At what age did you start surfing and on what?

started when i was ten years old back in 1970...damn those were the days

 

I started at age 13 in '72. My first board was a wide 6'0" first gen twinfin Challenger with a squared off tail. It was like new except for one ding in the rail and it only cost $65. It seemed like all the good surfers wanted to try it. I got my son surfing at age 7 and now we surf togehter every chance we get.

 

I learned to bodysurf first. My dad taught me. He and my mom met bodysurfing in Belmar, NJ. He was impressed with the only chick on the beach who could ride a wave (this was the 50's) and asked her out.

Rode inflatable rafts until one day at age 14, my buddies parents were renting this house in Lavallette and we found two old single fins in the garage. Took em out and that was it. Game over. Life changing. That was 27 years ago.

 

learned to surf at 14. I loved it but i was real serious about organized sports to surfing had to sit on the back burner. at 18 i finally had a little freedom to surf more when it wasnt football season. now im going on 23 and surfing is pretty much it for me. i have never found something that i have loved so much and kept my attention for so long. i plan on surfing until im old and crippled and physicality cant anymore.

 

Awesome story

MDSurfer thanks for sharing. I hope that by the time I reach your age I'm still living by the coast and surfing regularly. Way to keep the stoke going. It's funny because I have a picture of me surfing a big wave during Igor that, like you, I'll probably relish for the rest of my life. Was one of those few epic days where I was actually captured on camera getting some great rides. I was the same age...24.

 

started at about 5-6 years old on a board my dad shaped in the 70's its like 5'8" looks like an egg. I live about three hours from the beach so I was only able to surf on family trips. then I turned 16 got a driver license and a job with weekends off and started driving to the beach every weekend. this is when I really started to progress, now I'm 26 still drive three hours to surf and I would have to say that surfing is a major part of my life. the feeling you have just being in the water with family or friends catching waves having a blast, relaxing clearing your head. a get away from all the bull **** in life. life would suck with out waves!!

 

i started at 23 damn iam behind. i gotta say i picked it up pretty quick tho

 

I started at 22, I had rented boards while on vacation a few times before then but that's when I got my first board and really started surfing frequently. Started on a 6' fishy hybrid type shortboard, I had a longboard for a couple months but once I started to get the hang of the shortboard all I wanted to do was keep progressing on it.

I had always wanted to surf, grew up snowboarding and skateboarding so I picked it up pretty quick I think. I'm now 24 and surf just about every swell year round. I can't get enough, I'm constantly thinking about the next session. I do something new just about every session whether its a more critical turn in the pocket or link a few turns together smoother. Came out of my first barrel this winter, I was beyond stoked.

Nothing compares to surfing, it has changed my life. It gives me a reason to stay in shape, work harder at my job and do everything I can to keep progressing in the water. I may have started a little late at 22 but hopefully I still have 40+ years ahead of me.

 

Started at about age 13 on a friend's borrowed balsa wood board. Nobody realized how beautiful those boards were. It was about 8', small for those times.
And, for wax we bought those boxes of parafin wax used for candle making, There was no surf wax on the market then.
Took a 23 yr break from surfng to work, marry, live in Oregon, but never lost the stoke of riding waves.
Sold our house just in time (08), moved into an apartment, made twice a year trips here after we bought 4 acres, then out of the blue one day my wife was laid off after 18 years at the big shoe co. in Oregon. So we made the move here, and things have come together nicely. I surf whenever there's waves, and there hasn't been much lately. I'm afraid we're done here until fall, unless we get a big storm.Summers here remind me of waveless Florida summers.
And I still ride shortboards.

 

Started at age 12 on a Fremont 6'4" single fin swallow tail "modern machine".

 

Started surfing at around 6, probably sometime around 1983. I grew up on WB so I had already learned to ski, kneeboard skurf and freeboard. I had a 5'6 bump swallow Natural Art twin fin with some large channels in the bottom. Rode that thing until the fins literally fell off it. My uncle was big into surfing back then, so I also had access to his quiver of longboards and 6'-7'. Those were definitely the days.

 

I'll never forget my dad pushing me into waves on the Jessey (~1961) shore on a yellow and blue rubber raft. Later my buddy and I chipped in for a 9'6" Dewy Weber Performer (lime green). There were no short boards or leashes. He sold me his share and went with an 8' Rick (radical short board). I have stuck with LB's. They work fine.

 

my first board was a 6' gary linden swallow tail i picked up at a garage sale for $30. loaded it up with sun cure to make it water tight and was good to go. i still have that board and i love it. i still ride it now and then when its not too heavy

 

I got a late start at 23 on a 6'6" Perfection. An oversized swallowtail shortboard style funboardy thing.

I remember my friends from school who "surfed" telling me you had to learn on a longboard first for at least a year- I said "I can ollie over a shopping cart I don't need to ride one of those things"

of course my dad had taught me how to body surf 15 years before that

 

Started surfing at age 13, back in 1974, on a used 7'0ish rounded pin by Challenger Eastern... single fin. And I'll tell you, a lot of the "shorboards" being made back then SUCKED. Very few board builders had shortboard design figured out, and the only thing that mattered was that it was short. Teardrop planshape with wide noses, pinched California style longboard rails, flat rockers, and vee bottoms. Horrible. Longboards, guns, and a few years later the fish were all decent riding boards, and I still get a kick out of riding them once in a while. But you couldn't get me back on that old Challenger if you paid me... it'd just be a waste of a session.

 

Started at 22, August 6, 1998, had been going to beach and body surfing for years and with the help of friend was goaded into a surf lesson in Delaware. Stood up on first wave and was instantly hooked. I have a picture from that day and it's one of my favorite pictures of all time.

 

I started when I was like 13.. I started literally out of the blue. I never was good at baseball and other school sports and one day I just woke up as a kid and said hey i wanna surf and i printed out all of lost enterpises models for that year and was picking out all the ones i wanted to buy (i never got them lol)

 

I started at 13 and I learned on my friend's dad's old bing bonzer that he found on the beach about a month before I used it. I'm 19 now and I'm loving it. I'm picking up my first custom board tomorrow, perfect timing with this little swell coming up!