Surfing Waves

Just wondering...it seems most surf shops only rent very low end mals, minimals or perhaps funboards (like BICs) and some softtop boards for kids and old ladies. Maybe in Hawaii or San Diego you can get a better variety of board rental options but basically most beaches I've been to on the east coast of the US I've only seen beginner boards for rentals (and poor quality ones at that). It seems like if surf shops took some trade-in used boards of varying sizes/shapes etc. and put them out for rental they could probably recover profits in just a few weeks. Then experienced surfing who are traveling to a beach area that didn't bring there board with them on the plane or folks who are looking to make a purchase of a new board with a different size/shape than they've ridden before have to opportunity to "test drive" a different board, see if it works for them, and perhaps make a wiser purchase (or even buy the rental board off the surf shop if they really loved it). Thoughts?

Nah, they rent Bics/NSP's etc because there 'almost indistructable'.

Most surfers have their own boards & wouldnt ride a rental unless it was a last resort, we also usualy travel with our boards.

Rental market is typicaly newbs who are going to be surfing shore breaks inside etc. Also custom boards that are old are likely to break & need a lot of repair.

I know some shops round here rent tufflite boards out(quite a range) & give you the rental back if you buy a board.

RJD wrote:Nah, they rent Bics/NSP's etc because there 'almost indistructable'.

Most surfers have their own boards & wouldnt ride a rental unless it was a last resort, we also usualy travel with our boards.

Rental market is typicaly newbs who are going to be surfing shore breaks inside etc. Also custom boards that are old are likely to break & need a lot of repair.

I know some shops round here rent tufflite boards out(quite a range) & give you the rental back if you buy a board.

I guess I see so many posts out here on the message board (not all newbies, some intermediate surfers it sounds like as well) that ask questions like "should I buy a fish" "should I get the thruster...all I've ridden is a mal" etc: Just sounds like if the opportunity to take a board out for an hour or 2 session people would have the opportunity to figure out what works/doesn't work for them. A guy I know took a trip to Hawaii with his custom funboard (1st trip on plane with board), when he got off the plane it was broke in half. Luckily travel insurance covered the costs and he had enough money to buy a new custom fish while in Hawaii. I've heard of several experienced surfers who didn't have their board with them and had to rent a board while on travel. Granted if I'm going on a surf trip to a once in a lifetime surfing destination...I'd take my favorite board.

Problem is theres sooo many variables on boards, even boards made bythe same maker, to the same pattern have variations that affect how they work.

Its realy only the popouts etc that can reproduce the same board time & again, and as I've said one place here that does tufflite already does rentals on a wide range.


A basic shortboard/mal that can be rented out isnt the same as something qutie specific an intermediate + surfer will be looking for.

The shop i hire boards from when i go on the train hire either softboards or they rent out the used surfboards. ive used everything from a big minimal on really small days to performance shortboards like resin8 boards.