Hey Man... I just bought one recently 9'10" x 27.5"

Its been well used - the rails have been patched up and resprayed but its in pretty good knick really.

From what I've seen on ebay there have been a couple for sale since I bought this one whick looked a bit newer, maybe a bit better finished.

I've only been out on it on flat water twice, but I'm really happy with it so far

Just need to get it out in the surf

Cheers

Unless you ONLY want to paddle flat water-I would be carfeul of any board under 28 inches

with the Starboard range - and extensive r and d 30 inches is consistently popping up as the magic number - even the 9'8 is 30 wide - it gives you so much stability- and -with some clever shaping -alot more outline curve to work with to really give the board some extra turning power. This means you dont have to rely on slow paddling (rocker kills your glide) over rockered boards (that dont really paddle too well) to get really good surf performance

Here is the 12'6 Starboard in action - a long board with good with and rocker that surf's really well!





any board under 27 inches will be quite alot more dififcult to balance on- but -with appropriate rocker- will have really good glide and penetration through the water. I would recommend NOT getting boards of this width unless:

1. you are just into flat water- Narrow boards "cut" through the water nicely any you will get some good distance over an hour-however narrow boards really dont perform particularly well in the surf.
2. You are 70 kg or less or have incredibly good balance.

We are finding through our exposure to Starboard's r and D that 30 inches is consistently coming up as the magic number - even the 9'8 and 9' 0 (due out in Jan) are sitting at these widths. There just isnt any drawback to the width - while going narrower does seem to introduce penalties. Obviously if you get too wide other issues start to creep in.

With a relatively wider width you get more outline curve to turn the board off (so you dont have to throw lots of rocker or vee at the issue - which will dog out your paddling ability ) while maintaining stability - which is important in the break when you are paddling out - or quickly snapping the board 180 and throwing down a burst of accelleration to catch a wave - you really need stability at all times to be effective in the surf Zone.

After a wave One fall makes the difference between sneaking over the shoulder of the next wave or getting cleaned up and pushed right through to the inside!

A similar trend has happened in Surfing over the last 10 years - boards have gotten progressively wider - when done with correct rocker and rail foils (especially making sure that the rails fine out nicely in the tail) you get an overall net gain in all round performance.

The Same thing has happened with Windsurfing over the last 7 years too.