a little twitchy jajaja - but hopefully being so narrow helps it anchoring well and not bounce too much - and still get me up and flying easily when it starts to glide -

hard rails V tail with rocker cut -

Hope it works and I didn’t went a bit too radical here -

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This is the Short DWinder / SUP Surf / Parawing / lightwind wing hybrid I’ve been drawing - perhaps will pull the trigger on the next semester

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ok, I haven’t ridden that many boards, so derate my opinion thusly. However, I SUPfoil 2-3 times a week for the last 8 years in a variety of conditions from tiny to huge, beach to point breaks, glass to victory at sea.

I used to love my kalama type barn door board. short/wide. Very stable side to side, and I thought I could catch anything on it because if I just got a little speed, I could ollie it up on foil. Pumped pretty good but too wide to turn unless the foil was high in the water.

When I tried the barracuda downwind style, it was like a light went on. Catching waves so much easier it was laughable. I went back and forth twice to the old board and convinced myself I’ll never look back. For me, its long and skinny all the way.

On width, I think that once you get so narrow as these boards are, the stability is no longer coming from the righting bouyancy of the board. As long as you have enough liters to keep you afloat, the foil/mast in the water is slowing down the roll enough that you can keep control of it. In other words, 18-20" doesn’t make much difference to stability. When you’re that narrow, you need to learn to keep it balanced not from the board stability, but from the paddle in the water actively keeping you level. But the width can make a big difference to the board speed and catching waves earlier and easier.

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Oh, I meant to mention the point which makes me believe that the stability is coming from the foil not the board on these skinny boards. I can easily and immediately tell the difference between a 900, 1000, 1300 foil. The bigger foils are so much more easier to balance because they slow the roll rate down

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Thanks for posting your experience @jondrums if DW board is the optimal choice thats good for me as it saves me buying another board!

Yeah I’d briefly looked at the kalama e3’s but came to the same conclusion, I would be going back too far that way (If I do go custom I can’t see myself going much shorter/wider than say 6’6 x 22)

You gained a bunch of paddle speed and ability to get on the wave with the barracuda but presuming they were of similar volume did you notice any change in things like the radius of your turns and pump or any other “cons” by going to the DW shape?

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I agree with @jondrums , once you get down to 20" or so width, stability comes almost entirely from the foil.

For surf sup, I do feel like a lot probably depends on the conditions you will be in. In rolling waves, a DW shape can be a big advantage since you get in early. But if it’s steeper, a shorter board will let you take off more in the pocket.

Personally I’m going to a 7’4" x 19" 117L for surf sup and 9’0" 16.5" 118L for DW for my next round of boards.

I’ve done a fair amount of surf sup on a 9’2" x18.5" over the winter and once you get familiar with the cadence of the pump and turning, it’s surprisingly fun. The downside to such a long board is that it can catch the nose on aggressive turns and the tail can get tangled in the whitewater occasionally.

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