Wakesurfing 101: Choosing Your Board, Part 1

Are you new to wakesurfing and overwhelmed by the plethora of boards available on the market? Earlier on this blog, I’ve covered the absolute basics of getting started with wakesurfing, and today we’re going to dive into more detail about the different boards available and how to choose the best one for you. Back in June I created a guide to the best boats for water sports, and aside from your boat, your board is one of the most important pieces of equipment for this thrilling watersport.

Style: Surf or Skim?
The first thing to consider when picking out your next board is whether you want it to be surf or skim style. Surf style boards are the most popular and are also recommended for beginners because they are the most-user friendly. Surf style boards look a lot like smaller versions of the surf boards you’d spot at the beach and are specially designed to catch a boat’s wake. These are stable, catch the wave easier, and generate speed more quickly.

Skim style boards are considered the most “playful” of the three board styles. These are ideal for more advanced surfers who are looking to do tricks and stunts behind the boat. Skim style boards are smaller than a surf style board, with smaller fins to give more “slip” on the water for airborne tricks.

Hybrid style boards blend together the designs of surf and skim style boards to encompass the best of both worlds. Hybrid boards come in a wide array of shapes and sizes and are perfect for intermediate wakesurfers who aren’t sure of what they’re looking for and want a little bit of everything.

Fins
An often overlooked aspect of the wakesurf board is the fin, which significantly impacts the feel of the board. Different fin setups are found on different boards and also feel different on the water. A single fin is most commonly found skim style boards and act like a rudder. The single fin provides stability and control but breaks free easily off the water for spins and other tricks.

A thruster setup featuring three fins is by far the most popular, and with good reason. You’ll find this setup on most surf style boards.The outside fins help generate speed while the center fin offers stability and control. This style of fin configuration performs well on all kinds of waves. What’s more, you can remove the fins to ride the board as a single or twin fin setup, too.

Quad fin setups feature four fins and are only found on surf style boards. The key feature of the quad fin setup is that it excels in terms of speed. These are great for larger waves, and you can remove two of the four fins to ride the board as a twin fin.

Less common is the five fin configuration. This comes only on surf style boards and gives you plenty of options, as you can ride with any of the fin combinations we mentioned above. This works well with waves of all sizes, though I don’t recommend using all five fins at once. That would create drag and slow the board down significantly.

This article was originally published on ThomasEnglishKentucky.net