Greasemonkey, welcome to the world of SUP.  I'm sure that you'll love it; it is easier for sure than shortboarding or even long boarding for that matter, but before you put your hand in your pocket and take out some of your hard earned cash, beg, borrow or steal someone else's board to make sure that you like the feeling.  These boards are not cheap and maybe, just maybe, you won't get along with stand up paddle boarding.

You can buy this board from me; joking of course, but it's a case in point.  It's the most expensive Naish 2009 SUP board (around $1,800 retail) and snapped in half in a small wave after being used 6 times - Naish don't want to know about it - they have not even sent their rep to see the board!!  When we looked into the board - we see no stringers (strengthening) or any kind of reinforcement. 

Do some research (we are now) before you spend biggies.  We are looking to buy several for a rental pool, but they sure as hell will not be made by Naish.

Nope, it is the most expensive, lighter construction.  Now we can see why it's lighter  Except that it's not really very funny 

Wow, that's a top of the line board, and it has almost zero reinforcements.

What did Naish say?

That's not what I expected from a company with years of windsurf experience.

Yes it is true.  The board was purchased around June but first Naish sent us the wrong board (the AST).  We waited another few weeks for the correct board and paid another set of import duty (which Naish never reimbursed us).  We received the other board in August and it broke after 3 weeks of usage