A SuperStar Review

February 22, 2005

Ever since I got my brand new Super Star to Chile,
I was itching to get
it to a true testing ground. Fortunately, the Rio Petrohué, near
where
I’m
staying in Puerto Varas, is home to several good playspots including one
big, fast, out of control wave I affectionately call "El Toro."
As it
turns
out this was a perfect place to field test the new boat.
The SuperStar has clear advantages over smaller boats for a larger
paddler, especially on a wave. The first is clearly comfort. I am
pretty
tired of having mutilated feet and crippled hips and ankles just because

I enjoy playboating. But the SuperStar is very roomy
and comfortable, and your feet are taken care of with the footbag. The
hull is fast… even faster in a back surf, and the rocker profile is
perfect for landing a big aerial, with enough speed to stay on, but enough
rocker at the ends so that you don’t pearl and sub off the wave. The boat
is still reasonably narrow for its size, which offers good edge to edge
control for carving and throwing moves. And the edge actually digs in
and holds nicely although it appears quite friendly. With all the volume
of the SuperStar and a reasonablyt short planing surface, it’s easy to
hop, but it really goes big when you set the edge in, fly down the face
and then hop. So the SuperStar pretty much eats up "El Toro"
and I’m sure it will rip apart any good waves I can find on the Futa too.
I haven’t had it in too many holes yet, but when I did, the boat seemed
to handle itself quite well. I was worried it might be too big for me
to cartwheel, but this was not the case. The smooth ends slice right into
the hole, and once you center yourself properly, the boat cartwheels easily
and is perfectly balanced from end to end. It seems that it also excels
at spinning on end for moves like the split wheel, tricky wu, and mcnasty.
And if you want pop for loops, look no further. The unstoppable combination
of extra length in the bow and a huge amount of volume around the knees
fires the boat out of the water as if from a cannon. At any rate, the
boat has been good to me so far, and I can’t wait to see what it can do
on the Futaleufu in a month or so. Well, enjoy the photos, hopefully I’ll
get some more soon.

Later,

Dan