Not everyone is programmed to chill when the time comes to slip out on the water. Some of us are on the hunt to cover miles or get our heart rate up. Personally, I have a difficult time going paddleboarding across a lake and not taking off into a full-on sprint, which is why most days I prefer a touring-style standup paddleboard over an all-around board.
Touring boards, though, can be pricey, and high-performance boards can feel unstable for a beginner. But newcomers with a limited budget shouldn’t be excluded from this style of paddling. For these two reasons, I set out to a local afterwork spot, a reservoir in the southern Willamette Valley, to test paddle the reasonably-priced 12’6” Niphean Pro Touring inflatable standup paddleboard and see where it falls on the scale of SUPs made for cruising speed.
Review of the Budget-Friendly Niphean Pro Touring Inflatable Paddleboard
Niphean Pro Touring 12’^’ Specs
Length: 12’6”
Width: 33”
Thickness: 6”
MSRP: $699 USD
niphean.com
Last summer, I had a chance to test out the Niphean Classic all-around board. For this year, the brand sent us an upgrade to try—their more performance and fitness-minded inflatable touring paddleboard. As expected, the Pro Touring has a slightly higher price tag than the Classic, at $699 USD compared to $269.99 for the Classic. At this cost, the Pro Touring includes a large number of accessories just as the Classic does, plus a few more design points, and ultimately provides a board with a different intention.
What’s Included With the Pro Touring
The Pro Touring includes not just the board, but also a nice-sized travel bag that can carry all of its accessories. There is a paddle that can be converted for SUP or kayak use and has a widely adjustable length. There is also a high-pressure manual pump in order to get the board up to the desired pressure—between 12 and 15 PSI.
Among other items are a repair kit, two fin options for the tail, and an attachable kayak seat to convert the board into a sit-on-top kayak. The kayak seat is a nice option for windy days or when loaning the board to someone who prefers to sit-down paddle. Another essential in the box is the coil leash, which, like a paddle, is nice to have right out of the gate instead of shopping for one. Similarly, I appreciate that the Niphean board comes with a waterproof phone pouch. I think this is an overlooked accessory for paddleboarding. Just because today’s iPhones are waterproof doesn’t mean they won’t sink straight to the bottom.
Lastly, the Pro Touring includes Niphean’s StabilTrac fin, which attaches to the center of the hull and acts in a similar way to a keel under a sailboat. As I shared in the review of the Classic, the concept is interesting, but ultimately I personally don’t find any need or interest in the StabilTrac fin. If you purchase a Niphean board and find it helps with stability, it is then a great bonus for you. However, I’d rather not have such a long fin protruding under the board or creating resistance for turns.
Pro Touring Board Features
The board itself is also packed with essential and bonus components.
First is the deck padding, where your feet will be spending their time. I found the deck padding to be comfortable, and Niphean has marked an area with diagonal lines for foot placement as a helpful index.
At the nose and tail, there are two areas of deck storage under sets of bungees. These provide lots of space for dry bags, water bottles, shoes, and anything else you’d like to pack along for miles on the water.
There are also D-ring attachments to anchor the kayak seat, and to one side of these there are fastener tabs to store your paddle when you decide to jump in for a swim.
Accessory Deck Mounts
Two of the more interesting features I found on the deck of the board are the accessory mounts in front of the paddler and the dual air valves at the tail.
The accessory mounts let a paddler attach gadgetry or turn the touring SUP into a fishing vessel. You can add some electronics like a fishfinder, GPS, a fishing rod holder, or even a camera.
Twin Valves
Now the dual air valves at the tail are even more interesting. You only need one valve to inflate and deflate a board. The second on the Pro Touring is present where Niphean’s electronic air pressure display can be inserted. When I was researching the board before having it on hand, I saw Niphean included these with certain models. A digital gauge reads your board’s current PSI.
The board I received did not ultimately include one of these displays; however the text surrounding the valve placements still mentioned it. Reading more on the Niphean site, not all boards were sent out with the display due to elements to address. The digital gauges are available to purchase on the site and can be added to the board by using the valve wrench to swap it out.
Personally, I don’t think there is a need for an electronic air pressure display on a paddleboard. Every air pump shows the PSI the board is currently at, and the idea of needing to charge or replace a battery for something on the board doesn’t seem necessary. Every seam and valve is also a potential failure point no matter the board, and the less of those the better in my opinion. Like the StabilTrac fin though, some people may find the digital readout helpful.
Pro Touring Design and On-Water Performance
The board itself is designed as what’s been referred to as a touring board. These touring boards are meant to be more efficient at traveling through the water, both in potential speed and tracking in straight lines better than an all-around board. Generally, this means a compromise of a few components of a beginner-friendly board, namely stability and ease of turning. The Niphean Pro Touring is a nice middle ground for someone looking for a bit of the former without losing the latter.
Touring Board Design
Overly simplified, one of the ways a touring board becomes faster compared to an all-around board is by elongating and narrowing its shape. The Pro Touring is 12’6” long, a popular length for a touring board. However, it is also 33” wide, which is on the wider side compared to many other touring boards.
Another factor in the speed or efficiency of a touring board that relates to length and width is the shape of the nose and how that shape transitions through the board, or said another way, the angle at which the board is entering the water in front of it. If you were to look at the Classic, it has a spoon-shaped nose, maintaining the width of the board through the front and creating more stability—great for hanging out on the water. The Pro-Touring, however, has a nose that tapers sharply to a near point. This narrowed shape is intended to pierce the water ahead of it and produce less wake to overcome. The Pro touring does this to a degree, but it also maintains width around the paddler’s stance, and so remains relatively stable.
This width also increases the volume of the board giving it a higher weight capacity to fit a range of paddlers and let you load up more gear for say an overnight trip on the lake.
On-Water Feel
While testing the Pro Touring, I was fortunate to have a breeze and some moderate, short-period choppy waves to paddle against. I felt like the board handled these fine, and I was able to cover ground with reasonable effort. Overall, I found the Pro Touring pretty stable when I paddled it. The board also felt like it carried a line well, and the single fin setup in the back helps with this. The longer hull and big single fin do mean the board will turn slower than a shorter paddleboard, or require you to step back to lift the nose and pivot it, which can take a little time to adjust to.
As a budget-friendly inflatable, something the Niphean hull does not have is a complex shape. The easiest inflatable boards to produce are perhaps boards with a flat hull, and this is fine overall for recreational use. Especially on the nose of fiberglass boards, and now in some inflatables, manufacturers may provide touring boards with V and displacement shapes to be more effective and efficient through the water. There are various styles of touring hull designs depending on what a board wants to accomplish. The Niphean board remains flat under the nose and throughout the bottom. A distinction that keeps the board entry-level and cost-effective as a touring board.
Where to Buy the Niphean Pro Touring Paddleboard
Overall, I found the Niphean Pro Touring easy to paddle with specific gains over an all-around shape for those seeking an inflatable paddleboard that provides more on-deck storage and can cover some miles with more efficiency. Perhaps best of all is Niphean’s ability to produce boards for paddlers at a low cost, providing more people the opportunity to find different ways to enjoy paddleboarding.
The Pro Touring is available now online from Niphean and on Amazon.
Feature Image: Owen Roth
