Hand laminated epoxy SUP - taking on water?

I’ve got a hand laminated (non-popout) epoxy SUP shaped by R. Preisendorfer. I got it used from a friend. It’s about 3 years old, has been surfed a lot, is kind of banged up, but supposedly has all the dings repaired. There’s something strange about it. I know the board has been bashed around a bit, and I can see some “shatter dings” on it, but I can’t see where, if anywhere, that it’s taking on water. Usually with an older board, an older poly board anyway, you can see a few places where salt leeches back out of the board after a surf and dries on the surface of the fiberglass, letting you know that there is an “open ding” there. This board doesn’t do this. I see some shatters, but there are no places where it looks like water is getting in. But I can’t believe that it’s really completely water sealed. Do these types of epoxy boards soak up water and then not show that “tell tale” salt residue on the ding area?

I’m not sure if the board is heavier or not that when I first got it. I weighed it, and it weighs ~25 lbs. It is 10’4" x 28" wide x about 4" thick. Does that seem heavy?

Weird glass job. No pressure dings anywhere on it, even though it’s been very heavily surfed. Maybe some of these newer had laminated epoxy boards are just that tough.

they do if they are eps cores

an easy way to see is drill a little hole and leave it in the sun

the water will bubble out a bit

its easy to remove the water with a vacuum pump

Yes, epoxy will have the same salt residue around dings as poly. To see if you’ve got water in there, tape plastic food wrap down around the suspected dings and put it in the sun for about 15 min. Some condensation will appear on the plastic if there’s water. Check the fin boxes in the same way, but remove the fins and blow them out first. Weighing the board won’t tell you anything unless you know the weight before it ever went in the water. 25 lbs doesn’t seem too heavy for a 10’ epoxy, but we don’t know the foam density or the glassing schedule. 1 lb of water in an epoxy from a very small ding can happen in one session. If it’s in there, you’ll have to drill a hole for a vacuum hose or otherwise open up the glass to dry it.