8' Performance Soft Top Foamboard Long Surfboard Foam Surfboard Longboard Funboard by Greco Surf

I learned to surf this summer with this board. Its a nice board but the boards they have at the local surf school are much longer and wider and therefore more stable and easier to stand up on. Its also harder to paddle out on the smaller board. The soft top can get damaged easily. My dog scratched it up a bit at one point. I would recommend renting a board at $10-25 an hour a few times before your take the leap of purchasing one. Its very physically exhausting to surf for more than an hour or two straight anyways when your first starting and your in rough waves. Paddling out into waves uses muscle groups that are underutilized otherwise. That being said having this board allowed me to train those underutilized muscles, even when not surfing, so I was very happy to have it. Overall, great purchase for the money, but probably not the best beginner board that money can buy.

My Daughter and I both decided to try out Surfing this summer . Being a Doctor by trade and one who never buys anything without consulting my Consumer Reports magazine believe me I always do my research before any purchase. I got the 2.o for my 9 year old and a 9 footer for myself. The boards feels and looks great and surfing for the first time was not frustrating at all. But what makes this experience so different was that the owner himself called me and emailed me several times to ease my buying experience as a first time surfer. He even advised me to get a board that was cheaper than what I was planning to get because he knows it will work out for me better.Delivery was fast and as Todd promised we got it just in time for the last beach day for the summer (whew). It did warn about direct sun so we just turned it upside down and made sure our beach umbrella shaded it , we were out for 10 hours and the board did well. Boards were easy to carry around, and as novice surfer it made the experience enjoyable even without lessons yet.I seldom find time to put reviews but this kind of customer service is so rare now a days that I feel I have to return the favor. Though I did buy it directly from their GrecoBoard online because August they had a free delivery special , I found their product thru Amazon.

(The only reason you do not see this as an Amazon Verified Purchase is because there is free shipping if you order from Greco directly, rather than if you order from Amazon.com and have to pay a $30 shipping fee. Many thanks to another reviewer down below who mentioned this valuable tip.)My family and I live near Santa Cruz, California which happens to be one of the better surf spots on the globe. I am a beginner surfer and have tried the sport before on previous vacations but unbeknownst to me, I was always given a too small board (especially for my beginner level)(I was often handed five to six foot boards but am 5'11" and weigh 180 pounds). So, during the summer of 2013, I wanted to introduce myself and my small son to surfing but without spending a princely sum. After doing much research, I decided to go with the Greco boards. Mainly this was because the 2.0 is a funboard with a soft top with better grip for the feet, easy flotation, and less worries if I wipe out and the board collides with me. The price was respectable at $250 and the quality seemed better than the $170 Costco Wavestorm or $220 Liquid Shredder models with eight foot lengths (the included ankle leash is also higher quality).Engineering wise, the Greco 2.0 is one long giant piece of expanded polystyrene (EPS), which is very similar to styrofoam. Chemically, EPS is an aromatic polymer made from the hydrocarbon monomer styrene. If you have ever taken left overs from a restaurant in a clam shell container, or seen packing peanuts, you have handled EPS. The funny thing is that an eight foot sheet of EPS with the Greco 2.0 density is widely available for less than $8 US dollars. Why an eight foot slab with PP backing can be sold in one application to help protect a flat screen HDTV in a box for $10, but when marketed as a surfboard, suddenly commands $250 is a mystery to me. Of course there is the addition of the stringers, shaping, adding the backing, etc... but any decent large scale plastics manufacturer should be able to make this board for perhaps ~ 30 to 50 bucks. (truth be told, they can probably fabricate a board of this size for about $10 to $15) My contention is that just like many luxury hobbies, there is a substantial markup when any consumer product is marketed as part of the surfing culture.The Greco 2.0 came in only two days which was extremely fast. The board was decently wrapped in a long white cardboard box and was covered in bubble wrap. It would have been helpful though if a few cardboard inserts had been used to better hold the board. After removing the wrap and inspecting the board, I found it to be well made and very attractive (I ordered the red version). I then unwrapped the included fins and ankle leash and began to attach them. The only thing that was missing was a set of instructions. While any surfer with a small bit of experience would have known what to do, for a complete beginner (which is the main audience for this board) it is a little bit harder to judge how hard to torque down the fin bolts or how to attach the ankle leash.I then removed the ankle leash, mounted the board tail forward on the car (with my Block Surf roof straps) and the next morning drove an hour south to lower 34th street in Capitola. I waxed the board up with Sticky Bumps basecoat and cold water wax. Over the next five or six hours, I found the board to be both easy to get up on and stable. The ankle leash worked perfectly and the board seemed adequately tough and buoyant. One of the few downsides of the board though, is its weight. At about six pounds and with great buoyancy, it is a bit of chore to move about in heavy surf and hard to duck dive with under a wave (a disadvantage of all EPS soft tops and not a fault of Greco). I feel this board is about perfect for someone up to about 6 feet tall or 190 pounds. I dont think this board would do as well for a beginner surfer above 190 pounds or over about six feet in height. (for that, better to have a 9 or 10 foot longboard to start out with)Flash forward to the summer of 2014, and I was making my first trip of the season down to Santa Cruz and put the board on top of my car, only this time, I forgot to face the board backward and also let the curving tip of the front face downward and sticking out over my front windshield. As I got up to 70 mph, I heard a high pitched vibration as I passed a car and suddenly the board snapped and the front three feet bent completely 180 degrees backward. Needless to say, I was not surfing that day on the Greco. I called the company and indeed spoke to the president and since the board was less than a year old, he offered to send me a new one for $100 including shipping. I figured lesson learned and decided to try the Greco again. From there on out, I always point the board backwards on top of my car and make sure that only about 5 inches overhangs the front windshield (so the wind cannot catch it and lift it up) and I also use towels with my Block Surf board straps.Flash forward again to the summer of 2015 and I decided to try a little bit bigger waves at Steamers Lane (also at Santa Cruz). This is a more advanced break and the day I went out, there were five to seven foot waves out there. I caught a wave about six feet high and popped up but lost my footing and fell sideways with the wave coming down on the board and causing a crack across the middle. It did not cause the board to break in two but it did allow water to enter into the EPS interior and stringers. I was pretty bummed that the board was that weak and I ended up repairing it with a special surfboard resin.Currently, in 2016, I still have the board and still use it but another crack has appeared about three feet back from the front. Also, the plastic screws used to keep the fins on keep unscrewing especially in heavy surf. So I had to tighten them using a waterproof form of Loctite. I should also mention a few warnings which will help you to keep the Greco in great condition for many years. The first is to not leave the colored side of your board face up in the sun on a hot beach. The company recommends storing the board in the shade or under a towel if taking an extended break out of the water. They also do not recommend storing the 2.0 in a garage or shed during your typical hot summer day. If you live in central Maine or Seattle, you might not have to worry, but the EPS foam will not respond well to garage heat on a 90 or 95 deg day. (EPS begins to expand at about 130 F which is the temperature of a hot garage on a 100 degree day) Another tip is that the board is fairly easy to indent, so if you use padded roof racks or straps, make sure to use a thick towel where the straps touch the rails. Otherwise, you will indent the board when you pull the straps tight. A final tip is that the included fins are not super sharp, but they could still cut you in the water if not careful, so the concerned beginner might want to take a dremel tool and dull them down a bit.I am really torn as to a rating for this Greco 8 foot board. For the $250 I paid and for my beginner experience level, I would call this board a draw. It will help you get up on a smaller wave and if you treat it very gently, it will last several years. It is a great board if you just want to try surfing and are only heading out into mild waves. The customer service is extremely good. They do indeed answer the phone right off the bat with a real human and you can reach the company owner very easily by email or phone. The downsides are that the board is not nearly as strong as a fiberglass board. The stringers and EPS construction appear to not be well constructed and fin attachment screws often come undone. The board also lacks instructions or documentation of any kind. Now with three full years and about 20 surfing days under my belt with this Greco 8 footer, I would give it about 3.5 stars out of five. If the company can improve the tolerances for construction of the board and the fin attachment screws, I suspect they could get this board up to about five stars, and I would be willing to give them another try.