Supping a 7’2" already sucks. Tracks like shit, long paddles out to the reef takes a bit of time and i cant imagine SUPing 6’ SUP foil would be much fun. Defeats the purpose in my opinion when the point of a sup foil is to reach far distant reef breaks with ease. I SUP my 8’ and it tracks great and i can pump it and still get 1/5 waves. I feel i could go down to a 7’5 but thats all i would go down to and not sacrifice tracking, stability and not have the board do circles.
Hahahahah , looks like everyone doing full circle
Two years ago I seen people saying the opposite , “ once you get longer you cannot go back”
I think big part of it is just trends and what cool , also people like to change all the time and don’t want to says they riding same boards for years .
But some of it is just evolution of the foils together with board shapes
There will be never the “perfect” size or design
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It’s all preference and if you put enough Time in at something challenging you’ll get good at it. Definitely not easy to paddle up small boards But a few years ago the concern was getting on foil when the longer boards came in. Location is a factor, can’t say I’d want small boards in Hawaii conditions, in general it’s not for everyone. That being said feels on foil don’t compare, so far every time I’ve dropped size personally it’s been a learning curve but worthwhile. We’re already starting to see more guys on boards in that range and I think we’ll see even more. The technique is so it’s not limiting on foil size or anything. In general very interesting to see what direction it goes, I don’t think longer boards are going anywhere but just like surfing you have longboarders, short boarders and guys who ride everything
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I have tried 5.8 x 28 , 6.8 x 27 ,7.2 x 25 and recently an inflatable Gong NOTW 8.3 x 19 .
After seing Jarrod Snow YT vids and sessioning the NOTW on a bumpy very small day myself i have become more convinced that long narrow and lightweight might be the best compromise for me.
The stability of the Gong was different but very useable, way better than i expected.And even inflatable it paddles like a dream compared to my carbon 7.2 .
The shape compromises of inflatable are FINE. It just needs a bit more pressure. If someone could get these things to 30 or 40 it would be a game changer
I’m thinking those boards are gonna be a lot harder to paddle up from the width, I’m liking the 18-19” wide range, they balance fine in the bumps and after a while get fairly easy to paddle up in short period conditions. This may or may not have a factor in preferring long and narrow in your case Anything wider than 19” for me starts feeling really big even if it’s not. But that’s just my preference, the >6’ and narrow range might not change your opinion at all but it’s intriguing. I enjoy hearing from other guys exploring the limits of “new style” small SUPs. I really think we’re going to see more advanced level guys pushing those limits in the near future, it’s very achievable
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Ok, just to clarify i do not DW paddle.I use the parawing for that and my midlenght 6ft 84l works very well.
I use the paddle for SUPfoil in a break, i expected the DW shape (8.3 x 19) would be too tippy for my sketchy SUP abilities but it totally cancels nose or tail sink and the roll is dampened by the foil,plus narrow hulls are less prone to chop induced rolling…still need to test it more but i liked it.
It’s been a long time in the making but hoping this is the SUP surf foil board I’ve been looking for (will also hopefully be decent as my light wind parawing/wing board as well)
It’s the Carbon/Kevlar Construction board 6’6 x 21 @85L
I’ve tried everything, made myself just about every size of SUP surf foil board over the past 9 years. Probably 10 or 12 boards from 4’10x24” to 7’6 x18”. As with most board sports you end up somewhere in the middle. I dont mind a DW SUP if it’s a super long paddle and it’s big swell that is feathering rather than breaking…. but if you want to get the best feels and get as close to prone performance foil feel as you can then you’ve got to be in the mid range. 7ft plus wont cut it. I’m not a big guy and have settled at 5’8”x20.5” (90 litres). I had a couple around 5ft x 24” back in the early days of foiling but the swing weight gain is not worth the paddle drag. Also had 2 almost identical 5’6 x 20” (85 litres) but lost nothing going to 5’8. I made a 5’11 x 19.5” and started to feel the length more so 5’8 is where ive settled. I’m only 70kg so that would be scaled up for a bigger guy to 6 to 6’2” ish board. Shape wise it’s just a mini DW style with scoop out the tail. rolled V in the nose.
Someone mentioned Jarrod Snow above and yeah him on a 7-8ft board blows my theory out the water because he rips that thing and clearly you can use a DW board…. but has anyone ever actually seen him on a mid length SUP? He’s probably better again.
All things being equal, I can definitely turn and pump a 5’8x20.5” harder than a 7’2x19” and it’s much more fun in the surf. If you can have a DW and a surf style SUP then that’s the way to go. I recognise that learning to balance on it and tracking is hard for some but you can overcome this with practice and technique. Not so long ago people chose to SUP surf on 7’2x24” 75 litre boards with no massive keel on the bottom and they made it work. That was a different planet in terms of difficulty
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Yeah! Going back and forth on different boards I agree with your comments about 5’8” x 20” being a sweet spot of compactness for performance surf foil while flying - yeah, takes a bit more effort to take off but if the swell is juicy the payback once in the wave is considerable vs my 7’6”x17.75” 90L.
Yesterday just got the AFS Whitebird 5’8”x20”x85L and tested right away today on a good swell and clean lines, took me like 20 minutes to get adjusted to it’s shortness (I’ve been only paddling on my 7’6" for like a year) and man! It was so worthy - carves and pumps felt very very good!
Very long waves, would have been nice a longer board or a jetsky to go back to the point 
next week seems windy enough to test it on a Downwinder, hope I can pop it off - curious to try the 6’6”x18”x88L KT DragonFly 2 - seems like a good blend of lenght and surfiness - so bad they didn’t kept that size in the DF current gen.
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Wow! Sweet wave.
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