My 5 year old is loving surfing with me on her 9’ soft top. She wants to move to a fiberglass board and I am trying to figure out how big to make it. She is on the shorter side so I was deciding between a 7’ funboard size, a 5’8 biscuit type board (thick) or a Bean Bag Lost… (short, wide and thick). Obviously I am doing it myself so any sizes and specs are on the table. Let me hear what you guys think, I always love to hear your opinions and ideas!
You seek advice that is not in the main stream.
Me I raised my boy and now my Grandkids
In the water.
Things were different for “Boy”
No soft tops!
He got a 5-3 Ben Aipa early quad.
He surfed it till he ripped it.
EZ now $99 soft-top (EZ on the girls)
Next
Exactly where you are.
Paddle in and turn?
#1. Honestly access skill level
#2 Local conditions???
#3 you will be torn between “cool” and functional.
Lastly think of what you like,
Just on a smaller scale.
Best to you Pops!
Much Aloha!
Hey GWCapper,
I have been thinking about the same thing lately.
I have a 3 and 6 y.o. currently I have them on a wavestorm which works pretty well, because they can play on it and not hit a hard board when they fall.
Only problem is it is just to wide for them to really paddle or carry. I then started thinking for me at average adult size and weight , a 10’ x 23" x 3 " long board is more then enough and is what I learned on. I was going to try and scale that for my 3yo, which works out loosely to 6’ x 14" x 2". My 3 yo weighs about 35lbs.
I roughed out a board around this size from scraps I had laying around. It is kinda neat when he holds the blank, but even though it is right for his shoulder width , I am pretty sure he would never be able to stand up on it.
Point being, I still might glass the board for him so he can use it like a belly board, but need to go wider.
Interested in what you end up doing.
Cheers,
Jason
Widths for adults seem to be a function of what we can hold under one arm. Go too much wider and it affects paddling technique. I think lengths are more influenced by the conditions we surf in than anything else. So maybe a couple inches wider than they can hold under arm x 6-7ft length with a little extra nose rocker to limit pearling.
How’s this Jeff,
The Lost bean bag looks like fun!
Being you will be shaping
I suggest a SUP handle (grab)
Kids have short arms, yeah?
Width at this point
Is a big help (stability).
Also I would recommend that you keep her riding the softy
Until she’s turning and no just riding straight the beach, yeah.
Plenty time to get your act together Pop…LOL
Have to ask you,
Shaping experience?
Doesn’t really matter anyway
Gonna be fun for both of you.
Serious bond passing surfing down to your kids!
I predict you will just
Keep “whittling” em down as she gets better!
PM me anytime and with any “stupid” questions
Ah, they (dumb questions) don’t exist in my world.
Much Aloha
Here is a mellow day with Boy getting ‘em unassisted.
And Pops on stingray patrol.
seriously kids don’t need full on crutch boards like mini mals etc to learn on. A shortboard sized appropriately and volumed more generously than a good adult surfers equivalent volume/weight ratio will be fine. riding crutches too long and relying on them will hinder their surfing down the track.
I have heard from a grom surf coach that he reckons tomo styled boards are great for kids because they catch waves easily with their relatively large planing surface and are easy to manouvre due to their short length.
Thanks for all the incite guys (and gals). She is good with standing up on her own as long as I am on the board with her, but she tells me she is ready for her own board. She won’t be carving up the waves yet or pulling floaters, so just straight ahead surfing for her.
I know she isn’t ready for paddling out on her own, so I thinking a wide board may work best. That is a great idea to put a SUP handle in the middle. Even though she will probably drop it from time to time.
(Trying to answer all your questions)
I have limited shaping experince, but have shaped and glassed 3 boards at my house. I’ve watched way too many hours of videos and gone to Boardroom shaping expos for 3 years so even though my boards may not be perfect, I crunch the numbers to get the dimensions as close to right as they can be and spend the time doing my background research to limit errors.
I think I am leaning towards a …Lost Bean Bag type board. Now I just need to figure out the length.
And by the way, lots of my friends have been trying to get their kids to surf, but have been having trouble getting them out there. A tip for dads (or grandpas) out there that may be having that issue is to get something that they will like. I know it sounds simple, but kids are visual. My daughter loves pink (like most girls) so for Christmas a couple years ago, I got her a pink soft top, pink wetsuit and pink life vest. After being 50/50 on wanting to go surfing most days when we went to the beach, she wanted to paddle out that morning after she saw those colors. She already designed her board so it will have Arial on the bottom (rice paper print under the glass) and Elsa on the deck along with her name.
Great pictures! How did you feel the dimensions were? Do you wish you made it any thicker or was it perfect? I may just end up trying to clone this one, it looks fantastic!
The dimensions worked fine. I wanted to make it big enough that she can continue riding it when she is older. She mostly rides a 6’6" softtop now so she can keep up with me when I long board. I posted some pictures of a SUP I built for her recently. At age 9, she has two softtops, one beater board, two body boards, three grandpa made surfboards and a grandpa made SUP. Her dad is kind of a deadbeat, so it’s up to me to expose her to the beach culture. I wish I had more time and energy.
She sure sounds lucky to have you to spend all that time helping her and hooking her up with an awesome quiver of boards. You da man! Shoots brah!
I ended up shaping a 5’9" x 21" x 2.5" board with a similar shape to Uncled’s. I still need to do soften the rails and do the fine tuning, but here is the basic shape.
I was thinking about doing a 3 fin set up, but does anyone have any suggestions as to fin placement? I was leaning toward mainly putting a single fin on it because she will just be going straight, but if anyone has any placement ideas, it would be a big help. I’m used to more basic placements, but since she is a beginner, a placement that will have the best stability for going straight, would be paramount.
