Choose a Surfing Longboard

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Mike Sanders and I'm going to talk to you a little about how to buy a long board, what you're looking for, what you want to see. The thing about long boards is they're not really meant for thrashing left and right like you see in the you know, the pro circuit. They're more for cruising, more for style, more for hot dogging like they used to be in the old days. So right here what I got is a nine foot two inch single fin. This is my baby, I love it. It cruises nice, it can cut back, it can hold a rail. It's a good board overall. If you're looking for something that can keep you cruising and keep you having fun, it'll be something like this. What you see in this long board is there's not too much bend in the whole thing. What you can see in some rocker as we call it, is the bend of the board in the nose and a little bit in the tail. That helps for turning off the tail when you're up on the nose. It helps you hold in your whole rail to the side of the wave. For long boards you really, depending on the kind of long boarding you want to do, there's high performance long boarding where they have, you know three fins, two small ones, one big one, what we call a thruster set up. And that will really hold you in to the wave and if you want to, you know long board big waves like they do in Hawaii, that's something you're going to want to say on it. It'll hold you in to the waves real good. But for something like this, if you want to cruise you gotta get nice round rails or you know, half round, half down, and more what you're really looking for is rounder rails in the front, which keeps you smooth and it suctions in to the wave as you're riding it, when you're up there, when you're weights up there. And you want more down rails in the rear right here. You can feel they're a little more knifey. They drop down a little bit more from the top. When your weights back here it helps you push off of the wave and helps your board turn around to control it where you want it. For me, I'm about five eleven, one sixty, nine foot two is really good for me. Some people like longer boards just because they're so much easier to get in to. But you really want to look for is does the board keep you above the water and is it enough for you to keep in control. If I were to go out in the surf with a twelve foot board I'd have a hard time you know, running back to the tail and leaning the whole thing to turn it. So you really don't want to you know, put too much work in to it. This is you know, this is a good length for me but it really depends on your height and your weight; keeps you afloat, what you feel comfortable with surfing on. And that's pretty much how to choose a long board."