newbie needing advice

[sink or swim?]

hey yall great site and learning to surf part is tops!
im living in the west country and have been thinking of learning to surf and make the most of the north devon/cornwall coast, also have paignton on me door step.
now what im needing to know is what sort of starter board does a land lubber like me need to start? im 6`1 the wrong side of a 100kg+ im looking to buy a second hand board so what should i look out for?

and what would be a good wetsuit for the winter months?
cheers and thanx sos.

[gdude335]

any 5.4 wetsuit will be good for the winter,
I recommend u renting boards to start like that you can progress and go shorter or stick with a longboard. Once you have decided a path then you can buy a board

[cj]

Try renting a REALLY long board that is VERY thick your first couple times out. 10' plus.

You are a big guy, and the work that is required for paddling is exclusive to paddling, so if you go out on a shorter long board to start with, you might find that your shoulders and arms are not in the type of shape that they need to be in to move your body through the water, especially because of your size.

Some of the strongest paddlers I know a bigger guys, but they have been paddling for a decade or better.

I was a bigger guy when I started surfing, I weighed around 220, and had 19" arms, I thought, I am heman this is going to be easy, but what I found out was it is a totally different muscle fiber type required for paddling. It took a long time to recondition my muscles, but that is because I started with a 7'6", I should have started with a longer board to build up my paddling skills and allow my arms and shoulders to recondition themselves for paddling (I didn't have weak shoulders either, I could military press 300 pounds at the time, it is just a totally different fiber type that the muscle must be made of to paddle well) Thankfully, muscles recondition, but I don't have the same weight lifting strength that I had before by any means, but I can paddle. a good Trade off.

another suggestion is to practice your pop ups regularly, larger guys use more energy to pop up, so they have to be in better relative shape than a smaller guy to perform the same task. So because of your added size, you should practice more often and harder.

[sink or swim?]

chees for the advice . . . . . . renting it is then.

[Ellie]

Hey sink or swim, welcome to the forum

I'd agree with the other advice - rent a few different boards and see which you fancy. My boyfriend's a beginner surfer and bought an 8' Hurricane baord which he adores!! Compared to when we used to rent foamies he never stopped moaning about them being too small! Go long! (But don't forget you need to think about transporting it when you get round to buying!)

Wetties - I'd recommend a 5/4, and think about boots and gloves too..Brrr!!

Have fun, and let us know how you're getting on!

[surferdude_scarborough]

er yeah im gonna go with the party line and say get a big board even though i didnt and im doing fine. but im a skinny guy. i found paddling much harder than popping up though because i was on a shortboard. im going to stop going on about struggling paddling now because that didnt last all that long. just make sure u get a board that u find relatively easy to paddle or you will have problems with everything else

[tomcat360]

hit the nail on the head CJ