Soft Top Surfboards: Why Every Surfer Needs One

Soft top surfboards are a great board to have in any surfer’s quiver. In fact, we’ll go so far as to say every surfer should have one. Say what you will about them, but soft top surfboards are one thing above all else: FUN!

After all isn’t that why we all started surfing in the first place?

Everyone uses soft top surfboards from world champions to the first time surfer. Jamie O’Brien shredded Pipeline on a soft top. Then he did it again at Jaws with Kalani Chapman. Mick Fanning has his own line of softboards. Big wave ripper Shawn Dollar founded the soft-top-only Wavestorm World Championships. And surf schools from Maui to Bali, J-Bay, Bells, Nosara, and Huntington Beach all use foamies as their go-to teaching boards.

To help find the perfect soft top surfboard for you, we’re going to breakdown which ones are best for which levels of surfing and wave types below. But first let’s get to know these foam topped sticks a little better.

What Exactly is a Soft Top Surfboard?

A soft top surfboard is just as it’s name describes — a surfboard with a soft deck top. Traditional surfboards are made with either a polyurethane (PU) or expanded polystyrene (EMS) foam, then covered with a polyester or epoxy resin that creates a hardened surface around the board. Hence, hard top surfboards.

Soft top surfboards are made with an EPS foam core (like epoxy surfboards) wrapped in either fiberglass or a synthetic wrap. The big difference is that they replace that hardened fiberglass or epoxy top layer with a soft, dentable Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate (EVA) sheet. Think exercise mats, the insoles of your sneakers, yoga blocks, and kick boards — they’re all made of the same material as a soft top surfboard.

The EVA top layer combined with the compressed EPS core make soft top surfboards lighter, float better, less susceptible to rot, and harder to ding than traditional hard top surfboards. The soft deck top also allows for a easier and more comfortable paddle. And unlike resined, hard top surfboards, soft tops don’t require wax or any additional material to prevent slippage.

Despite their most often being associated as longboards, soft tops come in a variety of shapes and sizes. For example, Mick Fanning’s Little Marley goes as small as a 29L 5’2″. But no matter how big or small they are, all soft tops are characterized as being more buoyant, lightweight, and stable than most fiberglass or epoxy surfboard of the same size.

We’re not saying soft tops are better than hard tops, but they certainly give classic surfboards a run for their money. Literally. Because they also often come with a much smaller price tag. Thanks in no small part to the king of discounted prices — Costco.

A Brief History of Soft Top Surfboards

Soft top surfboards were born from boogie boards. Reminiscent of inflatable surf mats and planked belly boards of old, the Boogie Board was invented by Tom Morey out of Hawaii in 1971. Morey, a mathematician and surfing inventor, used polyethylene foam to model (using a hot iron!) a square-tailed, round-nosed roughly 4 foot soft board that people could catch waves on while lying prone. He named his squishy topped squat board the Boogie Board (after the the Boogie-Woogie blues music he enjoyed listening to: “Boogie swung, and it had a wiggle and a jiggle to it. It was perfect.”).

During the 80s and 90s Boogie Boards took took off. These surf-riding sponges quickly became a beach staple, spawning sponsored bodyboarding teams and its own competitive contest, and becoming the new go-to wave riding brand of young beachgoers everywhere.

Surfers however were not as stoked. From the growing popularity of Boogie Boards erupted a huge bodyboarding scene. As a result, the new fad was overcrowding the waters and reignited the debate over what exactly constitutes surfing. But the bodyboarding industry ignored all that (because money) and new advancements in technology and materials soon brought the two water activities together.

In 2006, a former manager of the Boogie Board brand — Matt Zilinskas — teamed up with AGIT Global to create the “first standup experience” for surfers on a Boogie-esque board. At the time AGIT Global was the manufacturer for Boogie Boards. Zilinskas worked with John Yeh – a Taiwanese businessman and CEO of AGIT’s North America division — to develop an entirely new product applying the sandwiched bodyboard design of expanded polystyrene foam and plastic into a a full sized surfboard. They called their soft topped creation Wavestorm.

Safer and more buoyant than traditional surfboards, Wavestorm hit the market as the ultimate beginner board. And thanks to being easier and cheaper to produce the Wavestorm allowed AGIT to manufacture a high-volume priced a third of what most beginner surfboards cost. Costco, always looking for a good deal, took notice and began disturbing them in their coastal warehouses. And where Costco goes, shoppers follow. According to Bloomberg Business, by 2015 over half a million Wavestorms had been sold.

As Wavestorms ask the “Costco Surfboard” took over new players entered the soft top scene like Catch Surf, Softech, MF Softboards, the list goes on. AGIT even produces other brands including our preferred soft top for teaching surf lessons — Storm Blade. (But more on those in a moment.)

There was a time when surfers were against riding anything but massive, wooden 30 pound longboards. When wetsuits came out, many scoffed at using them. Early versions of the now-iconic Malibu Chip were chastised as “girl boards” until the guys started riding them, and fell in love. The first short boards were deemed ridiculous and a passing trend. In fact, with each new major evolution of the sport you could count on one thing — hardcore surfers balking. Then they would try it for themselves, realize how fun the new fad made surfing, and adapt it as their own.

The latest in this long line of “disruptive” surfing innovations is the soft top surfboard. Which had at first threatened to destroy all that is sacred about surfing, and now is spreading joy to both newbies and old hats alike.

A Guide to Soft Top Surfboards for Every Level of Surfing

Now that we know the who, what, and where of why soft top surfboards are so great, let’s take a look at which one is for you. In the following guide we’ll go over the best soft top surfboards, discussing which you should ride depending on your experience and the conditions.

We have used soft tops at our surf school for years and compared them all. We’ve also talked to many pro and amateur surfers to see what they prefer and tried out every high performance soft top in the surfing industry. So not only are we huge advocates of riding soft top surfboards, we love riding them ourselves.

Best Soft Top Surfboard for Beginners

We all want to have fun right? When learning how to surf you want to have a surfboard with a lot of foam. This will help you paddle easier and will let you catch a ton of waves compared to a smaller soft top surfboard. We recommend an 8ft-9ft soft top surfboard with as much width and thickness as possible.

Our favorite for learning how to surf and beginners is the 9ft Stormblade SSR soft top surfboard. 

The SSR is perfect for learning how to surf on any type of waves. With the added foam it is very buoyant and easy to learn on. Guaranteed, on a Storm Blade soft top will be standing up in no time. That’s why we us it exclusively to teach new surfers.

It’s not just us though. Soft top foam surfboards are widely used in surf schools across the world, in particular the Storm Blade SSR. That’s because they are specifically shaped to have lots of volume and stability so you can catch lots of  waves and remain more stable when trying to stand up. They are also durable as heck, and can withstand even the harshest of beatings. And perhaps most importantly, their extra soft deck reduces the risk of accidents and injuries.

Best Soft Top Surfboards for Intermediate and Advanced Surfers

Beginners aren’t the only ones getting stoked on soft tops. Nowadays you can find any style soft top for all conditions and skill levels. For your small wave days there’s the perfect summer surf longboards that any surfer can ride, like the Storm Blades. For your medium size days there are what we call “fun shape” soft tops which are more high performance than your longboard, can make steep drops and do radical turns. Finally there are soft tops that are like high performance short boards in which you can get barreled and throw airs on.

Here is our favorite soft top surfboards for intermediate and advanced surfers:

Takayama Scorpion

The Takayama Scorpion Soft Top Surfboard is one of our favorite soft tops in the surf industry right now. They ride really well in small surf but are also awesome at handling bigger surf.  The round tail helps with different wave heights but still remains loose enough to be able to throw down turns. The thermal formed EVA soft top deck allows you to grip the board comfortably but still be able to let loose in more high performance waves.

Catch Surf Odysea

Catch Surf is one of the leading soft top companies in the world right now. They have every kind of high performance soft top you can imagine. With the short board fun factor they create soft tops that will let you surf the way you want. They are super responsive in massive shore break and super cruisey on small longboard waves. You know when we mentioned earlier Jamie O’Brien conquered Pipeline on a soft top surfboard? He did it on a Catch Surf Odysea.

The quad-fin Odysea Skipper is one of the most enjoyable soft tops to shred on. They range in size from 5’6″ to 6’6″, and have a classic fish shape that allows for down-the-line-speed and stylish turns.

Another rad Catch Surf model is the Lost Round-Nose Fish (RNF). It is designed after what is cited as the world’s best-selling fish model of all-time from shaper Matt “Mayhem” Biolos. Thanks to its winged swallow tail and tai-fin thruster setup is can rip it in everything from knee-high runners to heavy shore-break, allowing for rail-to-rail surfing and easy paddling.

INT 7’0 Funboard

INT Surfboards have been one of the new up and coming companies to master the soft top industry. Their 7′ classic funboard makes our list because it paddles like a longboard but performs like a shortboard. It gives you enough to room to paddle around the line up with ease, has pop-up stability, and is responsiveness enough to execute tighter turns or make it down steeper waves.

Mick Fanning Little Marley

The last soft top surfboard on our list is from your very own world champions Mick Fanning. With MF Softboards, he has created his own model of soft tops that represent all the best of his surfing.

When it comes to soft top shortboards the MF Little Marley is rules the waves.

If you didn’t feel the foam on your feet you would swear you were riding a real fiberglass board. The Little Marley is for all around fun but does best in more high-performance situations. Its short, wide, and fast which make it one of the more versatile soft tops in the surf industry.

Shred Hard, Stay Soft

Whether you are just learning how to surf on small waves or a legendary surfer shredding towering breaks, you will have fun on soft top surfboard. Every day they grow more popular and their designs getting better and better everyday. The latest soft top technology is set to pump foamies to the top of the surfing industry for years to come. Everyone should have at least one soft top in their quiver of surfboards and if not then you are late to the game.

Back in the day soft tops use to be frowned upon. Not just because they were seen as being for “kooks” and “noobs” but because they weren’t made to ride the way most experienced surfers would want. They were always falling apart and never had the performance level you were hoping for. 

But times have changed. New designs and innovations have made them just as sweet as regular hard top boards to ride. Now soft top surfboards are so popular pro surfers are coming out with their own high performance soft top companies. The foam logs have opened up the sport in ways never seen before, making it more accessible, friendly and fun. And with the growth of wave pools on the horizon you can be rest assured the soft top industry will only grow bigger.

Whether you are just learning to surf or a seasoned pro, you are seriously missing out if you aren’t experiencing soft top stoke.

So if you’re asking yourself should I try surfing on a soft top surfboard? The answer is a definitive YEEWWW!

Listen to this Episode

You can listen to this whole guide on our podcast with the player above or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Podcast Playlist

The Full Guide

Foamies, foam surfboards, soft top surfboards, whatever you call them, they are great and there’s been a revival of them over the last decade or so. However, there is still this stigma around these surfboards, that with any new surfer trying to improve their surfing, they are desperate to get off of them, like there is some unspoken graduation when you stop riding them or a secret shame for still riding them.

Or that all of a sudden surfing will change when you get off them.

This guide is going to walk through everything you need to know about riding a foam surfboard, when to upgrade, if you should still ride them after upgrading and if you aren’t a beginner, how you can use them to help work on some technique. 

Why ride a foam surfboard as a beginner

Half the reason for the bad stigma of foam surfboards is the learn-to-surf schools, that they are just for those first few lessons and the idea you want to get off them asap.

The reason they are used for surf schools and recommended to continue riding them as a beginner is the stability they provide. 

Foam surfboards are wider and thicker than standard surfboards, generally around a 23-inch width or more and around 3 inches thick. Combined with being around 7’6” to 9’0” long, these boards are easy to paddle, easy to catch a wave, very stable and easy to control, on top of being soft and unlikely to hurt you.

The extra width and thickness of these boards give you that extra stability which is what you want when trying to master your pop-up on an unstable surface.

With no major risk of hurting yourself, a foam surfboard drops the mental barrier, fear, stress and anxiety are much less with one less thing to worry about. These are great boards and everything is designed for a beginner to make everything you will be doing easy.

This is not just a board for riding whitewash, you can paddle out the back and catch unbroken waves on these boards, with no problem.

When to stop riding a foam surfboard

The reason you will want to start surfing a new surfboard will be because you want to do more in your surfing, you want to start turning and having more feeling and response from the boards you ride.

All that extra width and thickness in a soft top surfboard is eventually what you will want to step down on. Most beginners think it’s the length but you can change up to a similar length surfboard but with just less width and thickness and this will ride differently. 

The average beginner surfboards run around 20 to high 22-inch widths and 3 inches and under typically.

By reducing that width and thickness it will have slightly less stability and this will help the board feel more responsive and help you to start learning to turn. However, that reduced stability will impact your pop-up as you have to now adapt to more movement and challenge during the take-off.

The trick or trap in this is you don’t want to make too drastic of a change when you are starting out. Reducing to a much shorter board with much less width and thickness as well will give a board with much less stability for the pop-up. If you want to rush to a shorter board, go for it, but accept the challenge and know that you will get worse before you get better as you learn to adapt to that new board.

An overlooked feature of foam boards is their rails. The rails are the edge/side of the surfboard. Foam boards have a unique rail due to how they are constructed, they have a hard edge on the underside and then curve up after that until it reaches the top side of the surfboard. This rail is different to standard surfboards which usually have a rounded rail with no hard edge to it, except around the tail of the board. 

This changes how those boards turn and function and is something to remember when you want to turn your board, a regular surfboard is designed to turn more than a foamie.

When you feel stuck, stagnate in your surfing and want to start doing more in your surfing is when you want to start riding a different board.

Why do you want to continue to ride a soft top surfboard as you progress

Despite the design elements of a foam surfboard that might not seem for turning or for improving your surfing, there is a lot you can learn from them to improve your surfing, regardless if you are a beginner or not.

How to turn a foamie and continue improving your surfing

The first thing to understand with turning a foamie is their design features are designed more for stability than turning and being a longer board, it will turn slower.

Think of turning a bus compared to turning a small car. 

You want to work with the board and not against it. Have patience and learn to draw out your turns.

The board won’t suddenly respond, it’s a slow response and you need to control your body movement to match how slow it will turn.

For most beginners, it’s about learning to turn, and this needs to be done on a good foundation of stance and coordination.

The easiest way to learn to turn is to find your neutral stance, get comfortable and when you want to turn, begin by starting to look in the direction you want to turn to and point the hands as well at your target. 

Be aware your target may not be in front of you, don’t suddenly twist or snap to it. Factor in how slowly the board will turn and continue to twist and move with the board until you can see your target. 

This means you will scan through the turn, looking for your target with your hands always pointing where you are looking. 

To keep the stance balanced, you will also want to have both knees roughly pointing towards the target to ensure the upper and lower body are in sync and coordinated together.

This is a basic and slow turn, if you stick with it, it will begin to turn the board and follow where you are looking and pointing.

Practising turns as an intermediate surfer

As an intermediate, you will want a foundation of good technique, and not flailing or out-of-sync movements or movements that send mixed signals to your board.

The technique is the same as normal or as you would do on your other boards, the change comes in working with the board and how it turns slower.

Most average surfers don’t hold their turns, they don’t look at where they want to go or flow with the movement. Everything is typically sudden and not much happens.

This will help break those bad habits and force you to work with the board and learn to hold a turn and keep holding the turn until you get to where you want to go.

This will also help with not overcooking your turns, and by this I mean you not moving your board, where you lean way too much, the board barely moves and you end up face planting or any similar mistake where you go one-way and the board doesn’t follow.

The key is to slow down, breathe and work with the limitations of the board to work on your turns. If you can turn a foamie to do a cutback and start hitting the foam for a lazy rebound on a foamie, you will have a good foundation for applying this on another board..

Should you ever get back on a foam surfboard?

Yes! Soft-top surfboards are great and you’ll find a mix of them out there. 

The hidden benefit of a soft top surfboard is usually surfers have no expectations of the board or surf before they paddle out.

This is huge in ensuring you have a fun surf, it hasn’t been set up where fun is distinguished by doing a certain turn or anything like that. Most surfers just paddle out and forget the rest, focusing on having fun.

If you surf a very crowded spot, a foam surfboard can help you navigate the line-up, and not worry about hurting yourself or anyone else, and this can cut the stress. There are notoriously popular beaches like Bondi Beach where you can only ride foam surfboards for the safety of swimmers and surfers. 

As I mentioned earlier, a foamie can be great for working on technique in your turns, helping you to draw out your turns and move with the board and not flail or destroy your style.

If you are guilty of quick, short turns that don’t really look like turns or are stuck rushing everything in your surfing, a foamie can help you slow it all down. Count your turns out and slowly pull the board around as it takes longer to turn.

Riding a foamie to work on these parts of your technique can become a pattern interrupter to help break the bad habits in your surfing easier.

 If you can apply the good technique on a foamie to do a turn and make that consistent, when you get back to your other boards, it can help you break those bad habits and remind you to apply a proper technique. 

Summary

Foamies are the ideal beginner board, giving you a more stable board to nail your pop-up but as you progress, the design functions that give you that stability might get in the way of wanting to feel more in your surfing and try new things.

Try surfing a new board when you feel your surfing has stagnated and you are ready for the next challenge. Don’t rush into that, wait to feel like you are ready and nail your pop-up and catch unbroken waves. You can paddle out the back on these boards and they are fun to ride in a variety of conditions.

If you change, don’t make a major leap unless you want to accept you will suck before you get good. A massive drop in length, width and thickness will make the board more challenging at the beginning and can feel frustrating like you feel your surfing has gone backwards. Sometimes all you need is a board of similar length and just not as wide and thick to help you start learning to turn.

If you want to start turning the board as a beginner, look and point towards your target, work with the board and remember it will turn slowly. The board will follow your body language and where you look and point, teaching you the foundations of basic turning that you will carry on throughout your surfing.

As an intermediate, you can use the foam surfboard to work on drawing out the turns and coordinating to move with the board and apply good, fluid technique. When you go back to a regular board, you will find if you can do a decent turn on a foamie, it will help apply the good technique on the other board. Use this as a pattern interrupter if you have bad habits.

Don’t rule out a foamie, jump back on them anytime! These are fun boards, it’s hard not to smile when riding a foamie. Use them to drop expectations and just have fun or to navigate big crowds or work on breaking those bad habits and improving technique.

Next Week

Do you ride a foam surfboard? Do you love it or hate it? 

Are you just waiting to upgrade to a new board or have you made the change and loved it or hate it?

Has this inspired you to stick with a soft top surfboard or jump back on one to work on some technique?

I’d love to know, you can reach out anytime, message me in the app or send an email to info@ombe.co anytime.

Next week I am going to cover the positioning of your hands during the pop-up and where they should be for an easy pop-up.