McConks Carbon Sport Review

McConks Carbon Sport

McConks Carbon Sport at rest in Devon

Back in December I blogged about a small project from McConks SUP in the UK, the development and production of the prototype Carbon Sport (you can read that here). Then the board was on her way to the UK and I got my hands on her at the end of January 2018. She (of course) is 14 feet long, just under 28 inches wide at the widest point with a maximum depth of just under 9 inches. With those dimensions she's a fast touring board for most but a race board for the taller / heavier paddler which is exactly what I was looking for. 

About the board

The hull has a high gloss lacquer finish over bare carbon with painted sections with a deck pad glued in place. 

Carbon, paint, logo.

There is a lot of volume in the nose with a pronounced ridge running from the bow that fades to give a flatter section with 6 bungee points (lightweight bungee cord supplied) before the deck pad. The handle is recessed into the deck, it is well placed with a good balance front to back when carrying the board, there are two vent plugs and a single leash point mounted centrally at the tail of the board. The finish of the carbon and the lacquer around deck fittings is flawless.

Turning the board over the hull had a surprise, or three for me. I had expected a subtle concave running the length of the hull, not the far more complex single to triple concave that has been implemented beautifully. It is really subtle though and hard to see in photos with the triple starting just before the middle of the board and continuing to the tail.  There is a single, full size US fin box mounted towards the tail. The finish of the hull was perfect.

The deck pad is lightly textured and showed some signs of excess glue on the pad, a shame as that shows up white against the McConks blue.

Lost in Translation

Some parts of the spec Andy had supplied didn't make it into the finished prototype; the FCS /GoPro mount is missing and the carry handle was supposed to have a more defined lip to curl your fingers into when carrying the board. Two small things that do not detract from performance and have been noted for any future versions. However the extra work in the hull more than compensates for having to stick a GoPro mount on later. Also the graphics at the bow didn’t work as Andy had planned but I like them and it’s my board so that’s OK. 

The bow, sharp up top but blunt below.

On dry land the design of the bow also seems to have suffered from a language or interpretation problem. From above you’d expect a vertical bow with quite a pronounced edge, this is how it starts out but as you move down towards the waterline it flares and is actually quite blunt. It doesn’t look that efficient or fast and being brutally honest it appears clumsy and out of place, again something to address in any future developments. 

All in I think she looks great from most angles, that bow not withstanding. For a ‘budget’ carbon SUP board the only part that looks budget is the deck pad and that’s largely down to that smear of glue where it shouldn’t be.

Of course the way a board performs in the water is far more important than how it looks on dry land. Sadly soon after she arrived we left the UK and she’s been sat in a storage locker in Sweden since the end of February while I find a place to live with storage for a 14’ carbon board. Before we left I did get some some quality time on the water including a photo shoot and one race.

The proof of the pudding is in the paddling

So how does she paddle…. really well. Which you may have been expecting me to say as she’s my board that I’ve paid for but let me elaborate;



The first impression was stability. She is the most stable ‘race’ or touring board I’ve paddled that’s under 28 inches wide. Even more stable than my other wide race board a 201612’6” x 28 Allstar. That stability doesn’t mean she’s slow though and the second impression is that stepping up from a 12’6” board she feels fast. A test run in neutral conditions on a timed 1km course resulted in a 33 second personal best with an average speed of 10.4 km/h, exactly 1 km/h higher than my previous best. I’ve paddled the same timed run over 50 times on various 12’6” boards, not bad for a budget board with a funny shape bow! 



Trimming the board is the key to making that bow work well in flatwater, too far forward and it’s shoving water out of the way. A fraction further back and it works far better reducing the water lifted at the bow. There is a lot of volume at the bow and quite a lot of height, this means side winds can push the front around a bit. When conditions require it moving a little further forward and getting the bow engaged means that the board tracks straight. 



When discussing the design with Andy I wanted to retain width at the tail but without excess volume and he achieved exactly that. The tail is slightly thinner than other boards I’ve paddled, but also wider. That means that stepping back for a buoy turn is easy to do, the tail will sink but that extra width keeps everything stable, to a point. The hull design also helps here, holding the board well in the water while you make the turn. 

Fin box placement is also good, the extra length of the box meaning that moving the fin forward or backward actually makes a difference to paddling. But the box itself appears to be slightly too wide for some fins that I have, they rattle a little which is easily solved with a foam insert, the type supplied by FCS with their FCS II fins. In fairness I have found other boards, hard and inflatable with fin boxes that aren’t quite perfect, either too tight or too lose.

She has less rocker than I had expected which is great for flatwater performance but I wasn’t after a pure flatwater board. Luckily that hull work and the overall stability of the board means that she handled her one outing (so far) in what could be called a funky swell well (funky was supposed to be chunky but funky swell sounds good). With strong gusts of  wind, natural wind swell and the wake from a squadron of Royal Marines (landing craft and ribs) she handled waves of up to waist height not with aplomb but adequately. The only swim caused by over-confidence by the paddler trying to turn after catching a few runners and sinking the tail too far for the conditions, a gust of wind took the bow and in I went. To be fair to the board the average wind speed for that paddle was over 20 mph, gusts were well over that! 



Finally that lacquer finish, it’s not flawless anymore. That one race was in the dark in Kingsbridge and I think I must have hit something in the water,  there was a scar when we’d finished.  It has proved to be fairly easy to fix though, sanding it back revealed that the carbon underneath was fine, some carefully applied Solarex has fixed the problem. One advantage with a clear top coat is there’s no paint to try to match.

Go Paddle 

A brace of McConks Carbon Sports and an McConks Go Anywhere

You can guess that I like my new board and I am happier with the prototype McConks than I thought I would be. Buying a board without seeing it based on diagrams alone is a bit of a risk but it’s been worth it. I’ve got a board that I really like and I because I was involved in the development process she feels a little more special than my other boards. I’ve got a board that suits the paddling I enjoy most and cannot wait to get her out of storage and onto the water here in Sweden. The conditions I’ve paddled in here so far suit the McConks perfectly and who knows, we may try to get involved in the race scene here too.

In the foreseeable future McConks will not be offering the Carbon Sport as part of their range but will be doing small batches to order, contact Andy @ McConks if you’re interested, but make sure he sorts that bow out first! 

All images (except the first one) from Mike Lister @ Mike Lister Photography