Due to the highly competitive nature of the shortboard market, high performance shortboard designs have become very generic in recent years. Most shapers play follow the leader, making only subtle changes in bottom contours and outline to differentiate their designs from one another. Most surfers lacking a trained eye in board design will not notice or feel much difference from one shaper's design to another.

Basic shortboard surfboards feature a single to double concave and three fins (thruster set-up). These boards are thinned down as much as possible creating a board that lacks floatation and offering poor paddling ability. To the novice surfer, shortboards can be very difficult to catch waves on and unless you’re a surfer of considerable skill, shortboards prove to be very difficult to ride in weak/small surf. These boards are designed for performance minded surfers and are designed for quality surf.

Shortboards need to be turned continuously to generate speed and if you posses this kind of ability, you’ll likely be able to do any type of manuever you can imagine including airs, tail slides, floaters, reverses, etc. The shortboard design is definitely meant for the intermediate to advanced level surfer and will create serious problems for a beginner.