Every Type of Surfboard Explained & How Understanding Yours Makes You a Better Surfer

If you’ve ever wondered what all the different types of surfboard do and where they might be affecting your surfing? - This is the best place to start!

Written by our good friend, surf coach turned shaper Max, this quick guide will introduce you to the different types of shapes, what and who they are for.

Take it away Max…

Realistically this blog should actually be called ‘Nearly Every Type of Surfboard Explained’ because there are just so many different types of board!

Whilst pitching this info at a beginner to intermediate skill and knowledge level, we can skip out the weird and wonderful, focussing on the main surfboard shapes you will come across as a UK surfer.

Foam Surfboards aka Foamies

Made from softer materials, most foamies are designed for complete beginner surfers. With much cheaper and robust construction than a hardboard, the expanded foam and plastic skins can take a knock from you, others in the water, rocks in the carpark or steps on the way down to the beach. 

This is great for feeling safe in the water, avoiding any bruises from landing on the board, and for when you are still a bit clumsy getting your board to and from the beach.

Beginner to improve foamies vary in width but are usually very wide, thick and floaty with the main goal to be stable. These super large dimensions give you plenty of wiggle room when paddling, popping up slowly and riding white water waves.

Good stability and float means they limit your ability to generate speed on the wave face and make nicer turns. The rather large, big boxy rails are hard to sink into the water, which is what you need to do to move along, up and down the wave face and make turns with a bit more style and ease.

Mini-mal Surfboards aka Mini Malibu

Originally chopped down longboards, coming about in the early days of surfing Malibu, California. They are a bit like trimmed down foamies but with a rigid hardboard construction, they are still made quite wide and thick to ensure they have good stability and are user friendly for improver surfers.

With the round nose and wider tail providing paddle power and stability, mini mals are a popular choice for people’s ‘first hardboard’.

Either you go for a longer minimal that isn’t so thick, or you can go shorter as long as there is plenty of width and thickness. For a full breakdown of mini-mal shapes and which one suits your surfing, read our guide to mini-mal surfboards.

Mid Length Surfboards

Although these boards have been around since the 70s, they’ve had a big resurgence in the last 5 years, being super popular with higher level improvers, intermediate and even advanced surfers sick of riding shorter boards.

Originally designed as the go-between a longboard and a shortboard, they are popular around 7ft in length. The fuller, wide shapes make mid lengths stable enough for slower pop ups but agile enough to allow tighter turns when you are up and riding.

They mostly feature a more pulled in and pointy nose than minimals, reducing the paddle power but making them easier to turn and punch through bigger waves. Our Scrambled model is a high volume mid length that packs a lot of float into a shorter, more manoeuvrable board, for when you feel like the length of a minimal is limiting your turns.

Mid-lengths and mini-mals are the shapes we talk about most on the Shape Your Surfing Improver Course.

Shortboards

Usually for higher level surfers, shortboards are designed to surfed around your height in length, with low volume and slimmed out dimensions. This makes them hard to paddle and maintain speed whilst on anything other than a punchy, powerful wave.

Wider and flatter rocker shortboards are called ‘Grovellors’, these are to be used in small waves. Although they are meant for advanced to shortboard weaker conditions, they sometimes end up in the hands of intermediates looking to get out in bigger/punchier waves, as they are a high volumed, shorter board. 

Longboards

Generally categorised as 9ft and over, although shorter people could consider a 8’6 a longboard for them. Longboards are usually for riding small waves, focussing more on moving up and down the board in style, over turns and manoeuvres.

Heavy traditional logs are great for nose riding but can be difficult to control in the water. Smaller performance longboards are easier to control but lower level lighter surfers have the tendency to nose dive them in anything other than tiny waves.

Twin fin/Fish Surfboards

Traditional fish surfboards are the ones with the big swallow ‘fish’ tail and two larger fins. Anything with two fins or with any kind of ‘fish’ tail usually gets lumped into the fish category but it may not have the same features of the wide, thick, flat rockered traditional fish. 

Two fins instead of three (or even four) is a faster and looser ride. The lack of the drag a third fin makes in the water, has the board feel extra speedy under the feet, with the negative being sometimes an excess of speed or lack of control. 

Fish boards generally prefer smaller, fatter waves - but it all depends on the rest of the boards features, so it’s important not to assume that every twin fin board or cut away tail shape is a ‘fish’ and will feel this way.

In summary…

Understanding which board you're riding, and why it does what it does, is one of the fastest ways to improve your surfing. It's also the idea behind Shape Your Surfing, our collaboration course with Gather and Glide.

Over a weekend in Cornwall, you'll get a tour of the shaping workshop, an in-depth board session covering everything above (and a lot more), and multiple coached surf sessions with video analysis. It's the only course in the UK that combines shaping knowledge with expert coaching in the water.

Find out more and book your place here.

Written by Max Colvin, surf coach and shaper at Hand Laid Eggs, Cornwall.