Surfing Waves

I've been renting a 8' longboard for about two years now and I picked it up immediately and have mastered it. I recently tried switching to a 7' funboard and in 3 hours only got up on about 6 waves or so. I felt like I kept missing the wave and would slowly slide down without catching the perfect break. If anyone knew some general changes in approach to a shorter board from a longboard I would greatly appreciate it!

I'm very sorry here psallides, you've been renting a longboard for two years and you have mastered it!
This is not disrespectful, just disbelieving, in order to give you meaningful advice can you tell us where you surf, how tall you are and what you weigh. Then realistically what can you on a wave?

In courtesy to you we get many learners who can stand up on the white water and ride it in and they think they are surfing, there is much more to it than that and if you hade truly mastered a longboard you would know how to fix your fun board problems

I surf in New England by York beach. They're about 2-3 foot waves and I'm not just slowly cruising on whitewash or 1 foot slop. I know I'm surfing and I'm able to ride the face of the wave before crashing. I'm 5'10" and 160 lbs. The breaks usually occur in a single break moving southwest

Split the difference go 7'6" or get an 8ft mini mal that isn't an ancient rental barge. At least 22" wide and thick to hndle the mush of York beach.
Are you goofy or natural?
You have a lot more to go in your learning curve

I'm going to guess that you are trying to catch the wave too late now that you have a shorter board, which is probably also thinner and narrower and much lower volume than the board you are used to.

If you check the line up, you will see the longboarders are out the furthest (from the beach) and the short boarders are much closer in. This is because shortboarders need to catch the wave later (closer to breaking) in order for the force of the wave to push their shorter board.

So even that 1ft change in length means you are now surfing something much closer to a shortboard and need to catch the wave later than you are used to.

I also find that switching from a longboard to a shorter board it takes me a bit of time to get to the 'right' takeoff spot. LBs not only start further out but the take off spot is much larger ie you can start from spot X and catch a wave, but potentially also catch the wave from X+10ft and X-10ft. The shorter you go, the smaller that take off point - if you arent in the right spot then you will miss it or 'just' get it but be too high in the wave and it goes underneath you or you are too high to get the 'power' of the wave.

Anyway, what you need to do is move closer to the beach and learn to take off later. There are consequential issues - you need to pop up quicker and your ability to back off a wave you dont like is less, for example.

The other option is just that the waves are too small for the new board - whcih is why LBs are used for small waves. But if other people have shorter boards and are catching waves, then this is not the cause.

Of course, the 'glide' feeling from a longboard is a reason why so many people like surfing longboards. Shorter boards do different things better and feel different. So while I imagine the reason you are missing the waves is that you are trying to catch them too early (like a longboarder), the different feel after catching them might just be the nature of the shorter board.