DATELINE 2005, World Kayak Surfing contest in Costa Rica :

Matt Radis surfs his Super Nova to a 1st place in the Masters Open. I ( Dick Wold ) place 10th in the Mens Open and 2nd in the masters open surfing my Super Nova. Demany Smith surfed his Super Nova into the Men Open Semi and came out 7th in the World.

Matt Radis and Myself both took 1st places in the finals for the World Team event and helped the U.S. West Kayak Surf Team take 1st in the world. This is the first time since 1999 that the U.S. has won the World Team event. Ireland the defending team took 2nd with U.S. East 3rd and Jersey of the U.K. 4th.

Super Nova
an explosion of possibilities

Rusty Sage flying his way to 1st place at the 2005 Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival

The Super Nova is the newest High Performance Surf Kayak designed by myself, Dick Wold. I wanted a surf kayak faster than the Nova, more forgiving than the Epic, and more maneuverable than both surf kayaks. The result is the Super Nova. The Super Nova was designed by taking the best design features of the Nova and the Epic and adding a new radical hull design. The Super Nova is an explosion of raw speed, forgiveness and just the right amount of new school bounce. In the right hands , this surf kayak can do it all.
Rusty Sage took 1st place at the 2005 Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival surfing the Super Nova. He surfed the boat to perfection using the speed to make sections and the forgiveness and bounce to perform huge green face Ariel maneuvers. I surfed the Super Nova into the quarter finals with a bad back using just the speed and forgiveness of the boat. Rusty gladly excepted my offer to have him surf the Super Nova in the semifinals. ( Rusty has owned both my Surf Machine and a Dream Machine that he took to Indonesia to surf the big waves. ) Rusty went on to have the highest score in either semi-final and then easily took 1st in the final.
Three of the top four boat in the final were my designs. After the contest, Matt Radis, who took 1st in the High Performance category at the U.S. Team Trails surfing a Nova, bought the 1st and only ( at that time ) Super Nova made. I surfed my Nova to a 4th place finish at the 2004 U.S. Nationals and I surfed my Epic to a 4th place finish in the last World's. I now surf only the Super Nova.
The Super Nova is the ultimate new school surf kayak. The boat is forgiving enough to learn in, while being loaded with endless possibilities for growth. Those who are experience kayakers will get to tap into the high-end capabilities of the surf kayak right off the bat.
The Super Nova is super fast, you can feel the lift and acceleration dropping in on the wave face. In surf kayaking, speed is power. You use that speed for hard carving turns, soft as pancake floaters or roundhouse cut-backs and dynamic aerial maneuvers. The speed comes from the tri-concave shape of the hull and the rocker.
The Super Nova is super forgiving. This means that the boat does not easily catch it's rails when doing 360's, back surfing or steep take-offs. The forgiveness is most felt when doing floaters, 360 floaters, roundhouse cut-backs and soup-hops. The forgiveness comes from the design of the hull, the rocker, nose flip, bevel angle and rail height.
The Super Nova is super maneuverable. This surf kayak can turn on a dime. One of my main goals in designing the Super Nova was to make it turn tighter turns. This is done by incorporating a continuos flowing fast rocker and a 26 inch wide spot located just in front of your body. The top and bottom view shows the flowing outside curve of the rail line. I have snapped bottom turns right back straight up face of the wave. At 7 feet long the Super Nova is better able to perform steep cut-backs without burying the nose. Even if the nose does dive, the buoyant bow and the concave flip on the hull helps to pop the boat back up and continue surfing.
The 7 foot long, 26 inch wide Super Nova is designed to fit paddlers in the 100lbs - 225lbs weight range and any where from 4ft. 6in - 6ft. 3inch height. I can cut the boat to fit the very light paddlers. Expert paddlers Dan Minton ( 5ft 7in. 145 lbs ) and Kevin Tinney ( 6ft 2in 225lbs ) have surfed the Super Nova and both told me it was my best boat yet. I weight 180 lbs and am 6ft tall and I think its my best boat yet too!
Just to clarify the differences between the Epic, Nova and Super Nova.
The perfect person to buy an Epic is around 5 ft - 5 ft 10 inches tall and 120 - 170 lbs. If you want to do flat water cartwheels and perform vertical slashing tumbling moves, The Epic is for you. The perfect person for the Nova is 5ft 6in - 6ft 4in and 150 - 235 lbs. If you want a boat with plenty of foot space that is easy to paddle out, catch waves and have a fun time surfing, the Nova is for you. The Super Nova can be cut to fit the sizes mentioned above. The Super Nova is for anyone who wants a kayak with speed and forgiveness,that can turn on a dime and perform both off the lip aerials and new school bounce aerials.