29 Jul 2013
Posted by mattwright
Mention a hollow carbon race board to a group of paddlers and someone will question their safety. Inevitably someone will say “yeah but they are hollow. What if you are out paddling and they sink?”
So, are hollow carbon SUP race boards a high risk investment because they are prone to catastrophic failure? In order to get to the bottom of this controversy, Surftech and Bark provided us with a $4000 hollow carbon Bark Phantom SUP race board and allowed us to destroy it to see what it took to cause catastrophic failure.
As you will see in the video trailer below, over the course of three days we ramped up the abuse and (in a very unscientific manner) attempted to determine what it would take to cause catastrophic failure. Our tests included:
- Poorly surfing the board in 3-5 foot waves and repeatedly sending the board into beach unattended
- Smashing a carbon paddle shaft along the rails
- Dropping the board from waist height…then falling on it
- Repeatedly slamming the board into a shower stall
- Launching the board off the top of an SUV while protected in a ( remarkably protective FCS board bag ) board bag and without protection.
- Tow in surfing the board into a rock jeddy
- Riding over the board at full speed with a jet ski
- Shooting the board with 12 gauge 00 buck shot, 12 guage slug, 22, 44 magnum hollow point, sks 7.62, and .308
OUR FINDINGS IN A NUTSHELL : you are not going to sink this particular hollow carbon SUP race board in daily use. Moreover, our impression is that this particular board is stronger than a similarly weighted foam core board.
The fact of the matter is that we could not cause catastrophic failure by dropping it, smashing the rails with a paddle, launching it off a car roof, and repeatedly slamming to board into a shower stall. Pretty much nothing we could do that would simulate heavy normal use did anything but chip the paint.
Even more impressive, tow in surfing the board and letting it get smashed by the waves on a rock jetty still didn’t crack it. We had to ride over it with a Jet Ski before it began to take on water.
Even after we smashed it with a jet ski it did not sink in the middle of the ocean. Take a look at Don Miralle paddling the board at 1:18 in the video. The board is taking on water (not surprising as it was just smashed with a jet ski) but he was able to paddle it nearly a half mile back to the dock and it still didn’t sink.
Bottom line: MYTH BUSTED. There is no way that this particular board would suffer from catastrophic failure in the middle of the ocean with normal every day use.
Special thanks to Don Miralle Photography , Black Tie Productions , Chuck Glynn, Bark Paddleboards , Surftech , FCS , and Supconnect for making this happen.
