How often do surfers break surfboards?

If you surf for long enough, it’s an unfortunate reality that at some point you’ll need to fork out some cash to pay for a board repair. As much as most people try to take as much care of them as possible, constantly hauling a delicate board to and from the beach and surfing it in an ocean full of hazards means accidents are inevitable.

Of course, just how prone your board is to breaking depends on what it’s made of, and this is one of many reasons why foam or epoxy boards are typically recommended for beginners. Aside from the benefits they offer in terms of being easier to learn on, they are also much more resistant to damage. If you knock your softboard on the door frame on the way out, it most likely won’t do any harm, and some epoxy boards feel so durable that you could almost hurl them onto a pile of rocks without consequence – though we wouldn’t recommend it.

Once you progress to a fibreglass board, however, the risk of causing damage to it increases significantly. Courtesy of the materials used to make them, these boards are very vulnerable to damage, and the same door frame that didn’t put a dent in your foam board could easily put a crack in the exterior of your hardboard which will prevent you from going in the water until it’s fixed.

I should know – I’ve been the victim (or perhaps more aptly, the perpetrator) of a damaged board on numerous occasions, and when it happens while you’re on the way to the beach for a surf it can be pretty frustrating. It can happen at any time – while you’re walking out the front door, loading it into or onto your car, or getting it out at the beach. All it takes is one little knock and a crack can appear which, if you leave unfixed and surf regardless, will allow water inside the board and potentially permanently damage it. 

So make sure you are as careful as possible when transporting your board. Buying a board bag is a great way to avoid these issues, as your board will be cushioned from minor blows, but if you’re hellbent on going without one then you need to be very wary. 

There’s also the unfortunate, albeit rarer, possibility of having your board run over in the car park. This isn’t a hugely common occurrence but it happens – an inevitable consequence of having a bunch of cars and a bunch of surfboards on the ground all in one confined place. It’s pretty easy to avoid – all you need to do is keep your board well out of harm’s way, but you’d be surprised how many people leave their boards on the ground a couple of metres behind their car. And as you may expect, the consequence of a car rolling over your board is a little more significant than just banging it on your front door on the way out, and instead of forking out a few bucks to repair a minor ding (or even doing it yourself), it’ll likely result in you looking at spending a few hundred on a new board. 

So as you can see, there are a handful of different ways you can damage your surfboard, and we haven’t even jumped in the water yet! Once you’re in there, a whole new array of possible ways to break your board will present themselves, and these are sometimes a little more difficult to avoid than the aforementioned.

Hazard number one is other surfers, or more specifically, their boards. If your board cannons into somebody else it will likely be them on the receiving end of most of the damage, but board-on-board collisions are unfortunately quite common and can easily result in hundreds of dollars’ worth of damage to both boards. This, along with the potential to cause injury, is why we’ve so persistently harped on in previous articles about the importance of knowing your place in the line-up, and when it’s your turn to go.

People aside, there are also plenty of natural hazards in the water which can send you straight to the ding repairer, if not to the board shop for a new board. Rocks are an obvious one – they can do a surprisingly good job of concealing themselves underwater and if you crash into one of them, no matter how gently, your board is going to come off second best. 

Even if you’re sure there are no rocks around though, you need to be careful of what else is around you. Sand may feel soft when it’s between your toes, but if you nosedive into the ocean floor it can do your board plenty of damage. This is even more likely when you’re learning, as not only are you more likely to nosedive, but you’ll also probably be surfing in shallower water, meaning there’s a lot less cushion between you and the ocean floor. I’ve done this myself – surfing 1-2 foot onshore slop in shallow water, hardly waves worth surfing, I nosedived straight into the sand and buckled my board right across the nose. It was a $200 lesson I haven’t forgotten. 

Finally, there is the risk of breaking your board under the pressure of the wave itself. Most likely this won’t happen when you’re learning – you need to be surfing waves of a reasonable size for the wave to damage your board – but you don’t need to be surfing Pipeline on a 20-foot day to worry about it. I’ve seen people come in with two separate pieces of what was previously a single board on days where the waves were only slightly overhead. Unfortunately, this is a relatively difficult scenario to avoid – it’s unlikely and you have to be unlucky for it to occur, but if the wave and your board meet at the wrong moment there’s not a whole lot you can do. 

So in summary, breaking your board is a lot easier than most of us would like! There are a plethora of ways in which it can happen, but fortunately for most of them you can mitigate the risk by paying attention to what you’re doing both in and out of the water, and recognising the vulnerability of your board to damage.