i have been supping on and offcasually for just short of a year, something that i have noticed that makes me wonder
why most boards only have deck grip on 3/4 of the board?
i can understand on boards smaller the 9ft
but when i see a 10'6 with 3/4 grip what happens when you want to nose ride
cheers

What prone surfers have used for years....wax.

My Starboard has a full length deck pad.

Booties work well for extra grip and they work fine on un-waxed surfboards. I use them all the time on a kite surfboard with straps and pads but nothing on the deck in between. I used to have wax to give better grip when gybing and switching feet but I cleaned off the wax and use booties all the time. We do lots of long upwind runs on the surfboards so we gybe a lot in pretty messy conditions.