With your first board of your own, you'll finally be ready to fly after the surf course. Ideally, you will learn to glide, footstrap surfing and maybe even your first glide jibes in a year.
Whether you are better off using a centreboard or a full glider (only with a fin in the tail) depends primarily on the amount of gliding wind you can hope for or expect. If you can travel to Lake Garda every weekend or live directly on the coast, you probably don't need a centreboard. There you can usually learn to planing in one season. However, if your surfing days are concentrated on summer holidays on the Baltic Sea, you will probably go out on the water more often in two to three wind forces and will be happy to have a board that is also fun in displacement - a board with a centreboard like the Fanatic Viper. Because short, wide freeriders run slower in displacement, with more pressure in the sail, a Fanatic Viper is definitely more fun than the Fanatic Shark for a leisurely cruise across the lake. The Shark only really comes into its own from at least 50 per cent planing wind. However, anyone who has ever been full planing on the Shark knows what a modern freeride feeling can feel like.
In addition to these very clearly designed boards, you will also find hybrids that work well with a centreboard and are easy to planing, such as the JP Funster. If you want to have a centreboard with you as a psychological safety device, or if you are looking for a 50:50 ratio of planing and non-planing wind, this is a very good choice.
Because all centreboards are equipped with quite short fins, you should retrofit a longer fin for predominantly planing use at the latest. Not only to increase performance, but primarily because this will give you the right trim and the board will hold its course well even in a relaxed position. With a fin that is too small, most boards have a tendency to unintentional planing when planing.
Swordboards are particularly recommended
To the Board without sword grab
For quicker orientation, we have indicated the suitability of each board for displacement and planing according to our assessment from zero to 100 per cent.
You can find the test results of the 10 riser boards below as a PDF download.
