[ricki]

Garry gives good advice and thanks for providing it. Phil for heavier guys, like me, we may want a longer board with more wetted area and flotation for cruising. It is nice to be able to stroke and glide for a while. If not, your board might be too short and have too little displacement if you aren't ok with short interval stroking. This isn't necessarily all bad because in the waves you want something shorter and more turnable. Even on flat water it makes it more of a workout and again for lots of us, that isn't a bad thing. My wife weighs something like 45 to 50 lbs less than me. Despite that we can use some of the same boards. The big difference is she glides nicely, handles distance paddles in fairly good time. In my case, I glide far less per stroke and if I want to maintain a similar speed I will need to stroke more frequently and exert more energy or shift to a larger board.