Ha ha ha very funny Kitesurfer
Gaff, he was referring to the fact that i am 'vertically challenged', a hobbit minus the hairy toes.
You will find that many of your threads turn into conversations about scone wrestling, pavlova, black pudding, white pudding, people weeing (and worse) in taxi's, the correct grammatical usage of the terms 'flesh' and 'fleshin', having sex with snakes and possibly if your very lucky, what Jennie's burps smelt like after breakfast
Re the board, NSP boards, like all boards have there pluses and minuses, they tend to be heavy (which is only really an issue for people like moi) and not so responsive in the water but also have heaps of float (good for the likes of you) and dont ding (damage) easily. All of the above points are controversial. For a learner, and for someone of your stature (whether its muscle or not) an NSP is probably a very good idea. Some people argue that you will 'out grow' a pop out quickly but generally learning to surf takes a long time so it will be a fair way in the future that you would need something more responsive. Also if you do want to sell it at anytime, because they are popular beginners/intermediates boards and don't damage easily they usually sell second hand at a decent price. You could get a fibreglass board but at the moment you probably wouldnt be able to tell the difference between that and an NSP in terms of performance. I bought a glass board first time round and honestly i wish i'd gone with an NSP or similar, I dinged it first time in the water.
Just my 2 pence (or is it farthings in hobbit-speak, its a while since i've been back to the shire) worth. Hope it helps.
