Until the 50's, surfboards were very big long and heavy. They were made out of Barsa and redwood. The usual surfboard back then was 15 feet and around 100 pounds. The invention of fiberglass in the 1950's gave boards a much lighter more manuverable vehicle to ride, but for around another ten years boards were still about ten feet long. It was in the 1960's that surfers recognized that they could ride a shorter board than the one that they were already riding. With the revolutionary board it allowed them to change directions of their boards like were impossible a while ago. They also had an advantage of fitting into small places onthe wave allowing then to fit into smaller tubes. Almost overnight the manual to make a regular surfboard was thrown away and the experimenting era of surfboards began