Do you really need a longboard?

Nah those small wave boards are great but you still can't use them to ride a knee high gutless peeling wave. Put a log on that wave and you are having a blast. Also, it's a completely different style of surfing. Why just surf one way?

 

**** yeah we need em

 

I really enjoy longboarding for a change of pace, mostly in really fast breaking waves where getting in early makes it easier to set it up and beat the first section.

For small slow mushy stuff, I find the mini simmons a lot more fun than my log, with all of the turns you can do without losing any momentum. Plus the Simmons makes speed more easily in tiny waves with some subtle pumps off the face going down the line.

 

**** yeah we need em, i understand what your saying with but small and big wave are made for longs. i love my fish and am guilty of takin it on lb days. but i love hagning five and 10, launching off of closeouts on a 9,6 board is way more fun and challenging. maybe throw out some spinners i dont see many people around here doing them.. surfin big waves with out a leash and making huge steep drop diggin in with you heal so hard or you get smashed lol. and when you do do all of this on a knee high wave what will you do with a fish hit the lip and be done depending on the conditions.

 

There was a time in my life when even on a knee to waist high day, I would be out there pumping down the line on my small wave board looking for a section to "kill". Nowadays, I bring two boards to the beach every time I surf, because on even on waist to chest days, sometimes you get there and the swell period is too low and since I don't have as much time to surf as I used to, and there are not many waves that come around, I have just accepted the fact that you get way more for your money on all those small days on the long board. In an hour session on Hilton Head, if I ride my Sharpeye Disco or my fish in waist high surf, I may get 6-8 decent waves with enough action to get a turn in or a snap, but in that same hour on my longboard, I would easily get 20-25 waves. You get more out of that mushy crap, you dont have to pump and pray through sections, you just chill and do your thing, and at the end of the day, you got a lot more out of the ocean and our of your session on a longboard.

Sometimes you have to put pride aside and just do whats fun. Longboard is a nice change of pace. On nights before swell or surf, I usually fall asleep to my favorite surf videos, watching shortboarding mayhem and dreaming of all the air sections that are going to present themselves during the morning session, then you get to the beach and see 1-3 foot jumble and you just have to lay your pride down and use the right board...

The most common mistake in all of surfing, whether its really small waves, or really huge waves, is the equipment. You bring the wrong stick, your in for a long, bitter day....

On the other side of the spectrum, I have attempted to ride 15-18 foot waves on a 6'2, and while I did pick off a few, it was a terrible decision. All huge sessions following that were surfed on a board no smaller than my 7'2 pintail gun thing that I used to break out a few days of the year...

You gotta have the right board. And shortboards are not an "Every down back" (NFL reference)

 

shortboard,longboard,fish and the one most often forgotten midlength.give me a 7'6" sometimes.

 

Yeah I tend to go to my fish or simmons style board for small days now way more than my LB but I do like LB's for that style of surfing but lean more towards riding them on waist high peeling days rather than small knee high crap like I used to. The small boards just fit in sections better.

 

Zach,
There is a guy somewhere down near you named Greg Eavey that makes amazing boards for that softness you're dealing with. I'll bet if you get him to make you something about 5'2" it will pretty much blow your mind.

 

This is a great topic. I surfed shortboards only for about 10 years, I got my first and only longboard only about 3 years ago and personally found it quite difficult to get used to but now I love it and ride the LB more often. I just have more fun on it, I get more waves, and it's helped my shortboarding. It's always a good thing to have the right board for the right conditions and although there are plenty of good small wave shortboards nothing replaces the LB. I do understand that LB's are looked down on by allot of people, my guess is because of alot of beginners and kooks ride them. But when someone who knows how to properly ride one is on one I think it's a beautiful thing. Plus it's a blast to ride in some of the bigger stuff

 

Nice, I will look into it. I see the same faces every session down here so I am sure someone in the lineup can put me on to him. I think its about time I get a new stick anyway, as long as I can convince the wife.

 

To the question: Is it important to have shortboarding and longboarding skills? My answer would be, not really. I never stepped foot on a longboard until I had been surfing for 5-6 years, and from the second I took off on the LB, it was a piece of cake to me. Granted, there are some advanced styles of longboarding that are pretty awesome, but for the most part, any seasoned shortboarder can step on a big stick and nose ride and turn and cruise. Its definitely fun, but I think if you are a longboard regular, and you size down to a shortboard, it would be a MUCH harder learning curve and transition...

But back to the original topic, I would also say... Never sacrifice style for pride. Don't be that guy pumping your brains out down the line with just wretched style. Its not worth it for a few turns. The only ones that can get away with it are the 12-15 year old grommets that weigh 95 lbs...

 

doesn't anyone see this hippie-skinny-weirdos riding 7'6"-8'6" single fins and ripping? our mush here loves those midlengths,and it's more like a shortboard than a log,where you're on top of the water instead of slicing into the wave.

 

yes. longboards in my opinion, are still great to ride and will always be great fun. but just like everything a little variety keeps it fun.

 

I longboard because I'm still new at this and it's less frustrating. However, I did see a an old used Stussy 7' board in the surfshop. I'm wondering if I should try it out or would I just be wasting my money?

 

i love the look and appreciate you LB aficionados, but i just cant get into it. I've given it a shot plenty of times and was able to do cheater fives on my first rides very easily ( i know not saying much, who cant!) I'm always switching boards with a buddy, and after about 10 waves Im ready to switch back. We all have our reasons for loving to surf. One of them for me is "working" a wave. Whether its large or small, finding the juicy spots and surfing the speed that the wave dictates, feeling the g forces of tight turns is what its all about for me.

The longer I've been surfing the much better I've gotten at finding power on smaller and smaller waves. That said, when I see a guy really adept at surfing a LB, it looks pretty damn awesome.

 

if you enjoy longboarding then you should have a long board. if you don't then you don't need one. I don't understand how this can even be a discussion?

 

Longboard, fish, thruster. If you plan on surfing as much as you can in your short life time then you need at least these three shapes. There are countless days I couldn't ride anything but a longboard. Meanwhile, guys are on the beach, thumbs in ass. Life is away to short to wait on the beach, especially in nj-with your thumb in your ass...

 

Because there are certain conditions that eliminate shortboards from the equation. I have surfed litterally ankle high days down here on a long board. It is physically impossible on a shortboard of even fish to drop in and ride an actual line when surf is that small. And there are days that are sooooo small on the east coast, no one else is willing to even paddle out, but sometimes, its my day off or some of the only time I would have to get out that week or that day, so I will paddle out in lake atlantic and ride little 10 yards lines of shorebreak for an hour or so and go home... I have actually longboarded down here a couple of times where tourists were taking pictures because they said they had never seen anyone ride a wave that small... it was funny...

But sometimes, even when its flat, you want to paddle out and ride even the smallest of waves...

Thats where the discussion is for me... If you dont have a long board collecting dust in your quiver, you will miss out on certain days that a shortboard is just simply out of the question.