Stand Up Paddle ( aka SUP ) is the new kind of beach toy whose diffusion literally exploded in the last few years all around the world; of course I couldn’t resist the temptation of designing one of them suited for homebuilders ; so here we are, I designed and built the AeroWood 310 , an allrounder SUP with a certain wave attitude, a good volume and as usual a fascinating aspect like all wooden boats.
Construction is quite straightforward, an array of frames (4 mm plywood) have to be glued on a central spine (8 mm plywood), bottom and deck panels are in 4 m plywood, the only tricky part is to build the flanks with light flexible wood strips, a detail that conveys a very sexy aspect to our board, and it adds just a little bit of spice to the IKEA style building process; plans are basically three pages of drawings , a small booklet of step by step assembly instructions and, last but non least, a 1:1 scale CAD file to be printed with the templates of all the parts of the board, a thing that make cutting all the parts a quite easy task.
Materials required are: 1.5 sheets of 4 mm thickness marine grade plywood (sheet size 310×153 cm , 3 kg of epoxy resin and additives (cellulose microfibers, and silica), 30 8×8 mm 3.2 meters long battens of light and flexible wood , 7 meters of 100-160 g/m2 glass fabric tape, 40-50 mm width, a longboard commercial fin socket and and longboard fin (not mandatory, you can do it yourself the fin starting from plywood) , SUP traction pad (soft plastic adhesive surface to add grip on the deck, not mandatory), 2 metal square tubes 20×20 mm section 2.5 meters long to align all the frames (not mandatory, they won’t stay within the SUP, they are just needed in the building process)
Board is hollow, so it is enough light, basically it has the same weight of a foam and GRP medium level board.
The SUP can be resized down to 2,73 m ( 8′ 12”) , to fit all the paddlers sizes from a teenager to an adult man, simply printing the templates in the proper scale. Fin can be made in wood (drawing on plans) or you can purchase a commercial longboard fin and fin socket and fit them on board (I choose this solution), leash fitting point is a simple unbraided dyneema chunk.
AeroWood 310
specifications:
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board length : 310 cm ( 10′ 2” )
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board width : 84 cm ( 2′ 9” )
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board volume : 184 liters
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board weight : 13 kg +/- 0.5 ( 26 lbs. +/- 1)
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advised paddle weight range: 70-95 kg (154 – 209 lbs.) , SUP can be easily resized to fit a range of paddlers starting from 45 kg (100 lbs.)
plans price: 30€ , including DWG 1:1 scale templates file and an instructions booklet (Christmas sale !!! 15% less from now until 6th January )
plans can be purchased here
This is the classical “garage project” , the perfect hobby to pass the winter and have your board ready for spring , and it’s also the perfect choice to practice with cutting plywood, messing with epoxy resin and glass fabric, sanding and fairing, which is quite useful if you’re thinking about a bigger boat to built on a long term and you need to understand how basic operations works.
finished SUP pictures, thanks To Luca Sgualdini for the shooting.
building pictures
