LSD 8'10"

LSD 8'10"
21 April 2011

By: Andrew Cassidy
Location: Mona Vale

Finally, a shaper has taken the leap and pushed out a low railed, high performance, production SUP. Unlike everything else I've seen in the production (non-custom) market, the new LSD 8'10" has been refined so much that the rail profile now resembles a thick shortboard. It has been a bit of a bug bear of mine for a while now, that all the so called performance SUPs still have big blocky rails which take a massive Hawaiian dude to bury when doing a cutback or bottom turn. Luke Short has brought his extensive shortboard shaping experience and applied it to a SUP. Nice work Luke. Clap, clap, clap.

One word: Surprise

The board is 8'10" x 29.3" x 4.5"

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Brian from Walk On Water was returning my DEEP 12'6" from a demo day in the Snowy Mountains when he asked if he could leave me with an LSD 8'10" as well, as he was leaving for China the next day and didn't have anywhere to store it. I politely obliged, thinking I would just keep it in my garage for a couple of weeks until he returned. I actually pictured it being the LSD 8'8" and figured I wouldn't get around to riding it as I already knew how that board went. When I was taking it out of the car I was intrigued as to what fins he was running because I couldn't feel a rear fin. I opened up the back of the bag and was very surprised to find a swallow tail staring back at me ... and a set of quads. Now, the LSD 8'8" is a 2+1 square tail so I knew something was up. I looked at the dimensions and read that it was an 8'10" - ooooh, this must be something new. Luke doesn't have an 8'10" in his range. Maybe I will give it a test run during its stay with me.

The next day I took it down for the early before work. It was blowing a light off-shore and there were some nice, clean, chest high right handers into the channel in the corner. A perfect testing environment for a new board.

I slid the 8'10" out of the bag and immediately took notice of the low profile rails. "Wow, they're thin", I thought to myself. I was now very excited and couldn't wait to see how well it got onto a rail through a big turn. The other thing I noticed was how light it was. This is a production board but it's not much heavier than my custom. Those Chinese factories are obviously starting to get this type of production process wired.

Running down the beach, trying to be the first out there, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the handle was in the right spot and the board was perfectly balanced with the grip, fins and a legrope on - another first for a production board!

I was a little worried that those thin rails would make the board too tippy when paddling but when I jumped on and paddled through the shorey, I needn't have been concerned, it was quite stable. In fact I didn't fall off while standing out the back once ... the whole surf. That's something I've haven't done for a very long time, even in nice clean conditions like that. I guessed it had to do with the extra width. Now the test would be to see if that extra width would hinder the performance in any way.

My first real punch through a wave went really well. Again with the surprises. I thought the slightly fuller nose would struggle with a clean piercing but, on the contrary, I got through a couple of mid-sized waves with ease.

A few little rights to get a feel for the slightly bigger board. It felt good. Lots of flow, good speed and it was very easy to turn. It felt light and agile under foot. I think the lightness of the board makes it more responsive. Maybe that was just in my head and it was more about the design of the board than the weight. Maybe it was both.

I finally got one of the sets. A really nice one. A perfect chest high wall running down the bank at the perfect speed, super clean and no crowd in the way (pretty rare in Sydney except for very early in the morning). A blank canvas. I faded a bit and gouged out a big forehand bottom turn, leaning over onto the paddle as far as I could. Those thin rails bit in, the quads held nicely and I pulled the 8'10" around to start heading up the face at an angle not far off 90 degrees. My first real turn on the LSD was next. A whack off the top. I hit the crumbling lip hard which pushed me around a bit and allowed me to transition my weight onto my heels then I took over and carved the board round the rest of the way so we were now heading down the face again with a fair amount of spray heading skywards. That was a big turn for an 8'10", on only a smallish wave. I was impressed with the lack of lost speed and retention of drive as I moved into another bottom turn. Almost a carbon copy of the first one but this time the ensuing top turn was more drawn out, away from the lip, with more rotation and maybe more spray. A shorter bottom turn followed which set me up for a few speed pumps. The agility of the board was very evident here with the quick series of rail transitions occurring with minimal effort. The LSD was hammering down the line - it proved it's got speed when you step on the gas. Now for the classic test, a round-house cutback around the paddle. Swap hands with the paddle, shuffle my feet over onto the heal side rail, dig the paddle in, get down low and drive with my thighs. The rail buried and carved the board around the clean face. I stayed frozen in that squat position until I could see the foam ball dead ahead. Then it was time to extend, put pressure on my back foot, shuffle my front foot to the toe side rail and swap hands with my paddle just as I rebounded off the foam. The board spun around quickly and I was back on my way, down the line again. A nice little floater on a close out shorey finished off an awesome ride. I was very impressed with the performance of this production SUP.

Lots more waves were had that morning, a few small ones which the board took on quite well and a couple more of those bigger ones which the board absolutely excelled in. Big bottom turns and those drawn out carves are this board's specialties. The 8'10" length was found to be a bit of a hindrance with the more snappy turns, close to the pocket, and had me coming unstuck with the occasional nose dive or front rail catch when coming out of the lip on the smaller waves. I am used to riding an 8'2" and an 8'5" though so maybe somebody coming down to this length instead of up won't have this issue.

Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised with this board. It is a real eye opener and might (hopefully) be the start of a new era of the production SUP that resembles its traditionally higher performing custom made cousin.

Highs:
- Gets on a rail easily.
- Carves beautifully.
- Nice and fast.
- Easy to throw around.
- Pretty light for a production board.
- Quite stable.
- Paddles well.
- Carry handle is in the right spot.

Lows:
- A little shorter would make it even more high performance.

What's your weight Casso? Roughly. Plus, were you wearing a Springy or steamer?

I got to demo the LSD 8'8" today. To be honest I struggled quite a bit, I usually ride a 9'5" Naish. The outer waves weren't fully breaking and the offshore wind was gusty. Fell off heaps. However, when I got on a wave it was wow, this rides like a shortboard. Thin rails on this model too. It's a totally different ride to any SUP I've ridden before. I rode a Starboards Pocket Rocket for the first time today too which is much more like my Naish than the LSD.
If the 8'10" rides like the 8'8" but is more stable it would be fantastic.

The 8'8 LSD is a massive step down from a 9'5 Naish (Mana?) in every way possible, so no wonder you were struggling.

There are also two(or maybe 3?) versions of the 8'8 production model. I am guessing Casso rode the earlier thruster-only model that is quite different to the latest wider tail-thinner rail-5 fin version that definitely comes from shortboard pedigree.

Rode the 8'10 at today's demo on the goldy with the Pancho thruster setup. Paddles well, surfs great, and is a bit more stable than the 8'8(5 fin), which is still a more high performance sup with less volume and width in the nose, and lower thinner rails.