Big. A first board should float you easily, paddle fast and forgive a late pop-up, and the number that captures all three is volume in liters. Length matters less than people think; a 7'0" with 60 liters floats better than a 9'0" with 50.
| Weight | Soft-top, first weeks | Longboard, first weeks | Longboard, catching green waves | Midlength, catching green waves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55 kg · 121 lb | 61 | 59 | 50 | 43 |
| 65 kg · 143 lb | 72 | 69 | 60 | 51 |
| 75 kg · 165 lb | 83 | 80 | 69 | 59 |
| 85 kg · 187 lb | 94 | 90 | 78 | 66 |
| 95 kg · 209 lb | 105 | 101 | 87 | 74 |
| 105 kg · 231 lb | 116 | 112 | 96 | 82 |
From SurfCalc's model at average age and fitness. The first two columns are for someone learning to stand; the next two for someone already riding unbroken waves. Get your own number from the calculator, which also adjusts for age, fitness and wave size.
A 83-liter soft-top at 75 kg is the classic 8'0" foamie that surf schools use, and there is a reason: it catches whitewater on its own and is hard to fall off. Most people outgrow it in a season. A longboard at the same volume, 8'6" to 9'2", does the same job in fiberglass and keeps working for years, which is why many instructors say skip the foamie if you can store a long board.
Avoid the shortboard column entirely for now. A 30-liter board at 75 kg is what the pros ride and what the brand charts list, but it sinks to the chest at rest and catches nothing without a strong paddle. The catalog has 1,130 soft-tops and 2,288 longboards right now, most of them in stock.
Browse soft-tops → Browse longboards →
More guides: Soft-top or hard board · How many liters is too many · Foamie to fiberglass · Used or new.