Are Soft Tops Good Surfing Real Waves
Many new students wonder when beginning to surf whether soft tops are good surfing real waves. Soft tops are very versatile and can be used to learn to surf foam waves and take a beginner through surfing real waves.
The soft tops are generally well-designed surfboards with a few purposes in mind. They are easy to paddle because they have high volume and float on the water. They catch foam wave easily so beginners can learn the fundamentals. They won’t hurt you if they hit you.
The Beginner Progresses
As the beginner progresses, he moves to bigger foam waves and then small real waves. Soft tops are the best boards for this progress. Hard boards generally don’t have the volume to catch these waves. The surfer then progresses to bigger foam waves where there is a drop into the face.
At this point, the surfer could consider a hard board, but the soft top still has some advantages. The soft top catches real waves easily. It allows the surfer to bottom turn in the pocket and accelerate and do cutbacks. These are the three basic advanced maneuvers. The big advantage the soft top still retains is it is easy to paddle so sessions will last longer.
What the soft top starts giving up at this point is maneuverability. Hard boards have thinner rails which allows them to cut deeper into the waves and make sharper carves. If the surfer is in the water often, he develops the stamina to paddle smaller volume boards.
Occasional Surfers
If the surfer is not in the water frequently, he doesn’t develop paddling stamina and probably hasn’t progressed to advanced carves. Therefore, the paddling and wave catching advantage of the soft top still prevails. I start students on 9′ soft tops for weight in excess of 115 pounds and up to 250 pounds.
Students up to 170 pounds might be able to move to 8′ soft tops which are more maneuverable. Heavier students will stick to the 9′ boards and when they move to hard boards will stick with high volume boards of 8′ or larger. It is important to maintain the thickness of at least 2 3/4″ and the width of 21″+. Heavier students may want widths of 22″ to 24″ and thickness greater than 3″.
The idea is to have fun and the volume of the board should correlate with the weight and skill of the rider. Getting too aggressive with board size can result in quicker tiring and more frustration with execution. The occasional surfer which is less than once a week should stick with the high volume boards.
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