Hi

I have been paddle boarding for a while now on a Naish Mana 10', I am having a blast, but am looking to upgrade my board to something that can keep me improving, whilst pushing me to improve at the same time.

I mainly ride the mellow long board waves, off Auckland's east coast, and am looking for a board that surfs like a traditional long board, so I can really start to learn how to nose ride.

The stockist's here, really only stock one or two brands so it is really difficult to get a balanced view on which would be the best boards to look at.

I am 6'4" and about 110kgs hence I am currently looking at the Laird surftech 11'.

Would that be a good choice, and are there others that I can look at.

many thanks

Graeme

I would advise going towards a board:
- wide enough for your weigth (mine is 30" 1/4 for my 100kg), to have power in mellow waves
- extremely thin in the rails, especially in the tail and the nose.
- a flat rocker
- a wide tail will provide power for gutless waves

This way, the thiness with give you insane, fluid manoeuvrability, the thin rails and flat rocker in the nose wont brake when you go to the nose.

You can see my 2 "longboard" shapes in the photos: left one is a performance shape for hollow waves (narrow), the right one is a dream for old school riding in mellow waves (140 litres, 9'6"). These are Gong boards, but are difficult to get (you have to preorder them, and preorders are full in the 2 hours following the announcement...)

I think the Laird Pearson are good boards (avoid the non-Pearson Lairds)