Rising Appeal

When we conducted our review on WindSUPs last year, we didn’t anticipate the amount of interest it would whip up. This year windsurfing foils will try to come in and steal the limelight, yet we’re still hedging our bets for the WindSUP to win out in the popularity stakes. So why the grip of attention - what is the appeal? We sent our test team in to investigate the developments on the market for 2017.

- Tris Best

The reason for the interest in WindSUPs is relatively straight for-ward to understand, but to do so we need to quickly remind ourselves of where it all started. As stand-up-paddling (SUP’ing) exploded onto the scene, and windsurfing brands grabbed on with both hands, they incorporated into their designs the lessons learned in windsurfing board development. SUPs became wide - wide enough to stand on confidently at rest. And so naturally it followed that if you could stand on it whilst remaining still, surely there was no harm in providing a deck-plate fixing in the board to attach a sail? It seemed logical. And so the WindSUP was born … and its development accelerated at a fair rate of knots, pushed on relentlessly by the hysteria that was to engulf SUP’ing. The truth is that many of the early WindSUPs suffered a kind of identity crisis. Take the first wave SUPs that could be used with a sail for example: rockered more than an EU regulation banana and with the roundest of rails, it was fantastic on a wave face, yet struggled to hold any path close to the wind and would sooner be cut in two than release onto the plane! The early touring WindSUPs didn’t fair much better - great for long distance cruising, but terrible for making any headway to an upwind goal and no good at all for teaching any friends or family how to windsurf.