Surfing Waves

Hello!

I currently ride a 7’5 Olaian 80liters foamie and occasionally my gf’s 7’8 Olaian 75liters foamie.
I am 174cm x 70kg

I surf from July, but I am learning faster then I expected. I am already comfortable with pop up, going straight, going right or left, eventually bad bot-to-top turns.

I would like to step down in volume and size to have a more manouvrable board which allows me to carve and do turns a little bit faster/easier, because where I live is hard to have long waves and they usually are about 70cm to 1.1m and when I am lucky more than 1.50m, so I have to be fast in shoot all my bullets asap.

I thought about stick to a foamie:
- Olaian 900 7’ 60l
- Catch Surf RNF 6.5 55l

Or going to an hard board:
- 7’2 torq mod fun/mod fish 53l
- 7’2 form flowstik 53.7l

I am open to suggestion and advices.

I‘ve moved your post to surfboard advice, cause more people will see it and offer advice.

My advice is don‘t be in a hurry about going shorter or lessening your liters too much!
Foam boards have specific purpose, to help you catch more waves, the volume can hinder turning and vital skills but we all start there,

I would suggest your weight and height considering the Torq range and even looking at a 8ft board a hard one…… the sizes you mention you are not ready for, turning is learned skill not a skill in the board.
Have a read of all the other I want to go short to go more manoeuvrable threads and suitable reply advice, you are not alone!

jaffa1949 wrote:I‘ve moved your post to surfboard advice, cause more people will see it and offer advice.

My advice is don‘t be in a hurry about going shorter or lessening your liters too much!
Foam boards have specific purpose, to help you catch more waves, the volume can hinder turning and vital skills but we all start there,

I would suggest your weight and height considering the Torq range and even looking at a 8ft board a hard one…… the sizes you mention you are not ready for, turning is learned skill not a skill in the board.
Have a read of all the other I want to go short to go more manoeuvrable threads and suitable reply advice, you are not alone!

First of all: thanks for the advice! Really appreciate it!

I'm a newbie so I will keep my foamie as a backup, it is a super-cheap foamie, but it does the work! Imagine I managed to surf it in 160cm waves straight to the beach the 2nd week i was surfing the pain is it takes a VERY WIDE angle when turning right or left because it is super thick and voluminous as you can see from the image below, so every time i frontside turn it takes a large manouvre, and for the moment i want to turn the opposite side, the wave has ended its power, that's why i tought i had to step down just a bit



I don't pretend to become Kelly Slater in few months, but I am really into surfing and I think I will outperform my superthickfoamie in a while...

1) Do you have a very strong paddle technique?

2 ) How is your pop up on step drops ?

3 ) How thick is the tail area of the board compared to the thickness at the middle of the board ?

waikikikichan wrote:1) Do you have a very strong paddle technique?

2 ) How is your pop up on step drops ?

3 ) How thick is the tail area of the board compared to the thickness at the middle of the board ?

1) I usually catch 7 waves out 10, I imagine is not that bad for a newbie. I usually last for 3-4h in the water before my shoulder start burning I am pretty athletic coz I am a wrestler, but surfing has very different moveset so...

2) I don't get nose dive often on steep drops. But in the beach i have in the nearing the waves are usually small, so in 5 months I experienced only few session with big waves (here a big wave is 170-200cm, unluckily I don't live in Hawaii or Bali )

3) the middle of the board is 9cm thick and the tail 6.5cm thick i had to measure by myself coz on the site i can only find those measure (cm) 226 X 58 X 9,6.
(") 7'5 X 23 X 3,8

84Breakfast wrote: the pain is it takes a VERY WIDE angle when turning right or left because it is super thick and voluminous as you can see from the image below, so every time i frontside turn it takes a large manouvre, and for the moment i want to turn the opposite side, the wave has ended its power, that's why i tought i had to step down just a bit.

84Breakfast wrote:3) the middle of the board is 9cm thick and the tail 6.5cm thick

So if you turn off the tail ( which is thinner ), versus turning in the middle of the board ( which is thicker ) it will virtually shorten the length of the board and the amount of board in the water.

Question: How far back is your back foot on the deck when you turn / cutback ?

waikikikichan wrote:

84Breakfast wrote: the pain is it takes a VERY WIDE angle when turning right or left because it is super thick and voluminous as you can see from the image below, so every time i frontside turn it takes a large manouvre, and for the moment i want to turn the opposite side, the wave has ended its power, that's why i tought i had to step down just a bit.

84Breakfast wrote:3) the middle of the board is 9cm thick and the tail 6.5cm thick

So if you turn off the tail ( which is thinner ), versus turning in the middle of the board ( which is thicker ) it will virtually shorten the length of the board and the amount of board in the water.

Question: How far back is your back foot on the deck when you turn / cutback ?

After the pop up (that i do watching in the direction of the wave after paddling in that direction), I usually position my feet around the middle of the board in order to avoid the wheelie effect of the board. Suddenly I start applying pressure on the inside/outside rail with both hands in the direction of the wave, and only when I managed to make a big turn, I try to cutback and go in the opposite direction, but realistically because of the poor conditions and my lack of skills, the wave just ended it's pushing power for that moment.

Do you suggest me to push more on the tail to curve? Maybe it is the detail it is preventing me from turning quickly

84Breakfast wrote: Suddenly I start applying pressure on the inside/outside rail with both hands in the direction of the wave,

Woah, what did you just say ? You use both hands on the the rails to turn the board as you are standing ?

84Breakfast wrote: I usually position my feet around the middle of the board in order to avoid the wheelie effect of the board.

With that statement, you have just confirmed you are not ready to move down in size until you understand the BASICS of turning a surfboard.

Please watch this video to get a better understanding of how to turn a surfboard and that the limiting factor is NOT the board, but the rider.
( plus a warning not to go down in size too soon )

waikikikichan wrote:

84Breakfast wrote: Suddenly I start applying pressure on the inside/outside rail with both hands in the direction of the wave,

Woah, what did you just say ? You use both hands on the the rails to turn the board as you are standing ?

No, I misstyped, I mean i direction my hands to the face of the wave, not on the rails.

84Breakfast wrote: I usually position my feet around the middle of the board in order to avoid the wheelie effect of the board.

With that statement, you have just confirmed you are not ready to move down in size until you understand the BASICS of turning a surfboard.

Please watch this video to get a better understanding of how to turn a surfboard and that the limiting factor is NOT the board, but the rider.
( plus a warning not to go down in size too soon )

Thanks for the video! As soon as it start making waves again here in Italy, I will run to the beach to try those tips. Thanks for the help, i will keep you posted about it!

Finally waves came back to Rome!

This morning I had the chance to focus on the tips you gave me and it went surprisingly well! I have managed to change direction 3 times even on weaker waves! Just using more pressure on the back foot!

Thank you all!