speed goals for the plastic V5

I'm curious what types of speed goals I should be setting for the V5 over various distances (like 5,10,15,20 miles)

 I've seen tcsurfski.com/2018/11/30/epic-v5-v8-v10-speed-comparison/ and a few others, which are helpful.

What speeds would be considered "proficient" and what would be considered "expert" in the V5? As a beginner of 45 days, I'm averaging about 5.3mph over a 5 mile course, and about 5mph over 10 miles (lots of room for improvement, I'm sure). I'm using the small mid wing paddle.

Hmm...
There are a couple of factors here. 

Drag increases exponentially with speed so, starting from the same speed, an increase in effort will give a greater difference in speed on a faster boat (i.e. that has less drag) than on a slower boat.

But you could extrapolate back from the faster boat to the slower boat to get an approximation...

So let's see.  In his article, Nick says that he put the same effort into paddling each boat (as measured by HR).  He paddled the fastest boat, the V10 2g, at 6.8mph - or 11kph in my language.

On flat water I'd expect a paddler like Nick ("expert") to average 12-12.5kph 7.5mph on a fast ski on flat water.  

So call it 1.5kph/1mph faster than what he did on his time trial described in his article.

Because the drag with the slower boat will increase more rapidly, you won't get the same increase in speed.  Call it .7 mph faster on the slow boat...

So I'd guess that Nick, putting effort in, could probably maintain 6.4mph on the V5.  There's your "expert" speed.
Your "proficient" would be, hmm...  around 5.5mph...

But wind, depth of water, waves, distance will all affect that.  I'd say you're not doing too badly at all!  

It'll soon be time to trade your V5 in and get the V8 Pro!

Thanks for the breakdown - 5.5mph sounds like a reasonable goal for 5-10 mile paddles. I'll use your extrapolation method when looking at experts' flat water times to see how I compare.

I still need to put a lot of time in on the ocean and downwind before upgrading, but the V8 would be a great boat to be in next summer.

IMHO seeking speed in the V5 is futile I think you're much better off seeking form. I can't recommend Oscar's drills enough, and I think it's very worth subscribing to his "Oscar's club" for a couple of months so you can easily access all the drill videos and ask questions. You can easily unsubscribe once you know all the drills if the training plans don't interest you (that's what I did).

So instead of looking at your speedometer you keep track of your strokes: after an hour of paddling, are you still able to drive with your top hand? Is your top arm still immobile through the stroke and being driven by your shoulder? Is your bottom arm still extended with a loose finger hook instead of hard grip? Are your legs still driving? How about in some chop: can you maintain that form? And when you accelerate onto a wave and need to do a few full-power strokes: still holding form???

If you manage all that I believe you'll be flying when you upgrade to a faster boat and you won't care what speed you ever got in your V5!

(Nothing against a V5 BTW)

That's a good point. I'm mostly interested in finding what speed I should be at given proper form and cadence, rather than seeking speed for speed's sake.

I've taken extensive notes from Oscar's youtube videos and learned a lot. I also purchased the Mocke 'Masters of Surfski' online course, which was good. I've been looking at Oscar's club, I may sign up for that as well.

My form is okay in chop, and okay in ~2ft seas with light wind, but I still need to do a lot of work on anything more than that (and still haven't really got the hang of surfing yet, but I'm getting out in the ocean more)

 Agree that you should use the boats stability to develop efficiency rather than top speed as you will get frustrated as you hit an increasing wall of resistance. When maxing out a boat small changes in technique only have small increases and so are not obvious. If for example you stay well below a boat top speed (that you are capable of) the small increases in technique have a much more obvious impact.

It will also help you develop skills in bumpy conditions.

On my old plastic hobie adventure rigged purely for paddling I maxed out at 8.4kmh(5.2mph) over 1 hour sessions. So 5.5-6 in a plastic ski sounds like a reasonable target.

Of course these figures exclude any wind or tide assistance

waverider wrote: When maxing out a boat small changes in technique only have small increases and so are not obvious. If for example you stay well below a boat top speed (that you are capable of) the small increases in technique have a much more obvious impact.

Thanks - this is what I wasn't understanding before, but now it's making more sense to me. I'm going to start monitoring heart rate and try to improve efficiency at my ideal HR. I see a lot of people talking about that here, but I wasn't sure how important it was for a beginner boat, but now I'm realizing it's actually very important.