Help!!

[Gimmeabreak]

Hi to all!! I'm 37 and used to surf as a nipper! Having been in the Armed Forces for most of my life I became pretty blinkered and lost my way a bit, having just returned from Newquay I want to desperately get back into the scene and watching all the surf dudes in that Cornish water had me itching to get out their!! So my question to all you good people is where do I start at my age? I'm also alot bigger than what I was when I were last surfing, I'm 104kgs and 6.1ft....is it worth going to a surf school, what type of board would you recommend? C'mon people...i'm aching to get out their!!!
Cheers.

[Laguna]

Hey, I would recomend that you go to a surf school to have one lesson to learn the safetyness and to start you off with. You can see how you get on and ask the instructors what they think is the most suitable board for you. It depends how much money you got on buying a board. The bigger the board the better it is to learn on. You want something atleast 12 inches taller than you. I think for money trying a 7"6 or 7"9 Mini Mal would be the best for cost and performance because they are good to progress on aswell.

[ghost_who_surfs]

Good to see another ex-serviceman here. Did the same thing myself. If you used to surf when you were younger and could competently ride clean face waves I think you'll find all the old muscle memory is there it'll just take a few sessions to get back into it. I'd recomend an 8 foot mini mal minimum or ideally a 9' mal thruster set up.

The 9 footer will give you a stable base and is easy to paddle. What ever you get I wouldn't go any thinner than 3inches or your just gonna make it hard for yourself in the paddling department.

I'm 6'2" and weigh about 107kg and when getting back into it found my ego and expectations getting in the way of my rusty skills and that caused a poor choice of board. I'd say save the money on the lesson and put it into a board and before you know it you'll be crankin it Just my opinion for whats it's worth.
Cheers
Ghost

[sinistapenguin]

If you used to surf then I wouldn't bother with a lesson.

The fundamentals of surfing are still the same now as they were then - paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, stand, ride, fall or kick out, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle.

I would look at a mini-mal - get something about a foot taller than you and you should be OK.

If you can find somewhere that rents out custom boards (I don't know if anywhere in Newquay does- although Boardwalk might!) then maybe rent one first for a day to see if you need to go bigger!

Then just get out there - if you've jut returned from Newquay then you've already missed 1 opportunity - you should have got out there then!!

Cheers

Sinista

[drowningbitbybit]

I'm 104kgs and 6.1ft....

Perhaps a board quite a bit bigger than '1ft taller than you are'!!

More like 2ft+ maybe