Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX Review

In this Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX Review, we go through one of Sea Gods’ newest and most unusual boards. 

Why do we say unusual? Unlike many stand-up paddle boards that design their packages to fit proper Sup stroke etiquette (bending your knees, tilting your back, and using your full body for each stroke). Sea Gods have decided to make boards for paddlers who just want to stand up still and paddle. 

The paddle is designed so that when you put in a stroke, the paddle is meant to go past your legs compared to being drawn out of the water at that point. 

It’s an interesting stance Sea Gods has taken but I completely understand why they’ve gone this route with this board. The truth is a lot of people just want to stand tall on their board and cruise along the water. And I think that’s A-Okay! Anything to get anybody out on the water is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. 

Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX Paddle Board Review

Below is how I rate the Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX SUP. Click the links to jump to each section

Total Score: 8.8/10 (Accumulated of the Scores Below)

• On-Water Performance – 8.4
  • Stability 8
  • Tracking 8
  • Speed 8
  • Maneuverability 9.5
• SUP Construction – 9.5
• Board Features  – 8.5
  • Deck Pad 9
  • D Rings 9
  • Deck Bungees 9
  • Action Mounts 8
  • Handles 8.5
• Accessories – 8.5
  • Backpack 9
  • Paddle 9
  • Pump 8
  • Fins 8
• Set-Up/ Take Down – 9

Who Should Be Using the Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX? 

The Sol Flyer CX is marketed towards paddlers who have a more casual stroke style or beginners starting out. Unfortunately, that does give this board some limitations due to the paddling style involved if you keep everything as is in the package. 

The Sol Flyer is ideal for:

• Beginner Paddlers
• Folks who want a good board to have fun on in the water
• Folks who want a well-constructed board
• Paddlers who want a lot of looks while paddling by

Truthfully the board has very good on-water performance metrics with speed and stability being its least favorable metrics. More on this in the on-water section. 

What SUP Activities Can the Sol Flyer CX Be Used For? 

The Sol Flyer CX is the casual paddler’s go-to pick in the Sea Gods lineup. While I would not recommend more traditional SUP activities for this board such as SUP fishing, SUP Yoga, or SUP Touring. I do think this is a solid board for paddlers who just want to go into the water and paddle. 

Recreational Paddling

My conversation with Sea Gods owner Mandy, about this board was about tempering expectations. “This is a board for people who want to stand upright and paddle with their arms”. And she was right. The way the paddle was set up and how the board was aimed at those paddlers. Some of those paddlers don’t want to be those paddle boarding pros who bend their knees and use their full body to paddle. 

The people this board is meant for are folks who want to chill on the water and paddle with a full paddle stroke in the water. I think Mandy has a point. Why fight this? You can give people pointers on proper paddling techniques till you can’t speak anymore but in both of our experiences, people often just smile and nod and continue paddling the way they have been doing it. 

Social Media Content Paddlers

In my mind, this is the perfect board for bloggers or Instagram/TikTok influencers. The board is not necessarily marketed as such but I feel like it’s a truly unique and beautiful board for those outdoor bloggers to get their hands on and do social media content. The board features 2 action mounts at the front of the board which allows you to attach a go pro to film your paddling adventure. 

On-Water Performance

The Sol Flyer delivered some truly shocking results with some of their scores being near the top for all-around SUPs. 

Stability

When I first stood on the board, it felt stable to me. However, can I say the same for a brand-new paddler who has never stood on a board before? Probably not. 

Don’t get me wrong, once you get the hang of this board and the standing learning curve is behind you it’s plenty stable. However, we felt that this board should have been an inch or two wider to accommodate more shapes of new paddlers.

I can understand Sea Gods wanting to blend stability with some on-water speed but with the way the board is designed and how it’s meant to be paddled speed is a nonfactor. 

Tracking

The board’s tracking ability was fairly impressive for its use. Usually, boards that are longer and have a more narrow shape tend to track better in the water. This board has a unique shape in that the widest part of the board is actually towards the mid-front deck which is opposite of what most SUP boards do. It scored a fairly impressive 6 strokes a side in our tests (that we had to do more than once to get an accurate reading on). 

We think a part of this is down to the skinnier tail of the board. Less paddling from side to side is good news for you when you just want to cruise and get into a rhythm paddling into the sunset!

Speed

It was hard to get a reading on the board’s speed because of the angle of the paddle and the way it was designed. I did try to do some harder strokes with proper SUP technique which proved to be a bit tricky at first until I finally adjusted into position. I felt the board didn’t do too badly from a speed perspective. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a direct reading on speed because the movement of the tide would have definitely affected the speed rating. 

Maneuverability 

If there was one area in this board that shined it was this aspect! The board offered surprisingly great maneuverability for a board of its length. It posted even better maneuverability scores than its cousin the Skylla CX which is a similar length.

The Sol Flyer managed to do an impressive 3 reverse sweep strokes a side. That runs up there with some of the best scores done by boards that are 3” shorter in length and wider in width. Most impressive indeed! This board also did 9 reverse side paddles a side which also runs among some of the best we’ve seen with and all-around SUP. Once again boards that had that score or rivaled it had 10’6’ dimensions. 

So the moral here is if you want a board that turns well and responds fast to your paddle strokes, don’t sleep in this pick! 

Sea Gods Sol Flyer Stats Deconstructed

• Type of Board: Recreational
• Length: 11′
• Width: 33″
• Thickness: 6″
• Volume: 319 L
• Weight: 19.5 lbs
• Maximum Capacity: 350 Lbs
• Materials: Cross Weave Drop Stitch (crisscrossed layers of drop stitch that is fused from upper and lower layers)

While the Sol Flyer CX is meant to be a recreational board it certainly isn’t constructed like any old recreational inflatable SUP! The Sol Flyer uses cross-weave drop stitching with fusion layering for their PVC. This is a more advanced SUP construction in the industry and it’s part of the reason the board is so lightweight. 

The Sol Flyer CX is made up of heat-pressed upper and lower layers of PVC with heat-seamed rails that are held together with a woven drop-stitch core. What’s different about this construction compared to other drop stitching is that the threads are criss-cross and woven to the PVC. This allows Sea Gods to use fewer materials due to the reinforced nature of the crisscross threading which holds better than single-layer threads. 

Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX Board Profile

The Sol Flyer is a bit of an anomaly in that the longer part of its width is located towards the front of the board where the bungee area is instead of the middle. But yet from its midsection to tail the board thins out which may explain why the board is so maneuverable to begin with.

One thing I also noticed is that the Sol Flyer has a considerably less prominent rocker compared to some of its other all-around boards. This will make the board more planted in the water but will cause more drag towards the nose. Also, more water will come onboard when you encounter waves. 

Sol Flyer CX Features (Whats On Deck) 

Sea Gods is one of the better boards when it comes to actually thinking out the design of the deck to make it cargo and add-on accessories-friendly. And the Sol Flyer is no exception to that. From free D rings, a cool deckpad, and deck bungees it’s a board that offers quite a bit of onboard features. 

Deckpad

The deckpad on this board is probably the most unique I’ve seen from any other inflatable SUP. It has a carved leaf-like design on the deckpad. In my experience it was more than grippy enough for the 1-2 hour paddle we did when I tested this board. 

If you look closely at it you can see the attention to detail that is put in this deckpad carving. It’s simply stunning. 

D Rings

The Sol Flyer CX offers 19 D rings with most of them being used by the deck bungees or as a leash D ring. However, 4 free D rings in the middle of the board can be used for a variety of different reasons. 

The main two are:

• For Shoulder Straps to help carry the board
• For a Kayak seat

You can also place a hard cooler on the back row that gives you a place to store your drinks and gives you a nice little seat at the same time.

Deck Bungees

Sea Gods has always arranged their deck webbing in a rather clever way and this is no different with the Sol Flyer paddle board. I like the bungee spacing for this board as it is efficient for smaller items like water bottles, dry bags, small soft coolers, etc. 

The spacing also makes sense as this is a recreational board and chances are if you are getting this SUP you are not necessarily interested in long multi-day tours. 

The Sol Flyer CX has bungee deck rigging on the front and rear of the board. 

Action Mounts 

The Sol Flyer has 2 action mounts at the bottom of the front bungees. These action mounts can house an action camera mount and a night light for those evening paddles. 

Sol Flyer CX Handles

The Sol Flyer has 5 handles:

• One on the nose to guide the board in the water
• One in the middle for carrying the SUP
• One on the tail of the board
• Two on the front bungees that act as child handles for onboard passengers

The handles have neoprene on the top and nylon material on the bottom. I do wish Sea Gods flipped this around to put the neoprene material on the bottom (where the majority of your hand is) as opposed to the nylon which is a rougher more course material. 

Sea Gods Sol Flyer Accessories

The Sol Flyer comes with an impressive array of accessories in the package. In general, I have found Sea Gods to offer an impressive package for their boards. Especially when many SUP companies are starting to strip back their packages.

Everything is well thought out from the bag, paddle, and even the manual pump. Plus they even include a few other things to make it a complete package where you don’t need anything else to get started. 

Sea Gods Bag

Like with the Carta Marina CX and the Skylla CX packages, the bag is one of my favorite parts of the Sea Gods Lineup. The bag offers a good amount of back padding on the straps and the back which makes it comfortable to carry for those longer treks to the shoreline. 

If you don’t like carrying the bag then good news! It also has roller wheels on the bottom. This will be especially handy for our smaller padders who won’t want to haul a bag on their backs that is as big as they are!

On Top of those convenient creature comforts the bag also is constructed of a tough heavy-duty canvas material which can’t be said for many other inflatable SUP bags out there! The zippers are also very big and heavy duty which makes me believe this bag will be able to survive for years and years and years.

One of the most important things I look for in a bag is the pockets. Is the middle pocket big enough to fit the SUP in a less-than-ideal fold? Are there other pockets on the bag that can support other smaller accessories? My answer to those is yes and yes!

The bag is able to fit the board even if the fold is less than ideal (we get it you’ve been on the water for a long time and you just want to get home!). The main opening can also fit the pump, paddle, and microfiber drying cloth fairly easily. 

One of the things that makes this board stand out among the rest is the amount of heavy-duty handles that Sea Gods has attached to this board. There are 5 handles which make grabbing the bag from the trunk a relatively easy task. No more cursing while trying to get a handle on things!

Carbon Hybrid Paddle

As mentioned in the on-water section. This paddle is a little bit different from some of the others you may have expected. The blade of the paddle appears to be more angled than some of Sea Gods’ other SUP paddles. As a result, you are forced a bit more to do a long casual stroke rather than your traditional SUP stroke which you may or may not have YouTubed a few hundred times. 

The paddle is a 3-piece carbon hybrid paddle that weighs around 1.7 lbs which is one of the lighter paddle packages out there. The paddle feels nice in your hands minus the obvious exaggerated angling if you are not used to paddling that way. 

Triple Action Pump

I have used this exact kind of pump with other boards. Notably Nixy and Thursosurf. And it’s probably my favorite of the manual pumps. It’s more compact than other dual-chamber triple-action pumps thanks to the way the handles come off and the feet fold up, giving you a bit more space for storage. 

In terms of the actual pumping, it’s miles ahead of those single-chambered pumps. This is because this pump can output 2 X more air than the single chamber pumps. 

In the beginning, you will want to be using all of the cylinders on the up and down motion to get as much air out of the pump as possible. As soon as the pumping gets harder you can switch to the 2nd stage which pumps out of both cylinders on the down pump. When you get to around 7 PSI you can switch to the single stage which allows you to pump on the down pump from a single cylinder. Making the pumping a lot easier for you on the last stretch. 

You can also use this pump to deflate the board using the other valve available on the handle. This is very handy as it gets all the air out and makes the folding process 10 X easier!

Sea Gods Fin

The fin that is included with the Sol Flyer CX is a soft plastic touring fin that is bendable. This is very helpful when paddling and you get those times when you hear the “crrrr” sound of your fin. Only this one will bend easier which will allow you to clear the obstacle quite quickly. 

One of the innovations that I really like about his board is the spit fin box that is US fin box spec. This fin box helps the board fold more easily, especially when you get to the end and your fold does not line up with the fin box doh! 

The US Finbox is nice as well because you can attach any kind of fin that has the same “US Fin box” specification to customize the board to your environment. If you are in shallower waters, you can get a river fin, if you want more maneuverability, you can get a dolphin fin. 

Finally, the Sol Flyer CX uses the Komano click-in fin system which is a tooless system. All you need to do is add a little rubber nub to the fin, put some force on it and it clicks into the box!

Sol Flyer Set-Up

The Sol Flyer CX is a relatively easy package to set up. When setting up the board I used the microfiber towel/ set-up blanket that came with the package placed it on the ground and put the board on top. I inflated the board using the electric pump I brought and just put items like water bottles and dry bags next to the board to make sure I didn’t forget them. After inflation, I clicked in the fin and away I went! 

After getting back I used a manual hand pump that came with the board to deflate the air out of the board. This made folding the Sol Flyer CX a lot easier. When I folded the board I made sure that all the add-on accessories were on the flat part of the fold and not on the rolls. This eases the pressure off of those onboard accessories and will help your board last longer. You just need to do a few practice folds to get it right. 

If you really wanted to go the extreme you could always put small permanent marker marks on the board to mark the fold marks. 

Once everything is folded up properly I put it all in the bag and then the rest of the accessories such as the paddle, pump, towel, and leash. It all fit in snug as a bug and I was able to fit it all in the trunk of my Hyundai Elantra quite easily. 

About Sea Gods

Sea Gods is a company based out of my hometown just south of Vancouver, Canada owned by Ryan and Mandy. I talk to them fairly regularly and know them to sell fairly while giving customers good actionable advice. 

What makes a very unique brand is the fact that they work with both local and international artists from around the world to make their boards some of the best looking in the world. Sea Gods also use high-quality construction techniques to make sure their boards can last for a long time. 

Warranty and Returns Info

On their website, Sea Gods say they offer a “Lifetime Warranty”. After taking some time looking at their website we found that the lifetime warranty is about 5 years, the lifetime of the product and not your actual lifetime.

Sea Gods offers a 30-day money-back guarantee that has a 10% restocking fee attached to it. 

Overall these terms are some of the better ones in the ISUP industry with the average being around 2 years and some manufacturers even having a 20% restocking fee. 

Where to Buy

You can purchase the Sol Flyer on the Sea Gods website which now has distribution in Canada, the US, and Australia. 

Is the Sea Gods Sol Flyer SUP worth it? 

This board is worth it IF you have casual paddle boarding on your mind. It’s great for a few hours on the water or learning to paddle board. The board also has fantastic maneuverability on the water. 

Unfortunately with the package it has, it’s not the board you can grow with or even go on longer-distance paddles with. It’s also not the most stable board in the Sea Gods lineup. 
What do you think of the Sea Gods Sol Flyer CX? Let us know on our Facebook page!