Check the photo below, taken at the Walk On Water (Simon Anderson - Stand Sure SUP boards, Luke Short - LSD SUP boards and Walk On Water SUP boards) warehouse in Sydney. Simon Anderson's winning boards:




Farthest - Board Simon won the 81' Pipe Masters on;

Middle - Board Simon won the 81' Coke Classic on; and

Closest - Board Simon won the epic massive 81' Bells on- he rode a slightly longer 6' 6" inch version in much larger surf earlier in the contest. That board's at the Surf Museum in Torquay.

These boards are headed to San Diego for the Sacred Craft show (boardroomshow.com/) as part of the ASR convention (www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=sacredcraftexpo&e=com) along with a selection of Simon's Stand Sure SUP boards.

How does your SUP shaper stack up?


Disc. My mate's own the WOW business.

teatrea said...

My Chinese shaper won the Hang wong du contest in 81" the hu flung dung in 85' and the wing wang wong in 89"

Sorry dont get your post , are you saying the shaper must be a great contest surfer to shape good boards?

Or are you saying hes the best.

That essentially most of us in Australia are surfing our SUPs and that they are stand up paddle surfboards and that there's surfboard shapers and there's your mate Hang Wong Du-is he a windsurfer?

first of all, not having a go at Simon Anderson or Luke Short. I think their sub's are great.

BUT. there is NO argument that a GREAT shaper HAS to be a GREAT sufer. Does it help, to some degree yes, but more importantly feeling the board and understanding what is happening is more so....and you dont have to be a GREAT surfer.....just a surfer.

Has JS, Chris Garret, DM, Webber, Jack Night etc been world champ??? but alot of GREAT surfers ride their boards.

Serg

My SUP shaper just got 5th in the Snowy and 2nd in the SPSC club comp and shaped for Chilli and his own boards for a number of years.

No offence to anyone, but I would take his SUP shape/design skills over someone who doesn't ride high performance shortboard style SUPs if that's what it is I want shaped

I also don't see the relevance of how a SUP shaper performed on a shortboard either or if he shaped said boards, prefer if he rode and shaped a SUP similar to the style I like to ride.

The biggest selling and overall best performing sups so far have been designed and shaped by people who stand up paddle and some of them do it pretty well. Also in my opinion a short performance sup is not and never will be simply a blown up shortboard - it will always be a stand up paddle board and success will come from tweeking longer sups that have proven themselves rather than trying to make a performance shortboard into a sup. You only have to look at the success that Laguna Bay are having - and that comes from their constantly refining their original sups and borrowing from their long history of producing premium longboards and not from their shortboard range.
I think at the end of the day if your sup was made in Noosa or Sydney or Thailand or Beijing or wherever the hell it came from, as long as YOU love it then anyone elses opinion really means F/A.

billboard said...

Also in my opinion a short performance sup is not and never will be simply a blown up shortboard - it will always be a stand up paddle board..

If the board is a long cruiser different. But if the board is a performance SUP, who main aim is to allow the rider to do tight turns, and perform more critical moves. Your right it is not blown up short board..little more to it than that. But that type of SUP board definitely has it's roots firmly in short board design.

So won't be fair to say that someone who is a veteran and well respected short board shaper who ever it is, would be able to bring a greater depth of design knowledge into the performance SUP area ? From there experience shaping it's smaller cousin.

Just a thought...this topic has certainly stirred up a hornets nest hey

OK I'll jump in the ring and sure to get smashed by some heavey
weight contender

Round One ding ding [}:)]

So what is the difference between a sup and a surfboard
Everyone is searching for that shortboard feel, well most are.

What's the difference between sup'ing and surfing Other than
standing verses prone paddle ins, sure the paddle assists your turns.
Paddle in earlier ect.

So what"s the differance, is it simply more volume so you can paddle
standing up

62mac said...

OK I'll jump in the ring and sure to get smashed by some heavey
weight contender

Round One ding ding [}:)]

So what is the difference between a sup and a surfboard
Everyone is searching for that shortboard feel, well most are.

What's the difference between sup'ing and surfing Other than
standing verses prone paddle ins, sure the paddle assists your turns.
Paddle in earlier ect.

So what"s the differance, is it simply more volume so you can paddle
standing up

Lazyness?

Talent does that come into it, a good surfer came make anything look good

I am glad I have achieved so many red thumbs for my last post.

I will now try to get some more.

Many of the posts above more or less agree with me. 62mac and Pmorgan pretty much say what I am thinking. Pointy nosed performance SUP design IS firmly rooted in shortboard design. Look at the rails, rockers, concaves, hard edges etc etc where else did it come from?? If we are trying to surf in the same way and the boards are designed the same where else could it be from? Honestly, how different do you think they look???

Billboard uses the example of Laguna Bay. How many of you know that the staple of the Noosa Surfworks business is Shotgun surfboards. A performance shortboard label. Astute observers will even note that the progressive longboards made by Laguna use shortboard tails, edges, fin positions and tail rockers. Many even use a standard size thruster fin size and set up. The nose is longboard but that's it. Do you think they are not influenced by their shotgun designs on their performance SUP? It's the same shapers making things that look very similar but bigger. No influence or usage of shortboard theory????

I never said you had to have invented the thruster or won a world title to make a great SUP but if you have ever spent any time with Simon you know he has a great understanding of surfboards, he can handshape a great Mal also along with the obvious shortboards. Guys like DTM etc would no doubt list him as an inspiration. I also agree that a shortboard shaper that does not ride SUP will have a trouble designing good SUP design, what I am saying is that for performance SUP designs a performance shortboard shaper that rides SUP has a distinct advantage. You can't simply blow up Parko's 6'2 x 18 1/4 into a SUP but you could use his 5'10 x 19.

Surfboard design is a tree of knowledge, shapers use info from the tree everyday whether they created the branches or not they are all influenced by what works for others. I'm sure that Iggy at the yellow company has taken a look at surfboard designs from now and his past rather than just removing the mast from his sailboard designs, making his QE2's smaller and then inventing the pointy nose. He is extremely well credentialled as a shaper, more than most. All good shapers gain inspiration from others, the great ones even ride boards from other shapers to understand them.

Red thumb away but brand issues aside this is just logic.

aus301 said...

CMC said...
Many of the early Sups from these brands were awful. Full stop.

Only now that they are following the design lead of established surfboard Shapers are there boards reaching any where near the performance of guys that have been making SURF boards for decades and also make SUP for surfing.

I don't agree with that. It would be like saying the first surfboards were awful, and by todays standards they probably were, but at the time it was all about learning what worked and what didn't and refining the design to what we have now.

SUP designers have had to learn that blowing up a short board design was possible for some riders and SUP's didn't need to be oversized mals only. On the back of that you now see established surfboard designers adding their influence, however I don't think they are or have taken the lead by any stretch. Rather they hung back until they realised their knowledge could be applied to SUP and have now opened themselves to a new market space.

Worth mentioning that at least one of the guys that designs yellow SUP's for a company that also does Wind and Kite surfing gear earned his stripes in the late 60's shaping boards for the biggest shaper on the east of USA and working with the likes of Nat Young. This was back before Simon had even started doing ding repairs... so with that I am pretty happy with my designers credentials.

Thank you for giving us a topic with some teeth, I must admit I was getting a little bored with the forum content lately.

I agree with your post however I see the who's leading who differently.

Take a local Gold Coast example. When the yellow boards were still 12'6 x 52 x 7 Woody Jack was making shortboard styled SUP's and him an Kieran were already fully ripping on them. He pretty much just blew up his shortboards added some width where needed and off he went. I believe the contest results agree with this. Dan Mcdonald was already riding pointy nosed 9'0's 4 years ago. Same thing, he just blew up shorter designs.

This would have been happening everywhere where small guys could experiment because they can. They are small and just like Simon creating the thruster they do it simply to make tomorrows surfing better.

99% of innovation in surfing is from the backyard.

paul.j said...

Mmmm must be that time of month again

Yeah...pimping time

lookielookie said...

paul.j said...

Mmmm must be that time of month again

Traditional surfboard shapers will progress surfing sup. Embrass it, support it.
No wonder Stand Up is laughed on.

I said Pioneers in a post along time ago and got shot. Maybe lookies post explained it better than mine, couldn't agree more Traditional surfboards are and will be the future of sup boards, like it of lump it, its obvious by some posts in this forum,who comes from a surfing background and who are first timers, flame suit on with hose in hand

I bought a Simon Anderson SUP purely on the fact that in 30+ years of surfing every board of his i have ridden has been awesome.. In the few weeks I have owned the board my SUPing has progressed way beyond i would have ever imagined.. Last Sunday I was out in a pack of 20 surfers in solid 3 ft with some double overhead bombs coming through.. I definitely got my fair share of waves A couple of small barrels too.. Simon knows how to shape a great board..

I don't know about the other guys but I really do have man rags. You see i have to come back to Oz tomorrow and I am not happy about it. Sorry for taking it out on innoncent people.

Ps have not seen a single sup in Bali.

log man said...

Lacey's ,makaha, sorry I don't think so. How can traditional surfboard design show the way to the new breed of SUP's ?. Pointy nose SUP's are not blown up short boards. they may look like it but they're dimensions are completely different. If you wanted to scale up a 6 foot short board to 8 feet and my maths are correct, then the width would go from about 20 inches to 24 inches. Nobody is riding a board that narrow . In fact the trend seems to be going wider. And thickness? if you scaled up a 2.5 inch short board up to 4.5 inches in thickness the length of your SUP would be about 11 feet. I think the pointy nose SUPS look like short boards but aren't. My point is that all bets are off when it comes to designing a surfboard that the rider stands on in flat water and with a 4" rail thickness. Some of these designers seem to have really got something going and that's a huge thing but scaled up short boards I don't think so. Log

At last - some intelligence to this topic - thank you.
Across the planet, MOST people are still paddling sups with a fuller outline and most are doing it in flatwater and not in the surf. I am still not convinced, as are many other people that pointy nosed sups are the answer to high performance supping. I am sure that half the reason for the pointy noses on sups now is due to the fact that so many shortboarders are getting into it and they are still too pig-headed to admit that the sup is a bloody longboard ! or in the case of you guys on sub 9' sups - a bloody mini mal ! and as such you have to have a pointy nose so that you can delude yourself into thinking that your sup cant be a longboard because it has a pointy nose.
I ride shortboards/mals and sups and they are all so very different and try as we may to make that perfect hybrid that crosses from one form of surfcraft into another they will never be as good as the truest form of their breed. Why can't we just embrace the particular form of craft we ride and stop trying to make it something its not. If you ride a very small and high performance sup, why not call it a high performance sup ? same as those of us that ride high performance longboards because they surf like shortboards BOLLOCKS ! longboards don't surf like shortboards and neither do sups no matter how much we try to kid ourselves. The only thing that surfs like a shortboard IS A SHORTBOARD. I am not bashing sups, as I have said I ride all three forms of board and love each one for their own special feel in the water and on the waves and I embrace those differences.