UK Riders test the new Yster SUP 14’x 24″ Naked Carbon Race

At the Swedish SUP Championship in 2019, Yster SUP Team Rider Maya Persson took no less than three gold medals on her Yster SUP 14’x24″ Naked Carbon. Since then,  Yster SUP, a Swedish premium SUP brand – has further fine-tuned the shape and design of the board to improve its glide and directional stability.

TotalSUP teamed up over the weekend in Cambridgeshire with a lifelong paddler (K1 and surfski)  and a veteran SUP racer and coach – George Humphreys, who has just recently added Yster SUP to his impressive racing board quiver, to test and chat about this 14’x24″ Naked Carbon design – the only Yster SUP board in this shape and size on the UK SUP scene at the moment.

Maya Persson winning Gold at Swedish SUP Championship (2019) / Photo: Emil Sergel

Hi George, welcome to TotalSUP! Let’s take a look and talk about the Yster SUP 14’x24″ Naked Carbon, the latest addition to your racing quiver and the only 14×24 board in the country at the moment!

The Outline Shape

The first thing you notice when you take this board out of the box, is the size, the weight (around 11.5kg is one of the lighter boards on the market) and how sleek it looks – This board looks like it means business.

The Cutting Nose

Then you notice the shape of the nose and the moment you see the piercing nose, you know, where you want the water to hit (you want it to catch between half an inch to an inch up) because when you look at the bottom of the board, the water will just flow down this nice sharp V-shaped displacement hull that gives you that tracking. So this really gives you a lot of straight-line stability.

Directional Stability

When you look on Yster SUP website, the emphasis is on directional stability to effectively cut through flat water with low water resistance. And if you look down on this design, everything is going to drive this board in one direction. And that’s forward.

 

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You don’t have to worry that much about switching paddle strokes side to side because this will hold in a straight line. When you really notice it, is when you cut through wake and chop because whereas most boards feel a little bit wobbly as you go through the chop, if you’re not straight onto it, this board just carries straight on the direction you’re going.

I think it’s a combination of this V shape and not having a rounder side that just drives the board straight through that chop which will make it really interesting at the start of a race. And I think this will give a lot of people a lot of confidence on the start of the race as it feels stable in side chop.

Wind from the side can challenge a lot of boards, with the Yster low profile the nose and tail shrug off the side winds and when the nose engages the board tracks nicely ignoring the cross wind.

Bottom profile

While we’re talking about confidence and we’re looking at the bottom of the board and as we get to the midsection here, whilst you’re still running this line through the middle to aid the water flow, the actual rails are higher so this is a one whole concave. And that gives you a lot of lateral stability. So the first time I got on the water on Yster, I just felt how planted the board was for a 24” wide board.

It just feels sat there in the water – There’s loads of primary stability, loads! Even though you’d might want more volume in the thin nose, the Yster shape gives you all the stability you need. And that follows through when you come to actually make a step back because the ramp is very gradual. This is very smooth in transition from the standing area to the back. So even though it’s a dugout, it feels like a very flat deck, when you’re riding it, it gives you confidence moving around on the board.

Volume

The board’s volume is somewhere around 230 litres and it’s quite sensitive to weight so it will impact where you physically stand on the board as you want to trim it when it comes to the nose.

If you’re a heavier rider, you’re not going to be able to stand too far forward, because the nose will tend to dig in and submarine to the degree. So the lighter you are, the further forward you are able to stand, and easier to trim for speed. At my 80 kilograms, I have to stand a bit further back to lift up the nose – just be careful as the tail might drag if you’re too far back. The lighter the paddler the easier the board will be to trim for speed – which is the reason for me to loose a kilogram or two.

Standing area

With the rails being shape they are, relatively squarely, you don’t need you to wedge your feet right into the edge and can quite comfortably stand just your shoulder width apart to get the stability you need out of this board.

The sharpness of the rails towards the rear makes rail steering very intuitive. The ride does have a little water in standing area but the small drain does get rid of any major excess. The diamond deck pad feels nice and grippy, the vent plug will happily bubble away – just leave it alone.

Technical specification

• Design: Carbon fibre sandwich
• Length: 14’ (427 cm)
• Width: 24” (61.0 cm)
• Height: 8” (20.3 cm)
• Volume: 236 litres
• Weight: 11.5 kg (est)
• Max recommended weight capacity: 95 kg
• Fin box: Standard single US fin box

Conclusion

The way Yster SUP 14’x24″ Naked Carbon handles in the wind, especially cross wind (no need to fight the wind on this board), along with its lateral and directional stability are probably are some of its strongest points.

I think this board would suit a lot of racers in the UK as it has a real turn of speed especially for riders who are around 80kg or lighter. Being less cumbersome than some of the current boards it makes it easy to handle off the water, another bonus for smaller and lighter paddlers.

“It feels like a knife going through butter and is probably one of the quickest boards I’ve ever ridden. And when you get on it, you just feel like you can do anything on it,” commented Claire Terry, a keen SUP racer who has been testing the board since it arrived in the UK. “It also makes everything else feel big. It feels really small, nippy and manoeuvrable and it just cuts through the water due to its low volume.”

Find out more about the Yster SUP 14’x 24″ Naked Carbon here 

Explore Yster SUP quiver at www.ystersup.com and follow the brand on Facebook and Instagram