Advice on next board (7S superfish vs Trigger Bros 'Hydro')
theevilpotato, go and talk to a few different local shapers in your area. Be open and honest about your ability and use, as you have pointed out above. Even though you may pay a bit more than stock items, the reward is generally priceless.
If I was you, I would find myself a good shaper and tell them exactly what you want. They will take your size, weight and what you want the board to do and then take the typical wave you are riding into consideration. You dont pay anymore for a custom compared to buying off the shelf. You are pretty limited on choice of shaper where you are in Elwood, but I would start my search for a shaper on the Island or something. I recently spoke to both Full circle and Islantis and found both of them to be pretty competent at making suggestions on exactly what I was after, even though I ended up going for a different shaper all together.
Good luck, hope your day gets better.
Go against the trend, buy Australian made.
DONT BUY ANYTHING MADE IN ASIA, SUPPORT THE INDUSTRY HERE IN AUSTRALIA. TOO MANY BOARD MAKERS ARE STRUGGLING. ALL AUSSIE SURFERS SHOULD TOTALLY BOYCOTT ALL ASIAN MADE BOARD AND GO OUT AND ORDER A NEWY FROM YOUR LOCAL SHAPER, IT WILL GIVE THE INDUSTRY A MUCH NEEDED BOOST.
Sorry to here that you've had stuff ripped off but maybe buying the 7S could be an insurance policy of sorts because not many people would want to steal one.
Stick with your local shaper if you've got the time and money to wait on a new board.
I got my second board made by a local shaper on the Peninsula with a custom colour job. I could not be happier.
So I'm the poor bastard who had his board stolen (along with 3 others) this morning: here
To keep myself from total despondency I'm thinking about my next board. Honestly I was planning on selling my old one and getting a new one soon anyway.
My skill level - I surf reasonably often (weekly), but I'm not a great surfer. I can take off, ride the face, carve a little but not much. I'm confident in up to 6ft, and have surfed some more difficult breaks like Boobs in vic and D'bah in QLD. Recently I've been going more often and improving quite a bit. I'm 6'3" and weigh ~85kg. My recently stolen board was a 6'7", 3/4 trigger shown in the thread linked above. It was a great learning board because I could catch almost anything, but it was a bastard to turn and I'd probably outgrown it.
So I'm looking for something that will keep this wave-catching ability so that I can keep practicing, but offer me a bit more looseness and speed so that I can improve.
At the moment I'm split between a 6'6" Hydro
or a 6'3" superfish
I'm leaning towards the superfish as it seems to have good buoyancy which'll help me paddling out and getting more waves, but I'm a little worried about it holding up in some of the bigger winter swell, as well as offering me room to improve.
What do you recommend? Has anyone tried either of these boards?