Hi, I'm interested in doing the doctor coming up and wondering what u would suggest is the better board for me. I'm 65kg. the nose of the smaller seems to look a bit more flatwaterish to me. Any help would be great. Cheers.

Hi marcus,

I was in the same predicament a few months ago.

Im 80kg and do predominately downwind races.

I found the 12'6 X 27 to be far better allrounder.

If your doing big long downwinders, go the 14ft downwinder if you want to do a bit of everything (well) go the 12'6.

The unbalance problem will be over come quickly.
(the fanatic 12'6 X 30 is miuch slower then the 12'6 X 27 carbon)

as always tho.
try as many as you can.

Nice rack!!!

riverider said...

if you look at the test the vic guys did on the 12'6" boards there isn't really alot between the fanatic 12'6" x 27" or the X 30", if you don't have to worry about falling in you may be able to paddle a bit faster, their results show the 27" to be 17 seconds faster after 20 minutes of paddling, might worry you if you were up the front, but not if you are only middle of the road.

I've spent a fair amount of time training on both the wide and narrow 12'6's and despite the results of the tests the melbourne guys did I found the narrow one is significantly faster and easier to paddle in pretty much all conditions. Yes, I had the slightly heavier wood version of the wide one which might be a little slower than the wide carbon one, but the red board is a lot quicker. At 65kg you shouldn't have any trouble at all with the stability of the narrow one (plenty of crew here are paddling it at 80-90kg) and the wide version would be a lot of board for you.

The 14' carbon is great straight downwind and picks up runners with ease, but it's a bit harder to paddle in crosswinds due to the thicker nose and it's not as much of an allrounder as the 12'6". It will be quicker in downwind conditions, if that's all you're using it for, but if you want a board to use in all conditions, not just for one race, then the narrow 12'6 is probably a better option.

Think you will love it
Good luck with it.

Looks like you made the right choice head down for a run with the guys from stand up paddle Sunday port to swanie

surf4fun said...

Like DM said I have just got the 12'6 narrow as an all round board. For me at just over 70kg the 14 is too much board. Don't get me wrong it flies in DW'ers but when I paddle it on the flat the boys were saying the other day that I had over an inch of both tail and nose out of the water which isn't getting the most out of the board.

In the BOP race we had the other week I was on the 12'6 and Darren was on the 14, over the flat we were keeping the same pace but around the bouys I would put a board or two length on him.

I have also had the 12'6 out on a couple of DW's and after the initial inevitable falls I was away. I have stepped down from a 14 and one thing I like about the 12'6 is the 'sweet' spot of the board is smaller and therefore you don't have to run around on the board as much. This helps when doing long runs as the first thing I find goes when I am starting to fatigue is my footwork.

perfectly said

Not many people talking about other boards like the Starboard 12.6 and Naish Glide etc. Why is this? Is there such a big gap between them?
The SB 12.6 looks like it has a great shape and is only 25.5 wide.
Any comments on these boards as opposed to the Fanatic?

riverider said...

if you look at the test the vic guys did on the 12'6" boards there isn't really alot between the fanatic 12'6" x 27" or the X 30", if you don't have to worry about falling in you may be able to paddle a bit faster, their results show the 27" to be 17 seconds faster after 20 minutes of paddling, might worry you if you were up the front, but not if you are only middle of the road.

In looking at those test results, you really should consider separately the results of the paddlers closest to your weight. The interesting thing in comparing the 27" and 30" Fanatics is that one rider in those tests actually skewed the results. It's no coincidence that rider was the heaviest at 89kg. He managed to complete the 500m course 7 seconds faster on the wider board, and was the only rider in the test to prefer the white board. On the other hand, I was the lightest paddler and the closest to the OP's weight and I managed to set a time 8 seconds faster on the red board. If you extrapolate that difference out to a typical race distance, it does start to become significant as Ali also found.