Tahe Beach Performer Review

The Tahe Beach Performer is a rugged, all-around stand up paddle board that pairs solid performance with a reasonable price tag. This SUP is great for families and novices, offering excellent stability and maneuverability. It’s a durable board that holds up well to wear and tear and glides well enough that it won’t disappoint expert paddlers.

Performance Comparison

Glide Performance

First and foremost, we rated and ranked the glide performance of each of the stand up paddle boards that we tested. We looked at the amount of effort it took to accelerate each board and how much each board would glide per paddle stroke. For a fully comprehensive test, we also compared performance in still and rough waters.

The Tahe Beach Performer is a bit shorter and wider than some of the competition, putting it at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to this metric. However, we were pleasantly surprised by how well it glides with this shape, earning it an overall above-average score.

Starting with our flat water tests, we thoroughly appreciated how quickly the Beach Performer accelerated from a standstill, holding its own against boards with much more glide-oriented designs. It gets a decent amount of glide per paddle stroke, especially when its shorter length is taken into account.

However, the glide performance of this board does suffer a bit when it comes to choppier water. The shorter overall length of this board and its wider, broader nose make it a much more all-around SUP than the longer and pointier boards designed for touring or racing. Those boards will cut through waves and maintain glide performance a bit better than the Beach Performer will. It experiences much more bouncing in chop, significantly impacting the glide performance.

It still did all right in the choppier waters, outperforming the inflatables and the super wide rigid SUPs, but it is far from our first choice if we had a long paddle ahead of us in rougher waters.

Stability

After glide performance, our next most important metric focuses on how stable each stand up paddle board is, as even the fastest or surfiest SUP in the world isn’t worth much if you keep getting knocked off of it.

The Tahe is a fairly hefty, wider board, earning it a solid, above-average score in the stability tests. This board is a great option for beginners, offering a super solid platform to get started paddling, particularly when you are on flat water.

This SUP also does decently well in wavy or choppy conditions, though there is a noticeable reduction in stability. The blunt nose and wider board tends to slap the water when passing through the waves, creating some less than ideal oscillations compared to pointier boards that can slice through waves.

The Tahe also has a stated maximum weight limit of 200 pounds, which is a bit less than some of the longer and larger boards. We did notice a significant reduction in stability as paddlers were closer to this limit, so it might not be the best option for larger paddlers.

Maneuverability

Our next series of tests focused on how maneuverable and agile the Tahe is compared to the rest of the stand up paddle boards that we have tested to date. This board again did very well, earning a score that put it just above average compared to the rest of the pack.

The Tahe is a bit of an all-around board, helping it considerably in this metric. It isn’t the surfiest SUP that we have ever seen but did all right riding in some small waves. It is a bit on the shorter side compared to other SUPs in the group, affording it a much tighter turning radius.

It did well at performing slaloming maneuvers in both flat and rough water and lets you make a U-turn without too much difficulty. However, it still is more of a flat water board, making it a little more cumbersome and clunky to turn than surfier boards that respond better to shifting body weight and leaning through turns.

Ease of Transport

For our next series of assessments, we moved out of the water and rated and ranked how much effort it took to transport each SUP to and from the water. There is no getting around the fact that a rigid SUP will generally be much more difficult to transport than an inflatable model, particularly if your vehicle is not a truck or an SUV. However, we were pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to haul around the Beach Performer, relative to the rest of the rigid boards in the group.

This stand up paddle board is shorter than the extra long touring boards, making it much easier to maneuver in general. We found that we could transport it angled out the bed of a mid-size pickup truck – with a restraining strap of course – without issue, something we didn’t feel could safely do with the 12-foot or longer boards. It has a nice molded hand grip in the middle of the board and isn’t too uncomfortable to carry for short distances.

However, this molded plastic board is definitely on the heavier side compared to some of the others, so the story changes a bit over long distances.

It’s not overly terrible but we wouldn’t be thrilled if we had to lug this board across the land for more than 10 minutes or so.

Durability

Our final metric focuses on how durable each of these stand-up paddle boards is. We scored performance by the construction materials of each SUP and on how much wear and tear was sustained over the course of our rough and tumble testing process. The Beach Performer continued to do well in this regard, finishing out our testing process with another better-than-average score.

This board has a plastic construction with a foam deck pad that overall held up very well to our abuse. The plastic was dragged over all surfaces, such as pavement, sand, or gravel, and only showed minor cosmetic scrapes and scuffs.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the foam deck pad. Like most boards, it is very soft and not the most durable, tearing or scratching easily from sharper objects. We found this out the hard way sliding it onto a set of roof racks with a slightly jagged chip.

The damage could definitely still be considered cosmetic, and we found this board to be much more durable overall than its gel-coated, fiberglass counterparts.

Value

When it comes to value, we think the Tahe Beach Performer delivers an exceptional performance. It finished with a good overall score compared to its price, holding its own with other models that cost significantly more. We definitely would recommend the this model as a strong contender to anyone looking for the most bang for the buck when shopping for a new SUP.

Conclusion

We highly endorse the Tahe Beach Performer as a great option for anyone looking for an all-around stand up paddle board that wants an excellent product and doesn’t want to spend a ton. This board isn’t the best at gliding but does well enough that you can still go on longer tours. It has plenty of stability for even novices and is fairly surfy and maneuverable. It’s not too much of a pain to haul around out of the water and can withstand a decent amount of abuse with only cosmetic damage to show for it. It’s a great value option for families or beginners that we would be quick to recommend.