Wavestorm-initiated surfers: what's your first real board?

[ConcreteVitamin]

For those of you who learned to surf on a Wavestorm or a similar soft top:

When did you buy your first, non-soft top board? By that time, what skills have you already mastered?

And what's your first real board?

[Big H]

Nothing wrong with a foamie....I still rent them when I'm at the beach and didn't bring a board and have the itch. Was out 6 months ago with a guy on a foamie in 1.5OH waves.....he was very good.... doing cutbacks, sharp top and bottom turns and walked the nose a couple times. The board was not holding him back.

I took a big group lesson on a foamie and then looked for a used board in the want ads. Wound up with a well used 9'3" PU longboard which in retrospect probably had been snapped and taken on a little water as it was painted and heavy now I know what a board should weigh. Nonetheless, it worked fine and I learned on it, sold it and bought another.

[waikikikichan]

When I learned to surf over 25 years ago, there weren’t any Wavestorms. But I did have a BZ softboard ( a step up from the Morey Doyle boards of the time ). It taught me how to trim and work with the wave. All the locals at the break teased me for riding “that thing”. I learned to do back side bottom and top turns, before borrowing a friend’s hard board, then to ordering a full custom ( that ending up totally wrong ).