Ta'al SUP

Product Description

The Ta'al SUP is a lightweight stand-up paddleboard with an efficient shape for touring.

Australian boat designer Michael Storer designed this plywood SUP to have a hull shape that glides like a performance rowing boat, with the stability needed by beginners.

Most stand-up paddleboards have a rounded surfboard shape, but most SUPs are primarily paddled on flat water or in small waves; their primary purpose is about as far from riding breaking waves as one can imagine. Racing boards have quite different shapes, giving Michael the idea of making an efficient SUP like the racing boards but retaining beginner-level stability.

Good rowing boats and kayaks are developed to waste as little energy as possible, by creating as little wake as possible. Like the traditional Whitehall rowing boats, the Ta'al SUP has a pointed transom that barely touches the water at its tip. This creates a fine, clean wake with little lost energy. However, as the board starts to heel, the flared sides provide increasing stability to help keep the board upright. The board may feel a bit more tender at small angles of heel, but will still provide the support needed to recover from a wobble.

The Taal SUP can be built very light without sacrificing strength, because it is designed to use 3 mm plywood and minimal internal timber framing, from tiny pieces of lightweight timber such as Paulownia.

The prototype board took two and a half weeks to build.

Plans

The 73-page A4 plans for the Ta'al SUP are more like a book or a boat building course. They contain detailed information on each building step, including how to join the plywood, mark the shapes of the panels and use the epoxy.

The plans are highly detailed and fully dimensioned. That means that there is no poring over them with your scale rule and getting scale conversions wrong: the measurements you need to know are written in clear type and in the area that you are looking at.

PDF Plans

An electronic version of the plans in PDF format that can be viewed using Adobe Reader. After credit card authorisation the file will be sent to the email address put on the order form.