About me. Intermediate longboarder in need of a new board

[finntstratford]

Hi All.

I am a 16 year old guy and have been surfing for just over 2 years. My Dad is an advanced short board surfer, so he knows all the good surf spots and has heaps of good boards for me to borrow. I live on the Great Ocean Road, but unfortunately on the other end from Torquay known for the famous bells beach, rip curl and quicksilver. I live sort of half way between port Campbell and Warrnambool. Warrnambool was when I learnt to surf through an elective at my school called outdoor ed. I remember when I first got in the water I thought that I would hate it, but my first surf had me obsessed with the sport after only 10 minutes, as I managed to catch my first wave and stand up (for about 1 second). Since then, my Dad has always taken me out, and I have participated in 3 surf programs at school last year (2019) about a year after I started surfing... Surf Ed (elective), Outdoor Ed (elective) Open water academy (elective). At one point I surfed a total of 11 hours in one week solely through the school programs, and I have loved every bit of it and can never get enough. Last year, about year after I had started surfing, I began to surf at Port Campbell behind the jetty which was exciting for me, as it was my first consistent reef break. As well as port Campbell surfed at lorne, cape Bridgewater, Narrawong, Blacknose and, all the beach breaks in Warrnambool (mcgennans through to jap’s) and Croft’s bay in Peterborough, a mix of beach and reef breaks. I remember on a surf Ed camp to Bondi beach, I used my dad’s 5’9 board to get some waves, and I spent an eternity paddling out, couldn’t catch many waves and when I did catch them, I fell off. It was a 3.5 meter swell, and eventually I gave up, headed in and borrowed one of the schools long boards (about 8 ft). I got out the back twice as fast, caught almost every wave and felt so comfortable on the board compared to the other one. I know that that’s normal for a long board, but I could just tell that I was meant to be a longboarder after that day. The longest I have is a 7’8 and it’s too small for me. I am able to cross step on the board, but it isn’t long enough to noseride, which I have done before, but not easily and not very well. I am willing to make the next step up and get a longboard that’s at least 9’0 and at most 9’6. I am saving, but don’t know what to get, because all the recommendations for longboards to get that are listed online are for beginners, which I am not. I want something that will allow me to hang ten fairly easily that I will be happy with by the time that I become more advanced as a surfer. I have been surfing about once to twice a week if not more recently, and I don’t imagine that I’ll be surfing less frequently in the future, which only means that during the time that I have the board, I will always be improving and I don’t want to have to buy another board for a while after I get this one. I am willing to pay a fair amount of money for a quality board, as I really want something that I can keep for a long time and be able to use it as an advanced longboarder. I’m willing to pay up to $2000 as this is something really important to me, but under $1500 is preferable. What do all you guys think?

[oldmansurfer]

Well welcome to the forum. My opinion is to develop a relationship with a local shaper and tell him all that and see what he can come up with. However there are many here who can give you an opinion about a board (not me) . There is a subforum for board questions here https://surfing-waves.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=39. You might go to that subforum and post again the same question