Surfboards - Beginner

Even after several evolutions, surfing's DNA can still be found in every branch of water sports we practice today.

Deeper Meaning

Surfing is defined as moving along a wave that will eventually break. This definition could be likened to perpetual motion: as long as the wave travels, I can ride it, propelled by gravity down this continuously renewed descent.
Surfing, therefore, is about feeling light, like in free fall. You’re carried by the energy of the ocean—or more precisely, the energy of the atmosphere applied to and transmitted through the ocean. Riding this energy is embracing nature’s most powerful forces.

The most talented surfers go beyond experiencing nature’s raw power by turning their ride into an expression of their soul. Every move, every rhythm, every line is a reflection of each individual's reality. Surfing is projecting your true self, everything that makes you who you are, onto a wave that feels like the manifestation of Earth’s energies.
What could be more poetic than expressing your personal story, even your very genetics, through a direct connection with nature’s forces? This connection creates the fleeting, instantaneous joy of that perfect wave.
This brief yet luminous relationship with nature in motion reveals who we are.

Achievement

Surfing is undoubtedly one of the most unforgiving yet exhilarating sports. The sport of the gods is no easy feat—it must be earned. And it’s this pursuit that gives rise to much of the joy found in surfing. Every session is a step forward, whether you enjoyed it or not. Time in the water is essential and always pays off in the end.

Traveling

Surfing launches you on an endless quest: always searching for the perfect waves, the best wind conditions, or a magical spot with breathtaking scenery.
The simplicity of surfing is one of its greatest assets: all you need is a board and a few accessories to hit the waves. This makes it an affordable board sport!
While surfing brings you closer to nature on a personal level, it’s also an activity that can be shared with others. What could be more fun than a sunrise session with friends?

Health Benefits
Surfing offers numerous health benefits. It strengthens the body: in the water, much of your time is spent paddling, which works the entire upper body—arms, shoulders, back, and chest. During takeoffs and while riding a wave, your balance and core strength are intensely engaged. And, of course, your lower body gets a serious workout on every wave. It’s a full-body sport.

Like many other sports, surfing is an excellent remedy for anxiety. It promotes the release of endorphins and helps relieve stress. This effect also improves sleep quality.

Finally, surfing has immediate effects on the body: the minerals and trace elements found in sea air and water soothe joints, improve blood circulation, clear respiratory passages, and nourish the skin.

Starting Surfing with a Rigid Board

For those experiencing their first hours of surfing, the Acidolly ticks all the boxes for a beginner’s needs: fast paddling, length, volume, and stability. From your first takeoffs to more advanced maneuvers, the Acidolly offers all the qualities of a modern longboard while remaining compact and progressive. It catches waves effortlessly and is easy to handle.
For those looking for (a bit) more radicality in their early days and who don’t want a board with a longboard feel, the Batmob is perfect! Shorter, more responsive, and faster, but still easy to paddle and to take off with, it excels in small waves and allows for more "shortboard-style" maneuvers compared to the Acidolly. A queen of acceleration, it lays the foundation for modern surfing and will accompany you throughout your progression, particularly for its fun side.

Understanding the Different Technologies of Our Rigid Surfboards

Each board has specific construction techniques, offering a variety of stiffness, durability, and feel in the water. Be sure to explore the options to find the one that matches your style and goals.

Starting Surfing with an Inflatable Board
Finally, for those who don’t have the space to transport a rigid board, our inflatable range offers three solutions:

• The Compact: Perfect for summer waves. Its smaller size makes it particularly accessible for children or lighter riders.
• The Shortboard: Generous in volume, this board stands out for its maneuverability and speed, encouraging progression without any hassle.
• The Longboard: Ideal for catching whitewater waves or dropping into waves from far out. It combines paddling speed with user comfort.

The great advantage of these boards is that they’ll always have a place in your quiver, even as you advance in your surfing journey.

Starting Surfing with a Foam Board

Found in every surf school, foam boards are the ultimate beginner boards. Their large surface area and abundant foam create a very stable and fun board. These boards are also very safe and affordable. They provide the perfect conditions to find your balance and master your first takeoffs. And what’s great about these boards is that they’re ideal for your first years of practice, but you can keep them and still enjoy surfing them as you progress!

• The Roller: A board with a generously outlined shape, significant volume, and good length—this is the perfect board for catching your first waves.
• The Sally Fitzgibbons: Designed in collaboration with pro surfer Sally Fitzgibbons, this 7’0 (one-size) board is wide, stable, and easy to paddle. Its swallow tail generates great speed and gives you a boost in smaller conditions.

• The Batmob is great for its ability to generate incredible speed.
• The Shortboard Inflatable will support you for a long time in your progression, from your first cutbacks (a rounded turn back toward the foam of the wave to slow down in a sluggish section) to your first rollers (a very tight and vertical turn where you rotate on the wave’s lip with your board).
• As for the Acidolly and the Longboard Inflatable, they’ll serve you well for many years in less powerful conditions. Both allow for fun noserides. Their ease of paddling will let you catch plenty of waves!

A common question often comes up: My child wants to start surfing. What board does he or she need?

People often tend to focus primarily on the child’s size, which can sometimes be a mistake. As a result, some kids end up with boards that are too short and not buoyant enough, making them unsuitable for their skill level.

It’s important to think of them like adults—beyond their size, you need to consider their skill level and how often they’ll be surfing. Beginners often lack paddling strength, so compensating with a longer board is essential for catching waves independently.

Assessing their skill level:

• Beginner level: Hasn’t surfed yet or is just starting out. Still needs a push and an adult’s help to catch waves. Hesitant takeoffs and straight trajectories toward the beach. In this case, an inflatable longboard is perfect.
• Intermediate level: Starts catching waves independently and following them, with few or no turns on the wave. In this case, the board should retain some length to help with continued progression. An Acidolly or a Batmob would be ideal.
• Advanced level: Completely autonomous, anticipates sets, uses the wave faces effectively, and performs maneuvers. In this case, a shortboard is the best choice, while still maintaining a bit of surface area at the tail.

Example: For Loup, age 7, weighing 25kg, who wants to have fun with his dad in the whitewater and catch his first waves, a 6’3 inflatable shortboard or a 6’4 Acidolly would be perfect.

Don’t overestimate your child’s abilities—or your own! As mentioned earlier, surfing is amazing, but many people give up due to a lack of success. In most cases, this happens because the equipment they’re using isn’t suited to their skill level.

Typically, you’ll want a leash that matches the length of your board or is just slightly shorter. For example, a 7’ leash for a 7’2 board. The advertised lengths refer to the cord itself, but keep in mind that the attachments add extra length. Plus, the leash stretches under tension, giving you some leeway before your board comes flying back at you.

A properly sized leash, meaning a short one, provides less protection from board recoil but offers several advantages:

• Faster paddling and surfing: The difference is remarkable.
• Quicker board recovery, which means you can get past the break faster.
• Reduced interference with others, as your "nuisance radius" is smaller.

Just try using a 10’ leash on a 5’6 board to see what we mean! ;-)

It’s only in very large waves that longer leashes become necessary—outside the scope here.

Diameter is also key: thinner leashes let you move faster but are more prone to snapping in head-high or larger waves.

Finally, replace your leash every year. It’s annoying, but think of it as your life vest. Without it, you'd have to surf wearing a certified life jacket (not really, but you get the point!).

The question of whether to add pads often comes down to aesthetics and making your board look cool. But what might seem like a decorative feature for non-pros is actually a valuable tool.

If surfing is "the art of placement," then correctly placing your feet on the board is crucial. And what better way to ensure this than with a tactile marker that says: "Okay, I’m in the sweet spot for this turn."

Forty years ago, this marker came from the dents naturally formed underfoot on PU boards. But let’s be honest, that’s a bit outdated, right? Love it or not, it’s a personal choice.

If the idea of dents feels like a medieval solution, you could try waxing only the sweet spots… but be prepared for some serious splits! Sure, it looks sleek and pro, but you’re seriously risking your lineage.

Adding proper pads is therefore essential. They guide your feet to the right position.

But you also need to stick them on correctly—and trust me, people get creative here.

Place the pad just in front of the leash plug! In other words, as far back as it can go. That’s where you’ll feel the magic:

• Foot on the flat part of the pad for smooth, easy turns.
• Foot on the kicker for explosive moves or popping reverses.
• Foot in front of the pad to lock in a barrel.

It’s super simple!

No session without wax!

When you get a new board, you’ll need two bars of wax. The first layer is a base coat wax, designed to create a durable bond between the board and the functional wax (the one that grips your feet). To apply this, you need to build a thick base coat with wax bumps by rubbing gently in a dry, moisture-free environment.

Once the base coat is applied, use the second bar of wax, which should match the water temperature of your surf spot. Follow this technique to properly wax your board:

This method helps you save wax, as you’ll need half as much in the following months. That said, make sure to apply a little wax (about ¼ of a bar) before each session to maintain the same level of grip.

The fins provided with our boards are sufficient to use them properly.

However, since 50% of a board's performance comes from the fins, a pro surfer will undoubtedly want to adjust the fin setup to suit their body type, style, and preferences.

Some fins enhance speed, others turns, and others acceleration, etc. You can find detailed descriptions on their individual product pages—perfect reading material for a campfire evening!

To summarize:

• Boards designed for acceleration: Typically fish shapes, large swallows, and bigger Simmons are often set up as twins with beautiful keel fins or as quads for modern variations. These fins promote speed by strongly aligning the rail with its trajectory.
• Maneuverable boards with round tails are often equipped with a thruster setup, 2+1 (two side fins and an adjustable central US fin), or a twin if the hull includes channels to guide water flow.
• Gunny boards with pinched tails are set up as singles for pure lines or thrusters for better maneuverability. The 2+1 setup (two side fins and an adjustable central US fin) remains the premium option as it offers versatility.
• Mini longboards are often singles for pure lines (though with limited performance) or thrusters for added maneuverability (but this diverges from their intended use). The 2+1 setup remains ideal for maximizing the potential of these smaller longboards.

A 2+1 setup consists of two smaller side fins and a larger central fin. It’s commonly found on many mid-length surfboards or longboards because it offers an excellent balance between the maneuverability of a thruster and the stability of a single fin. To put it simply 😉, you can fine-tune this balance by adjusting the central fin’s position as explained below.

Adjusting Your 2+1 Setup

While the smaller side fins are fixed in their boxes, the central fin can be adjusted along its US box. Although the standard rail of this box offers a wide range of settings, for a 2+1 setup, everything depends on a 2 cm range.

The base of the leading edge of the central fin in a 2+1 setup should be positioned 0 to 2 cm from the tips of the side fins. Use a straight edge or a taut string to verify the central fin’s position relative to these tips.

• At 0 cm separation, you maximize maneuverability.
• At 2 cm separation, as shown in the diagram above, you focus on greater stability for smoother control.

To understand this adjustment better, think of it like the wheelbase of a skateboard. Reducing the distance between the front and rear wheel axles results in a very agile skateboard that can turn on the spot. For relaxed cruising on a downhill skateboard, a longer wheelbase provides greater stability.

If you mount larger side fins with more rearward tips, you’ll also need to move the central fin back. This is a universal rule.

Optimizing Your 2+1 Setup

• A larger central fin stabilizes the board and extends turns.
• Larger side fins enhance speed during turns.
  It’s a balancing act: having both oversized central and side fins is excessive and will make your board unmanageable.

Central Fin Sizes

• For 2+1 setups: 6’’ to 9’’, with 7’’ as the standard reference.
• For single fins: 8’’ to 11’’, with 10’’ as the standard reference.

Material Matters

The material of the fins is the most critical factor after their shape. Fiber fins are essential. Rigidity is the key to good fins. As you upgrade, aim for greater rigidity. Note that fiber fins are also easily repairable if damaged, for example, from hitting a rock.