Ideal Surfboard Quiver

There have been a lot of recent threads on which board to buy. This is not always an easy question to answer and I think it is a good idea to plan on having a “quiver” of boards. Imagine this situation, you are going on a week’s vacation on a lake with a large group and you need to bring four surf boards for the vacation. Surfers will range from small children to balding old fat guys and from beginners to advanced users. What four boards would you bring to meet the needs of the group? Limit the selection to boards that you have first hand knowledge and give a rationale why you would choose the board. Here is my “ideal” quiver:

1. Hyperlite Broadcast- great beginner board, very durable, inexpensive, easy for young children to flip up when they start, wide weight range, fits in most racks, good size traction pad on top

2. Shred Stix JaMako- very nice surf style board, very fast and good air, nice carver, durable board, difficult to rack this board, this board is fairly expensive (would also recommend other smaller Shred Stix’s boards)

3. Walzer Alpha- very nice hybrid board for surf or skim style riding, fast board and you can boost good air on this board, light weight , not as durable as previous boards, not a good board for beginners

4. Inland Surfer Blue- good beginner to intermediate board that you won’t outgrow as fast as the broadcast; good for heavy riders, good traction on top, can be ridden at high speeds, children might have a hard time flipping this board up at start up because it is very buoyant

I did not list a pure skim style board but a Calibrated Piscus would be a good choice for advanced small riders; great board for spins and shuvs; fits in racks; ridden by women’s National and Worlds Champ. There are a lot of other good boards but I limited my selections to boards that I have direct knowledge.

I am doing pretty good on acquiring the boards on your list Roy. I've got the Broadcast-still the board that most of the others on my boat use. I also have the Walzer which is a very fast, loose, and boyant board-all the beginners have a hard time not sliding out. The Shred Stix Thresher is my next purchase-hopefully very soon. I have been going back and forth between the Shred Stix and the Blue but decided on the Stix because I want it for me more (selfish reasons!). The Blue, like you said, would be great for larger beginners so I wouldn't waste so much time teaching these guys.

Kenny, since it's your quiver, you have a right to be selfish. Given a choice between the Stix or the Blue, I'd go with the Stix board.