TL;DR: are they<7' >125L. boards that aredecentfor flat water paddling? Extra points if I can also wing or windsurf it, and even more extra points, if I can use it as my first foil board for learning (and keep it for the rest of the activities). Minimally I want a board that goes relatively straight on flat water and fits in the van. As I did research, I read many, many posts here, none of which directly answered my questions, so I wanted to explicitly ask.
Background:
I am looking to eventually get into foiling, but locally the small lakes are not great for it (too small and too weedy) and transporting big hard boards is difficult, so until I retire in a year or so I will continue to mostly iSUP and use an ancient mistral windglider (blowup + sail, not really windsurfing but fun and it fits in the minivan). I've been searching for a <7' >125L SUP board, so it fits in my van but did not find anything with that except for Sup-Foil boards, which got me interested in foiling. I did a wing-lesson (but not on foil) on vacation and think I'll at least go that route. I could just wing-iSUP but would rather have a hard board that fits in the van. I enjoy the windglider and I used to do real windsurf on vacation but its hard to find places that rent those any more). I could easily do more windsurfing if I had equipment I could easily move around (though maybe winging will displace it). I did some kite-surfing but destroyed my kite and had some big crashes, which at my age were not with it, so I quit kiting.
So I am looking for recommendations/feedback on plain flat-water sup on anything < 7'. I'm 62, 5'9" (175cm) 170lb(77kg) and my balance is decent. I do SUP for exercise and to be in nature; I don't need to go fast or glide far, as my petite wife is very slow in her 6' youth kayak.
Since I do enjoy windsurfing too, I was looking at the crossover/multi-sport boards like the Naish 2023-s27-naish-crossover or a slingshot-70-shred-sled-143L Also looked at dedicated sup-foil like blue plant easy foiler (6'11") and wondered if that would be better for flat-water sup and flat-water winging without foil (and eventually with it).
I had contacted a dealer in California (17hr drive to the closest dealer) on the Naish and they returned the call to talk me out of the purchase as they said foil board would be really bad for flatwater. They said anything < 9ft on flat water will not track and just a waste of my money. They did try to sell me on a longboard or an ISUP, but as I already have the latter I passed. They said I'm looking for a unicorn. But the engineer in me says foil boards with enough floatation should work even if they are dogs at speed. If it's just about tracking straight, I figure that, at worst, I could add big fins or a long keel in the foil slots to force it to track well, even if it becomes hard to turn.
Thoughts?
Sorry if I put this in the wrong forum.. thought I was in sup forum.. if mods feel it should be moved, please do.
My experience with crossover boards is to avoid them. Decide what you want to do and buy the right equipment. I think winging may be your easiest option to learn given your location and conditions. You can wing in much lighter conditions than windsurfing.
My experience with multi-sport board is that you need to live with a trade-off. If you're okay with that, do it.
i had a sup board with a foilbox, quad fcs fin inserts and m8 insert for a baseplate. For SUP in waves I loved the shape. For windsurffoiling the foil I had was way too big and I couldn't adjust the mastposition to compensate for the stance. For supfoiling and winging I tried the board only a few times because the foilbox broke out.
after that I bought a dedicated foilboard (no fins) that I used for supfoiling and winging. 7'0"x28" JP foil sup. It works great.
and bought a separate board for sup with fins. The weight makes that same shape even better.
