F-one SUP boards

So with stand up Paddleboarding now being relatively mainstream when Dom from TKC sales the UK distributors of F-one stand up paddle came to visit earlier this week, I was a little hesitant.

The perceived “popularity” of Paddleboarding has had an effect on how brands see the sport as a whole. If there are lots of people participating in a sport , more people tend to get involved and buy in. There are so many brands who have jumped on the SUP bandwagon some offering products which are less of a genuine product/ more a money making scheme which helps the seller but can mean the consumer is left with a product which works poorly or is not durable for its use.
F-one have been in the Kitesurfing business since the sports inception in 2000 using the adslogan “All we do is kiteboarding” but since the uprise in popularity of Paddle boarding have jumped on the wagon so to speak.

Here lies my hesitance, but I welcomed Dom into The SUP Hut to show me some of the 2015 offering from the F-one stand up paddle range.

Noticeably in a world of SUP boards which escalate yearly it was nice to see some innovative product!
Looking back to my degree years where I studied Product design, trying to change a product into a better one was a hard task.
But here with F-one SUP I appreciated some small features which seem to set them apart from other brands.
Most of the whole board range features a design not specifically unique to f-one but a design none the less not used a huge amount in the sport .
The concept of the Bevel rail or chine looks complicated but is in fact a simple facet to the board!

F-ONE bevel rail

Beveled rail: For all surfers, one of the disadvantages of a SUP is the size of the rails that make them difficult to fully engage during turns. How to make a stand up paddle board with ”surfboard rails” without losing the thickness of the board in order to keep its volume? F-one opted for a solution that is not new in the world of shapers: a beveled rail. The bevels are small laterals steps in V that are placed on the hull, along the rails. They allow a local reduction of the thickness of the board and thus of the rail. Another advantage of a beveled rail is that they reduce slightly the width of the board and thus its drag. A thinner rail and a narrower hull provide a gain in acceleration and a better rail engagement in the curves.

So with this design feature stretching across nearly the entire SUP range its nice to see something different.

The other innovative design aspect which I liked was F-ONE’s detail on a very important and ergonomic part of paddle boarding…..The carry handle!
Most of the key players in Stand up Paddleboarding have now made great effort to install ledged handles in all their boards making them far more comfortable for customers to carry.
The old style of a simple hand hole in the centre of the board just does not cut it anymore !

So to see F-one’s offering taking their 2015 board range to a whole new level in the form follows function principle was nice to see.

The handle is ledged so a firm grip helps you carry the board for longer and in windy conditions and it also features a really simple fin and vent key which slides into the integral handle for on the go changes to your fins.For those who are not aware of the Vent screw – some boards feature a screw vent which can be opened and closed to help regulate the pressure build up in the board in hotter climates.

f_one_sup_handle_components

f-one 2015 sup handle

In summary – The boards themselves had a great finish and weight , its now down to choice !
Here are some pictures of the following models brought in to display

The 8’5 Madeiro
The 9’1 Anakao
The 9’6 Manawa