Select to expand quoteKisutch said..Mahanumah said..
Have to say I disagree with all the gents suggesting 32" wide boards.
I'm a 5'11" male with fairly broad shoulders and I won't ride anything wider than 30" because it's a shoulder injury waiting to happen (all that reaching sideways is not good for the rotators...). Women have far narrower shoulders (unless you're a weightlifter in the over 85kg category... Some of those women dwarf me...
) so the effect is even worse...
My wife who is 5'4" and weighs 2/5 of 5/8 of nothing (i.e. 52-54 kg...) definitely agrees. The ideal board for her when we started out 10 years ago was a 9' x 29" x 130l Surftech Al Merrick. Narrow enough that she wasn't reaching out to get to the water but super stable and still had a bit of performance. She's now down to a 7'8" x 28" x 98l Smik Hipster Twin. And she's going smaller...
SupChickadee got it right with the dimensions and I know she knows a thing or two about riding waves (and teaching beginners...).
I definitely love my friends 9x28" longboard. I'm scheming on the quiver potential I could get via my wife. Like what if I could get her an Infinity New Deal 9x28 for Xmax and then steal it... But board dims a distant second from figuring out childcare so we can get out together more often. cheers
Ooh I wanna try a 98L Hipster twin -- have you tried your wife's board? what's the domestic politics around using it. It could be bad for me cause I tend to whack the rail when wiping out.
I haven't tried the 98L Hipster Twin. The last time I tried one of her boards I couldn't even stand on it let alone get the paddle in the water...
As for domestic politics... The board is second hand and she has had it bouncing off rocks and other people's shins (never get in the way of the person on the wave... It's just not good etiquette and can end up hurting a lot...) so it's pretty beaten up. I don't think me scraping a paddle on the rail is going to make too much difference. And as an FYI... This board is pretty bulletproof so she's worked hard to damage it...
Maybe one day...
We both have new boards on the wave from SMIK so looking forward to seeing how we go on them (both are a step down in volume on what we are on currently...).
