Bote Breeze Gatorshell Review

The BOTE Breeze Gatorshell stands out for its impressive durability and impressive stability, making it a strong pick for beginners, casual paddlers, and anyone prioritizing balance over speed. Built with BOTE's rugged Gatorshell construction and featuring a super-wide 34" deck, this board is made to take a beating while keeping you confidently up in chop or with pets onboard. Despite its size, it turns more easily than expected thanks to a large center fin, but tracking and glide suffer, especially in wind or waves. Add in its nearly 40-pound weight, and transport becomes its biggest challenge, especially for solo paddlers.

Glide

Overall, this board scored right in the middle for our testers in terms of glide. Even though this board is on the longer and heavier side, it wasn't too difficult to get it going once you started paddling. While it doesn't move as gracefully as some other SUPs out there, this board keeps its momentum fairly well for a larger-sized board. Beginner paddlers on flat water days were comfortable with the BOTE Breeze Gatorshell.

The blunt-shaped nose of this board takes on a good deal of water when there are any amount of waves, slowing the board down quite a bit. It also became much more challenging to keep moving in the wind. Between the weight of the board and the paddle, going upwind wore us out faster than usual. This wouldn't be the go-to paddleboard for us on a day with any wind or chop.

Stability

The BOTE Breeze Gatorshell offers stellar stability. From new paddlers to yogis, all of our testers found this board incredibly stable, even in choppy conditions. We even went out with a friend who recently had ankle surgery, and they had no issues trying to stay balanced on this board.

At 34" wide, this is the widest board in our lineup, which clearly helps when it comes to keeping your feet underneath you. We took this board out on several choppy, windy days, and while it was still easy to balance on this board on those conditions, we do want to mention that this board's blunt nose causes it to bounce a lot with the waves, which might not be great for folks just getting into paddle boarding. It is fairly easy to move and shift around on this board without losing your balance. We even had a couple dogs out on the board and there were no issues with stability, even if they were moving around while paddling.

Maneuverability

We were shocked by how easily this board turns considering its size. It only took a few back-and-forth strokes to get this board turned around 180 degrees. The huge fin, 10", helps with navigating this beast of a board.

We tested this board on several windy days and struggled to keep this board in a somewhat straight path. Add in its weight, and the Breeze Gatorshell might not be a great choice for paddlers who might be in waves or windy conditions frequently. It also had a ton of back-and-forth movement, even on a calm, flat water day. We were having to swap paddle strokes pretty frequently which with the weight of the paddle (discussed below) wore us down quicker than other SUPs.

Ease of Transport

This is where the Gatorshell loses us. At 11' 6", this is a big board, and while the durability is stellar, the weight it adds makes this board quite difficult to transport, especially solo. The board weighs almost 40 pounds, putting it on the higher end of boards we have tested weight-wise. Getting this board on and off a car by yourself requires some skill, and it was doubly as difficult putting it back on a vehicle after it got wet and slippery.

Transporting to and from the water takes a good amount of strength and energy. All of our testers who used this board had to stop and swap carrying arms multiple times during transport, even on shorter walks.

With how heavy this board is, having a tip and/ or tail handle would have been very helpful. We did purchase the essentials package to test, which includes a shoulder carry strap. We were quite excited to try this out. Unfortunately, the strap, even when tightened to its shortest length, is too long to have the strap on your shoulder and use the carry handle. The strap becomes slack and falls off your shoulder. Multiple testers tried the strap and had similar issues. Since the board is almost 40 pounds, it isn't super feasible to just use the strap and no carry handle.

Construction Quality

The durability of this board is top-notch. BOTE's Gatorshell technology utilizes a blend of ABS polycarbonate plastic and composite materials, such as Kevlar (yes, the same thing they make bulletproof vests out of) and fiberglass, to create an ultra-durable, impact-resistant shell. Inside, an EPS foam core provides buoyancy and strength, making the board six times tougher than traditional epoxy boards. It's also eco-conscious, using repurposed plastics and featuring a seamless, sleek finish with a comfortable deck pad. There were several times during testing that this board got dropped (usually post paddle when the board was wet and it was being transported by one person). We were quite impressed that even after being dropped off a car twice by accident, there were no major dings or any holes. Honestly, there were barely any marks at all!

While we understand the board being on the heavier end because of this technology, we are not entirely certain why the paddle also needs to be super heavy. The paddle that comes with this board is one of the heavier ones we have ever used, and testers certainly felt the fatigue after an hour or more of paddling.

The 10″ removable center fin helps keep this big board moving. The deck padding on this board is great and feels comfortable underfoot for long periods of time. As previously mentioned, we do think this board would benefit from front and/or rear handles to help with transportation since it is on the heavier side.

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One thing to note is that we did buy the Essentials Package to see if it was worth the extra $200. This adds a leash, MagneTumbler (magnetic wine glass), PFD belt, and a carry strap. Overall, these items were cool to have, but with the strap system not being great for this size board, our testers didn't feel that the extra cost was worth it.

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Should You Buy the BOTE Breeze Gatorshell?

This board is great for beginners wanting something super stable and practically bulletproof. Although folks may want to consider the 10' 6" option just to make transportation easier (this 10' 6" weighs 31 pounds versus 37 pounds). Yogis wanting lots of space to practice on their SUP would love the space the 11' 6" offers or folks who might be bringing little ones or dogs along and want plenty of room.

If you will mostly be transporting this board alone, this might not be the best option for you, just due to its weight and length.

What Other Stand Up Paddle Boards Should You Consider?

Wanting a board that offers stellar stability but is easier to transport? Check out the Isle Cruiser 2 or the SIC Maui TAO Fit AT. Or consider an inflatable board. If you want a larger board that is a bit quicker on the water, check out the Surftech Lido Utility Armor.