snowboard review Burton Skipjack Surf Snowboard 2017

[philw]

I thought I'd play with one of these as they're different and new, plus I was looking at no-boarding, and the board comes with rubber mats on it so you can easily run it as a no [bindings] board. This is the 2016-17 model with green top sheet and hard to see in the snow underside. I think this is missing from the 2017-18 catalogue.

I couldn't find any reviews of this thing being used in back country powder, although there's lots of talk about how great they are on piste, which is odd for a powder board. I rode these only in back country powder, most of it from helicopters. Note that in late December 2016 I couldn't buy one of these in a major ski resort, which suggests production volumes are small.

 

With Bindings

As a standard powder board, it rides how it looks. That is: it's a wide board with a short square tail, taper and zero camber. The nose is big and the tail has a little concave dent in the end, which looks cosmetic to me. The reference stance is way back on the board - this is a Fish style board with very little tail, and it rides like it.

The rubber pads mean you have to tighten those binding screws up now and then.

I found it gutless - it's flat and stiff. Whilst I'm sure my hard boots would kick it's bottom on piste, it's a powder board, and in 4% armpit deep blower it's hard to excerpt enough force to get anything from that stiffness. It lacks in response to rider input. Perhaps it's built for fat people to ride on piste, or to hang on their walls, but it's not great as a powder board.

It's wide, something advanced riders may find frustrating. The width is needed to compensate for the length ... I think the compromise is in the wrong place.

The stiff short square tail feels unresponsive. It's not a slashy board. It reminds me of riding trees on a GS board: you can do it all, but it's just not the best tool for the job.

Calling boards like these "surf like" is odd. Perhaps I'm doing the surf thing wrong, but they're not in the least bit "surf like" in my view. They're like snowboards with (insert list of obvious board features here). 

In summary, for people who like short-tailed powder boards, the Fish is a better bet if you get a model year with a good base profile.

 

Without Bindings

The first issue is that you need to rig your own leash: there's no support for that or a rope built-in. The channel provides the obvious mounting point for that.

I spent a happy day dragging one of these up and down a hill to start my no-boarding career. It's hard to say much about anything based on that, but day two was better...

I spend a happier day riding heli terrain with a couple of no board experts. The board worked pretty well for this - I don't have the skills to compare boards, but when you push on the edge it turns, and that's all good. The rubber pads are simple and work well: I like these better than the conversion pads I've seen which have more three-dimensional profiles. With these, you know what you're putting your feet on and it's consistent.

Unlike "three dimensional" boards you don't have any edge support for hard snow, so you'll maybe want to avoid that completely or invest in a rope and then avoid it completely.

 

Summary

• I'd not want to ride one of these for general bindings-on powder as there are much better options.
   
• As a no board it's significantly cheaper than the three dimensional boards, and easier to come by, plus you can rent to try-before-you-buy. The stiffness which makes it a plank for general use may be intended to facilitate no-boarding. Although I've no-boarded from Fish before, I didn't have a chance to do a direct comparison, but perhaps this is where the compromise is.