Surfing Waves

I've been riding for about a year, i get out there pretty often (2-4 a week when there's waves). I ride a 7'4 (swallow tail quad fin right now. I'm definitely not very good but i can at least ride the face pretty easily by now. I wanna learn to ride a shortboard eventually and was thinking about getting a "step down" board for the summer. Dude at the surf shop suggested a 6'6 or 6'8 with a bit more volume or something like that. Also I have my eye on a 6'2 Santa Cruz pumpkin seed (fatter short board from what i hear). Am I in for a world of frustration with the pumpkin seed or do u think it's do-able? I'm about 5'11 175 lbs. Any advice would be great.

world of frustration, ha. Heres what originally happened to me. I rode a 8 foot for a year and felt great on it. I went and jumped from the 8ft minilong to a 6'3" shortboard and had the worst couple of months of surfing ever. I couldnt catch crap, was working my butt off etc... So then I realized I should of not went so short and I should of listened to others. I kept the 6'3" and bought a 6'8" and I was back to catching waves but with a better steering board now. After about 4 months on that I decided to take the 6'3" back out there. It was instantly 10x easier then the first time around. This was a while back and now I mostly surf a 5'11" fish or a 6'2 short". Moral of the story, listen to others even if your hardheaded like me. If you try to jump to far to fast you will get bummed out. I wasted so many good waves on that shortboard when I wasnt ready for it. Now that being said, I say go for a 6'8" board and save the shorter ones for later. Your not to the level of benefiting from a smaller board yet and you will be loosing alot of waves. Now when any of my buds say they want to buy a shortboard I let them borrow one of mine and that usually puts them back on there bigger boards pretty fast Maybe renting one or trying a friends will give you a better idea what your in for.

Hey, I don't know where in the world you are so this may not be relevant. I went from my first board to a very short, narrow, fast board too early. I struggled on it for 11years!! I then swapped to a nice 7'5 mini-mal which I can ride way better and have heaps more fun on. You surf a lot more than I did, so you may find it's OK.

It also depends how big you are compared to the board!

7'4 - 6'2 is a fairly big drop. but a bit of determination could do the trick. If at all possible try out a simular board and see if you like it

<dead link> what do you guys think of this one? the price is right hah. I'm still pretty dumb w/ surfboard dimensions but I think this might be more of a gun (cuz it's narrow?) than a big-guy/newbie shortboard.

6'6" is a perfect size, I have both a 6'8" and a 6'6" and even though similar boards the 6'8" feels like a tank. 6'2" will frustrate the heck out of you until you figure it out, and it might take you a long time to do so. A bigger board will mean more waves, so you'll have more fun during your transition.

Also, if you buy a 6'6" or 6'8" you can keep them as your small day board.

Finally, the down side, a 6'2" will duckdive way easier, but once again expect to not catch wave right away.

rancid51 wrote:http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/spo/1195922463.html what do you guys think of this one? the price is right hah. I'm still pretty dumb w/ surfboard dimensions but I think this might be more of a gun (cuz it's narrow?) than a big-guy/newbie shortboard.

For that price I say go for it. Seems a little narrow, but for $50 bucks it can't hurt

I have sort of the same question (sorry for hijacking the thread). I've been surfing on a 7'6" for a while, but don't get out often enough because of the lack of surf in Belgium as well as the 150km trip to the sea. I'm going to spend about two months surfing in Spain this summer however and wanted to start progressing to a shortboard.. I have tried a friend's shortboards before, a 6'2" 18 3/4 and 3/8 I think, which felt quite weird the first hour or so, but after that I actually caught a few sort of decent waves going down the line. I also tried his 6'1" on a hardly longboardable day (bad forecasting on his part) on which I did manage to get up a few times too (he was also not getting any waves). I'm about 66-68 kilos and 6'1" I think (185cm) so I was wondering what a good first shortboard would be. I was thinking somewhere along the line of 6'3"-6'4", 20" wide and 2 1/2 thick or so? Summer waves in Spain probably won't be too massive either I guess. I'm definitely not even a half way decent surfer yet, surfing down the line is as far as it goes, but I do have decent balance and am a pretty good swimmer.

so I ended up getting the narrow 6'8. took it out the past few days and had no problems getting up and catching waves (definitely night and day compared to my 7'4 as far as paddling/stability on takeoff but it's doable). When I was on the wave the board felt really tough to turn, is this cuz of the semi-gun design or do I not have my back foot enough over the tail and fins? (this feels awkward to me because i like to have my front foot pretty far up and don't like a super wide stance). still a lot of fun though and more challenging but i just thought a shorter board would feel way looser compared to my 7'4

Being as impatient as I am I effectivly went the long way around when it comes to learning to surf. I started off on a 6' natural art and went out like a bobber going no where. So I sold it and did the smart thing and rode my friends 9' longboard until I could stand up and face the wave comfortably. After that I bought a 7' 4" WRV fun board which I really liked. I picked that up after a few weeks and eventually bought a 6' Al Merrick. I still have my fun board which I ride on occasion but I mostly ride the Al Merrick. I progessed through each board pretty quickly, but as of right now my skill on a shortboard is the same as it was with a longboard; I can catch waves and bottom turn. Thats really it. I guess thats pretty normal, but sometimes I feel I went through the boards a little too quickly. I just went with the feeling. Once I got comfortable on a board I went down to a smaller size. Probably not the best advice but it seems to be working with me.

rancid51 wrote:so I ended up getting the narrow 6'8. took it out the past few days and had no problems getting up and catching waves (definitely night and day compared to my 7'4 as far as paddling/stability on takeoff but it's doable). When I was on the wave the board felt really tough to turn, is this cuz of the semi-gun design or do I not have my back foot enough over the tail and fins? (this feels awkward to me because i like to have my front foot pretty far up and don't like a super wide stance). still a lot of fun though and more challenging but i just thought a shorter board would feel way looser compared to my 7'4

I have a long answer and a short one, so here goes the short one: Your feet are in the wrong place. Go buy a track-pad for the board then put you back foot on it, it will correct your problems. Also, the board will look cooler with it. If you sell the board you can probably get $100 with the pad on it, they look newer that way LOL