Surfboards 2.0

Once reserved for the young and the expert, shortboards have been reinvented thanks to advances in technology and design. For about $1,000, you can hit the waves with a bold new attitude.

- DANIEL DUANE

A SNARKY REMARK by my friend Kevin changed everything I thought I knew about surfboards. After parking in front of his house by San Francisco's Ocean Beach, I unloaded the hefty eight-foot surfboard that guys like us ride when we reach middle age. But Kevin, 62, appeared with a snazzy little 6-foot-4-inch shortboard that looked like something 11-time world champion Kelly Slater would have ridden in his heyday.

Shortboards are like Formula One race cars insanely fast and fun, but super hard to ride. Kevin and I both gave them up back in the 1990s. And yet, here was Kevin scoffing at my big old-dude board with a friendsdon't-let-friends vibe, and saying, "Is that really what you're riding?"

I thought he was deluded until we hit the water. Kevin caught a wave and slashed the biggest turn I'd seen him make in decades. We traded boards and I noticed that Kevin's new toy was wider, thicker, and flatter than the shortboards of the '90s, which were famously potato-chip-thin and highly curved from nose to tail. It surfed like a dream: I caught a wave, ripped around like an adrenalized kid, and realized that something profound has changed in shortboard design.