Surfing Waves

Hi all,

Well it had to happen I guess. After a summer being introduced to surfing in Newquay with some holiday one to one lessons and falling totally in love with it, I drove from Swindon to Croyde Bay for my fifth solo session today.

Up till now I had been using 8ft rental MiniMals and had lots of fun on green and white waves which lede to ask about boards aty local shop where I was sold a Bic 7ft Egg, I questioned whether it would be good for me at 95kg (heavy build but a bit of a gym rat) and was assured that the 51L would be fine.

Went into the water today and came out an hour and a half later totalled gutted. Unless I was hitting an absolute Stormer of a wave it kept sinking and the problem is I would have to be honest and say I don't know if I am ready to go out hunting for the bigger, cleaner waves as the board just doesn't have the buoyancy.

Now the crossroads, have I got the "time to be a big boy" part of my surfing journey or have I simply been sold a piece of kit that is not right for me.

If anyone could help with some advice, I would be eternally grateful.

Thanks


Martin

Welcome to the imagined world of a shortboarder of everyone should be on short boards!. Look for a regular 9ft mal, Torq is a good brand around your way, you could also tomato BIC they are fairly indestructible, but i would recommend the Torq in preference. Onsell the smaller BIC.
Ok why , one thing genuine paddle power for a learner, catch more waves learn skills faster! A little Harder to get out the back , probably won’t duck dive, but will,turtle roll. Will turn and domeverything you will be capable of for quite a long time, like the rest of your surfing life!

That board can absolutely be surfed by someone at your weight. But just not very well by someone at your skill level.

What do you mean by it was ‘sinking’? Where were you on the wave eg white water, going along the face, very small wave?

As jaffa said, best choice is to get a bigger longer board. The 7ft can be your next board (or 3rd board)- it won’t be wasted, you will surf it eventually.