I'm looking at getting a second SUP. My wife has an atlantis halo 9'6" and I've always surfed.
I'd like somthing surf focused for around the grand mark. I can get an Atlantis aura for $975 new on sale. An 8'6" is 115L, 28"w. Will I be able to progress into this if I'm a reasonably experienced surfer.? For surf skill reference, I can't go out and get stand up barrells but I can hit the lip and get a few cut backs in
Or should I get the 9'2" at 134L or even consider the 8'6 waterborne evoke.
There seems to be a big jump from $1k to $2k+ in the surf style sup pricing
I can ride and paddle the halo easily. I'm just not familiar with how much of a difference the specs make as I haven't owned any other SUP boards.
Any other suggestions welcome.
Two questions:
1) how big are you?
An 8'6" @ 115L might be perfect if you're 75kg, but far from it if you're 110 kg..... not that there's anything wrong with being 100+ kg. I hope!
2) Do you have an aversion to buying used?
I just took a quick look on Gumtree, there's a range of SUPs on there. In SEQ, there's a 9'2" SMIK Hipster for $1K and a Naish Mana (granted it's 10', you may not want one that large) for $1100.... and then Atlantis boards for much cheaper.
If you buy a good used board, at a good price, and it's not right or even better, you progress quickly on it, you can likely sell it for close to what you paid for it. The used Atlantis boards, not that I'm suggesting there's anything wrong with them, don't seem to hold their value from new. For example, in my search, there's a 9'6" Halo that still has the bar code sticker on it for $300, and a 10'6" Halo from the same seller (also with barcode sticker still on there) for $500.
Long story short, if you're not sure what you want/need, a used board might be the way to go.
