You found a great offer for a soup in a catalog or online, where it says that the weight of the soup is 140 kg. Excellent! Buy a sup, take it to the sea, inflate it, the children have a great time. Then you want to try the sup yourself. With your 94 kilograms, you try to stand up, but you can't. The board under your feet shakes, twists and throws you down. Why are you falling off a jump if the board has a load capacity of 140 kg and you have 94 kg?
Because the capacity of the sup has nothing to do with the point load
Sup, which has a load capacity of 140 kg, is normally usable for a rower up to 80 kg. For a vulture carrying capacity of 140 kg, an 80 kg rower in the middle, a 20 kg child on the nose and a 20 kg dog on the tail are optimal. This is a total of 120 kg, which is at the limit of capacity, but with such an arrangement the vulture will still swim. But when everyone goes down and someone who weighs 95 kg steps on the same sup, the point load is already too high for the sup to withstand it. Due to excessive point loading, it begins to twist, shake and bend, becoming unstable and unsafe.
The fact that the load capacity of the soup is 140 kg tells us very little. The carrying capacity is calculated by subtracting approximately 150 kg from the volume . However, this information tells us nothing about the structure of the soup. The soup with a volume of 300 l can be made of weaker or stronger, two-layer materials. These materials decide what the maximum weight of the rower can be. If you cannot find this information and you weigh more than 80-90 kg, then do not buy the soup.
How do we know how much point load a sup has?
Unfortunately, we don't know that. The point load, how much the sup will carry at the point where we are standing, depends on how the sup is made . This means from the thickness of the threads or dropstitch, quantity, density, method of weaving... This is information that is unknown and mostly hidden by manufacturers of cheaper soups. On our website, in addition to the description of the paddles, you can always find information about the maximum weight of the rower, which we specify based on practice. In the 10 years since we have been dealing with soups, in recent years also as a manufacturer of Wasup soups, we have learned certain things and know roughly which board has which load capacity.
Load capacity based on maximum allowable pressure
Sometimes the carrying capacity can also tell you about the permissible pressure in the board . In order for an adult to ride an inflatable board comfortably, the board must be inflated to 15-16 psi. Many cheaper boards have the maximum pressure allowed as low as 12 or 13psi. Avoid these by far, they are only suitable for children's toys. Boards that max out around 16 psi are considered single ply. They are suitable for family use, as long as no rower weighs more than 80-90 kg. The vast majority of boards you get in malls and online stores fall into this category, and our Wasup Lite sup boards also fall into this group.
Boards that allow a maximum pressure of 18-25 psi are called double-layered . With these, there is no need to inflate them to the maximum. On the contrary, anyone who has ever pumped a board at 25 psi will tell you that it is no fun at all. We fill a quality board to 16-18 psi. So if you weigh more than 90 kg or simply want a more durable board, this is the right choice. In this range, our offer is very large, and the price range goes from about 500 EUR ( Wasup boards) to the usual 700-900 EUR ( Shark and Starboard Zen ) to over 1000 and more euros ( Starboard Deluxe ).
The maximum weight of the rower ≠ the total load of the sup
If you find the description "maximum weight of rower 120 kg" when buying a soup. This means that a person weighing 120 kg can stand on the sup and ride it normally while standing. Load the family in the front and back without any problem and still stand up paddles, as the total load capacity of such a board is usually well over 200kg. Also, if 10 children manage to climb up there and it is loaded with 300 kg, of course it will not sink or get hurt. You can usually drive a car over such boards and not recognize them. 
For more information on load capacity and advice on which sup board is suitable for you, we are available at info@wasup.si , on the phone number 040 867 867 or in the showroom at Verovškova 60a in Ljubljana.