Surfing Waves

Hi guys.
I weight 165 pounds and i´m 5´10´´.
I have been surfing for over a year now. I have previous bodyboarding experience.

I have a thinned down 7´0 funboard hybrid.

I ride it quite well down the line and on the waves face on small- medium sized waves and on bigger waves that dont have that much strenght.

Yet where i surf the most is a chest to slightly overhead beachbreak. Waves break fast, and hollow. You have to take lots of late drops. And you have to be quick on your feet to hunt down the constantly moving peaks.
It is also an overcrowded beach.

I want a shorter board to be able to deal with these waves better. A board with more volume on the deck and not so thick rails specially at the tail so hat i can dig them in on walls, or steep wave faces.

I think that if i were good enough a 6´4´´X 19 X 2 3/8 CI MX board would be excelent for me.
Yet i dont have that much confidence on my habilities and eventough i think that maybe a Flyer or Sd2 would be better at my skill level. having to go as low as 6´0´´ so that the board works as intended for someone iwth my weight gets me afraid that maybe that small wouldnt work for my someone with my poor skill for me besides it aint the kind of board for the kind of wavesi need it for.

BTW I had a 6´6´´ epoxy byrne mullet that i couldnt surf cause it was huge and ultra floaty for my weight.

Before you start the flamming I aint planning on buying CI¨S SURFBOARDS BUT RATHER HAVE IT MADE BY A LOCAL SHAPER.

The shaper i contacted told me that he much rather have me tell him exactly what i want him to make.

He said that something around 6´4´´- 6´5´´X 18 1/4- 19 X 2 3/8 2- 3/4
domed deck with thin rails, a wideish 11.5 nose, medium rocker and tail kick, squatch tail and double concave with vee at the back woulkd work out for me and the waves i described.

He left me to decide just how wide and thick the board should be and Im afraid to mess it up.

He said 19 would be nice for a noob. But 18 1/4 would work better in the straighter profiled wider nosed board i wanted. Besides the narrower the better it would fit the waves face.

I had the idea of going 2 3/8 or 2 1/2 at the most with fuller rails at the front and thinner rails at the back. Specially since the board is going to have a lot of volume in the center of the deck and a wider wide area further up to the nose and towards the tail.

He said he wanted a thin railed dome deck.

I am afraid of catchy rails. I am kind of clumsy and tend to drive with my front foot therefore i want a stable floaty board when surfing on the front foot and a back end that would allow the board to be turned

A wider fuller nose with low entry rocker, with a straighter profile at the middle that bumps into the squatch tail eith a moderate kick tail. To keep it front foot friendly, not too squetchy and that it can be moved around from the tail.

Do you think a board like this would work for me and for the break i described?
I dont want to build a frankestein of a board, i am as uncofident on my surfboard shape knoledge as on my surfing skills. Therefore im asking for your advice to know if im on the right track or not.


Maybe a board like the 6´4´´ CI MX i described would be ok for me. But as i said i am not that confident on my skill level yet. And around here everyone is riding potato chip boards so i cant go trying around boards.
Thanks.

Hey PS, been reading and enjoying your posts here so thought I'd share. I've been riding a 6'4 x 18 3/4 x 2 3/8 Simon Anderson XFC TSR with about the same experience level as you but wanted to try shorter, it's a great board for carving down the line but felt long sometimes. After looking at lots of rack boards, including the ones you mentioned, I came across some Quiksilver team boards shaped by Christian Bradley for this years' ASP World Tour and used by Jeremie Flores and Miky Picon (who took 2nd and 3rd in Mundaka last month). The difference in quality, shape, light weight, response and feel of these boards compared to off the rack ones like CI was pretty remarkable. And at used-board prices.

Bottom line -- even though they are supposed to be far above my level, too small, too technical, gotta have 10 years of surfing to ride that, yada yada -- they are awesome boards shaped with care and it didn't really take long to feel MORE comfy paddling, d-diving, catching waves and riding than with the bigger boards, and the response is just all there. I'm having a good time on 'em, getting stoked and that's all that matters.

So I dunno, don't be afraid to try some used boards for a bit, maybe even ones everyone says isn't right for you but you're excited about and if it works, great, if not, sell it. You know what gets you stoked, why not try it, you might be pleasantly surprised. No matter what, you'll learn something.




Bradley 5'11 x 17 7/8 x 2 1/8 for Jeremie Flores


Simon 6'4 x 18 3/4 x 2 3/8 custom, Bradley 6'0 x 18 1/4 x 2 5/16 for Miky Picon

P.S. - for a 6'4 I think 18 1/4 would be pretty narrow, look at my Simon, it's a 18 3/4 and personally I wouldn't go narrower w/ that length and for chest to overhead like you have (your conditions sound similar to mine at Grande Plage or Miramar in Biarritz). I'm 5'10 and 150 lbs. I'd go 2 3/8 thick but remember, the thickness can be the same on two boards and feel totally different, depending on the shape of the deck and concaves.

You wrote: "I think that if i were good enough a 6´4´´X 19 X 2 3/8 CI MX board would be excelent for me." -> I agree, 6'4 x 19 x 2 3/8 are potentially pretty nicely proportioned dimensions. 6'3 maybe even better. For example, I like the proportions (and ride & feel) of the 6'0 Bradley above a lot, and if you extrapolate the proportions to your proposed width and thickness, it works out to 6'3 x 19 x 2 3/8... sweet.

As a big 200lbs shortboarder, I ride a 6'5 x 19 1/2 x 2 1/2 custom epoxy. I asked for hard rails to hold on to the wave face better and slightly less rocker to make it easier to paddle. I also owned a 6'3" x 19 1/4 x 2 3/8 custom epoxy I liked it and could surf it, just at my age I did not want to work that hard so opted for bigger and easier.

Since you are not a begginer, ask yourself if this will be your last board. If it is, then go smaller, because you will eventually wish it was. If not, then go slightly bigger, your kookness will thank you, you'll catch more waves and enjoy it more, then in a few years trade down.

So, I would suggest 6'4" x 19 1/4 x 2 1/2 as your begginer board. Your shaper is right, half dome to retain volume, great for a begginer. Ask for hard rails to soft, it will take care of your concerns of a catchy rail. All my boards are double to slight v, your shaper is spot on with that. I prefer a thumb tail to a squash, the squash is great performance, but the thumb tail is smoother turns, to me it keeps more speed throuhg turns. Medium rocker is a good idea, too much rocker and you will not be able to paddle it at you skill level. Mine I ask for less tail rocker for even more paddle.

Here's a pick of my honey:



and of the one I just sold

Thanks guys!

Wow just as an update.
I went to the local surf shop to take a glance at the used boards and also to talk to them about my plans and i came out with a brand new 6'3'' flyer 2 for just $450 US.

Pornstar wrote:Wow just as an update.
I went to the local surf shop to take a glance at the used boards and also to talk to them about my plans and i came out with a brand new 6'3'' flyer 2 for just $450 US.

Yeah bro! What width/thickness? Where was it made?

Its a 6'3'' 18 5/8 5/16

Im very happy with the purchase specially since a custom board made at a shaper would cost 400 or 500 dollars.
This board had been sitting around for a while besides the owner needed money to order stuff for Xmas.
So getting the CI for just $450 was a great deal.

I had a great weekend surfing with my big board so im pretty stocked about it all. Unfortunately waves suck at the moment so i'll be using my old board at the moment until conditions improve enough to try out the new board.

I had this light worry that it might be a little too big for me therefore my stance wouldnt be on the sweet spot. Or the measuerements too narrow and thin for my level.
But i frankly decided to not care much and to try to have as much fun on the board as possible.
With the price i got from the store i could easily sell it without loosing that much $$. in the worst case scenario.

I went surfing for the first time today witth the new board.
And i am frankly disapointed......
..... for not having done this sooner.

The board rocked. At first i felt it kind of dificult to paddle and balance myself while doing so. Specially since the local beachbreak was throwing bombs at us.

But after 10 minutes i got used to it. It sure didnt paddle as fast as my hybrid but it wasnt that lazy either. It was less tiring to paddle and to ather speed. duckdiving is super easy and super funwith this board i didnt know it was that easy on a shortboard.

And as soon as i catched my first wave i knew i had made the right choice. eventhough it was super stable the board moved as i wanted it to. It responded to every hip movemnte and i had a lot of control over itm i was able to take much more fun lines than the ones i took with my hybrid.

It was harder to catch waves yet i caught a breaking shoulder just like the ones that would flip me over on my previous board.
In general i had more fun in the few waves i caught today than on the rides i had had on the other board. This is the kind of surfing i had in mind doing.

Jon B thanks for the advice im glad that i went for it and tried a "shorter than recomended sized board"

Great to hear that. Post a pic!

Coolness, enjoy the stoke

Yeah, post some pics. I'm willing to buy a new board too, a more agressive one this time around, just like you did.

Sorry about that i forgot to take a pic beore the wax job. But I´ll make up for it by posting a few soon enough.
Cheers.