Surfboards For Beginners for 2024 – What are The Best for?

Are you beginner surfer? it is the right time to choose the best surfboards for beginners of 2024 to enjoy the summer season when the waves are high.

Don’t think more and just use my complete guide to the best beginner surfboards you can get this season to make the correct decision.

Best Surfboards For Beginners 2024

It is the complete chart that will provide you a comparison of the best beginner surfboards of 2023 in a single glimpse; go ahead and try one today, as you don’t know what you are missing!

What are the Best Beginner Surfboards?

For the beginners, it is always better to select the longer size board. The longboards are stable and wide and offer lots of floatation to the new learner.

Beginners require struggle free wave catching boards and small boards produce much trouble in wave catching when you are new at it.

For floatation, enough volume is needed. A beginner finds it hard to catch the wave or balance when gets one.

New surfers require surfboards having high buoyancy so their mistakes could be neglected. Overall, when you are a beginner follow these simple features:

• Length: Depending upon your own height, the length of your board should allow easy paddling, provide speed, and aid in catching smaller waves.
• Width: When it comes to stability, wide boards are more stable and make you stand up easily.
• Buoyancy: The boards which are thicker have the better ability to float when they catch a wave.

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Buying guide

When choosing a beginner surfboard, there are so many things to keep in mind. These factors make your choice easy.

#1. Your levels

It is the top and foremost thing to check and consider. Your level will decide the basic board type. Which level you are at – beginner, intermediate, or advanced?

• Beginners: When you are a new surfer, you need lots of volume and stability in your board. The optimum length for the beginners is around 7 to 9 feet that means longboards are ideal for them.
• Their board should have the width of 22-23 inches and at least 3 inches of thickness. A soft top board provides better float and stability which is good for the beginners when they start learning.
• Intermediate: You cannot change directly to the shortboard after learning on a longboard. Using fish or hybrid surfboard provides a better learning platform for the intermediate surfers and to practice maneuvers.
• Experts: Shortboards or guns are perfect for experts and obviously they don’t need my suggestion – they know what suits them better.

#2. Types of wave

Which wave type is your favorite? It is a personal question but impacts everyone who has arrived at the beach for surfing.

The wave condition differs from the beach to beach, and even day and night time at the same beach.

Sometimes there are small waves and sometimes there are big. So, restricted yourself on only one kind of board will make you sit and wait for the ideal time to enjoy surfing.

However, many time it is not possible to wait. Make sure you have a set of boards when you go surfing,, so you can enjoy without wasting any time.

#3. Your weight

When buying a new board make sure that you know how much you weigh and whether your new board will bear your weight.

As a rule, the more you weigh the greater volume your board should have. For instance, if a beginner has 60 to 65 kg weight with excellent fitness, then the volume of the surfboard should be 45 to 53.

#4. Type of surfboards that you like

Above in the article, I have mentioned different types of surfboards, you might have one already in your mind.

But, remember that if you are a beginner than a longboard will do the job for you. And for the intermediates, hybrid and fish board do better.

Everything is  matter of your choice here.

#5. Design of the board

Width

Width is the measurement of one rail to another at the widest point of the board.

• Narrow: Surfboard with the narrow width is simple to go from rail to rail. They offer better and fast response. It is the choice of advanced surfers because it helps in making tough turns and exceptional maneuvers.
• Wide: They offer more surface area and floatation. The paddling is easy with extra glide. With wide width, these surfboards are highly stable and ideal for beginners.

Length

• Long surfboards: Offers fast paddling, allows catching more waves, and holds a longer water line, all these features make it highly stable and allows the board to surf when waves are bigger.
• Short surfboards: Allows easy direction changing as they are less water resistance. Provides the optimum chance to the surfer to perform maneuvers especially in small waves.

Depth of board (thickness)

• Thick Surfboards: Ideal for intermediates and beginners, it allows faster paddling and makes it easy to catch waves. When the board is thick it is easy to surf on softer wave while maintaining the speed.
• Thin Surfboards: They are ideal for the experienced surfers as it allows them to flow freely in water. Best for maneuover as this surfboard does not float much.

Material

The two major material that you find in the market today are

• Epoxy Surfboards: They are very light weighted and environmental friendly. Their raw material is expensive and so are these boards. They offer high speed but the surfer may struggle with smaller waves.
• Polyester surfboards: It is a traditional material but highly popular. They are cheaper but heavier than epoxy surfboards. They can even manage in the small waves.

#6. Fin system

The surfboard design impacts the fin setup and it is different from board to board.

The shortboards usually have thruster setup, while the longboards have one large fin. There are two most popular systems of the fin setup: Future fins and FCS.

#7. Leash line

A leash line is something that connects you to your board. This line guarantees you that you are bored won’t be going back to the beach without you.

Mainly, the length of the leash is equal to the length of the surfboard.

#8. The curvature

Another aspect to look in the board is its curvature. From nose to the tail, the rocker is a bottom curve.

The amount of curve in rocker will impact the turning ability of the surfboard. Shortboards have more rocker for better turning but the speed would be slow. On the contrary, low rockers improve the speed.