The myth of the hardboard at any price

After the obsession with the shortest, sharpest board possible, it’s time to tackle another challenge: the resin board enjoys a prestige that seems unsurpassable, but is it really suitable for learning to surf compared to the foam board?

To answer this question, let’s take a look at the properties of a foam board

More stable

Foam boards are mostly designed for surfers in the learning phase, and therefore have generous ribs that make them more stable. This makes them easier to work with for beginners who don’t have the muscles or technique needed to surf a standard, low-volume board.

What’s more, for the same volume, a foam-coated board gains in buoyancy compared to a polyester resin board. As a result, surfers can paddle faster, stand up with less effort, start from further back (to compete with more experienced surfers or those equipped with longboards) and stand up earlier in the wave, when it’s not yet too hollow.

Safer

The main argument for using a foam-covered board rather than a rigid material such as resin or plastic is that it’s safer. Where a hard board would have broken an eyebrow, the beginner who bumps into his foam board usually escapes without a scratch. The daggerboards are also soft, whereas a standard daggerboard will be hard and sharp.

Aware of this, he is less tense in the learning phases, commits to the take-off where anxiety would have induced poor reflexes, and consequently progresses much faster.

As the risk of accidents increases with the explosion in the number of surfers, foam boards are attracting more and more seasoned surfers. Indeed, these easy-to-row, playful and fast boards allow them to have fun when the spot is crowded, without the fear of injuring someone or damaging a resin board costing 600 or even 900 €.

Increasingly efficient

Let’s face it, the spirit of foam board builders hasn’t always been very generous towards the beginner surfer. In the early stages of learning, the beginner goes straight into the foam, so for a long time designers built boards that were certainly stable but had a coarse shape, as if carved with an axe. A rather narrow vision, which is fortunately tending to fade.

Because the diligent beginner progresses quickly in the waves, he or she needs a board that’s light and easy to handle. A bulky board can easily become an easy-to-handle instrument with a pleasant glide, provided the rider is respected. All you have to do is copy the shappe of a good hardboard onto a foam board. It’s certainly more difficult to work with foam than resin, but the technique has progressed, and there are now convincing foam boards on the market that can perform any trick in the surfing repertoire.

Many surf brands, such as Alder, Catchsurf and Softech, offer models that can accommodate hard centerboards. A daggerboard that hardly deforms at all will, on the one hand, have more hold to prevent the board from skidding and, on the other, an interesting rebound effect for radical surfing. It’s worth noting that some technical equipment designers are now offering hard daggerboards with soft edges, combining technical features and safety, such as the FYN daggerboard.

This type of product is of interest to fathers and surf teachers: with a 6′ Egg-type foam board, they have a fun board for small waves and a safe board for their 6-8 year-old child, or for a young pupil starting to master surfing.

It’s also of interest to good surfers who don’t want to stress over their beautiful board on a crowded spot, or risk injuring someone because there are too many people in the water.

Pitfalls to avoid

As we’ve seen, buying a board that’s too short for your skill level blocks your progress. What’s more, buying a solid board when you haven’t yet mastered the basics of surfing makes beginners a danger to themselves and to others.

Of course, foam boards don’t reach the level of sophistication and technical performance of some resin boards. However, these resin boards are optimized when the surfer has trained rowing muscles and long hours of practice, not to say years. These boards are ideal for radical, explosive surfing, or for the smoothest possible rail changes and trajectory variations.

Of course, being able to surf a hardboard safely one day can be a goal in itself, but surfing is a long learning process, so there’s no point in running. The most important thing about a board is not that it’s beautiful, but that it’s adapted to the level of its user. It’s no coincidence that surf schools have been equipping their trainees with foam boards since they first appeared a decade ago.

When you see former Tour Pro champion Kalani Rob and his friends taking on tubes on one of the world’s most dangerous shorebreaks, The Wedge, with a foam board, it’s easy to deduce that such a board is good enough, at the very least, for a beginner.