The SUP is now standard equipment on the beach, almost like sun cream and a towel. With two or three gimmicks, the popular bathing platform can even be upgraded. And so the WindSUP from Sport Vibrations Multisport is not only impressive as a paddleboard. With a length of eleven feet and six inches, it offers stable directional stability when SUPing, even on longer tours.
With a comparatively low weight of 9.3 kilos, it is well suited as a family board - even two seven-year-olds won't break a sweat on it. With a moderately slim width of 31 inches, it paddles quite nimbly and still offers sufficient tipping stability. Stiffness is always guaranteed thanks to a thickness of six inches, even if there are even more solid-looking - usually heavier - boards. With a tester weight of 85 kilos, the board paddled perfectly.
It gets really fast at two or three wind forces. Because then you can put the paddle to one side. With the additional small centre fin, the board holds a decent amount of height even with a 5.7 mm sail. The sharp trailing edge at the tail may seem like a gimmick, but it is almost the most important feature for optimally equipped windsurf SUPs. This means that in stronger gusts, you can reach almost 20 km/h in half planing mode, without pulling the sail like a team of oxen. This is because the water breaks off at the edge, the tail hardly sucks in, the board glides with noticeably reduced resistance and also runs better upwind. Nothing stands in the way of a short tour. Proper full planing is generally not possible with such a WindSUP.
WindSUPs in these dimensions are also suitable for children's sails and for windsurfing beginners. As a true multisport model, this model also offers four eyelets for mounting a canoe seat. However, we have not tried this out.
Sport Vibrations Surf Multisport
- Size: 11' 5'' x 31''
- Length: 350 cm
- Width: 79 cm
- Price: 695 Euro
- Info: sport-vibrations-shop.com
Stephan Gölnitz
Deputy Editor in Chief surf
Stephan Gölnitz comes from Bochum and had Holland as his home windsurfing territory for many years before moving to Munich in 1996 for the job of test editor at surf magazine. The materials engineering graduate worked as a surf instructor on the Ijsselmeer during his studies and competed for several seasons for the Essen sailing team in the Surfbundesliga and the Funboard Cup. He completed a traineeship at surf-Magazin in the test department and since then has actively accompanied almost all tests on the boom and for more than 10 years also as a photographer. Stephan has covered many thousands of test kilometers, mainly on Lake Garda and in Langebaan, but also in Egypt and Tobago. He gets his hands on over 100 new sails and boards every year as his company car. Privately, he prefers to surf with a foil on Lake Walchensee or “unfortunately far too rarely” in the waves. SUP is Stephan's second passion, which he pursued for several years at numerous SUP races. Today, he prefers to paddle on river tours with family or friends - even for several days.
