STARBOARD HYPERNUT 8’6 STARLITE
STARBOARD HYPERNUT 8’6 STARLITE TEST REVIEW
Verdict:
A chunky railed voluminous stubby from starboard, thick round rails give this uber stable compact board smooth grippy turns in a compact outline. If you’re looking for maximum stability in a compact shape this classy new Starlite Starboard may well fit the bill.
Overview:
The new Starlite Starboard Hypernut 8’6 oozes innovation; there’s plenty going on in this larger compact board. On top you’ve a slightly soft textured new deckpad with centre arch and kick pad and a solid deep ledge handle. Before you turn it over you’ve the chunky soft rounded ‘nut’ rails, now paintless and scratch proof. Underneath a soft bevel edged concave runs through to a concave channelled tail sporting quad Bio-Resin glass FCS fins.
Brand Claim:
The Hyper Nut range is the most innovative wave board program we have ever launched, targeting riders hunting down World titles as well as entry level wave crew. This Hip in the middle of the board helps the boards turning ability; a wide nose for stability and wide tail for speed and control but this hip helps the board surf with loads of speed and most importantly grip.
Performance:
Jumping on the new 8’6 Hypernut it feels really stable and wide in the nose and pretty chunky, feeling a bit more voluminous than the 132l quoted. It’s thick and rounded nut middle gives you confidence as soon as you start paddling. Heading out through waves can feel a touch sticky at first, it is the widest board on test, but it’s easy to make progress out the back. The short flat-rockered shape wasn’t the easiest to catch waves to start with, it took a couple of rides to get used to, but once on a wave those grippy soft rails lay the foundations for a very forgiving bottom turn and the Hypernut soon made good progress along the wave. We found when turning the 8’6” with that wide flat-rockered quad finned tail, it needed to be pushed harder to result in a more angular turn in the sloppier conditions, but bigger more powerful waves made it a lot easier. Overall we found this chunky, compact stable board forgiving on a wave, however we found it less easy to extract real speed out of this particular 8’6 size, we’ve used smaller sizes in this board which are much quicker.