Shaping for *fun-sized* adults?

What kind of waves and what riding style do you prefer? Ripping, fun, stylish (longboard)? you just wrote you want a shortboard, or hybrid. I'm not a real shaper, more a hobby builder, but I would consider the following as guidelines: Small and short board mean low swing weight, good for manouverability, bad floaters, harder to paddle, good to rip and ride in and only in the pocket of the wave Age is one part, what counts more is fitness. Usually fitness decreases slightly with age, so a board that paddles easy may be appropriate and I think weight is more important than size and with 130lbs. you are not too light. Narrower boards are better in steeper waves, wider are easier to ride and may be more forgiving. The longer and more volume, its easier to paddle, its harder to manouver but more glide, main advantage is easier wave catching and surfable in any wave, ripping worse. Since you rode a few dozen stock boards, there must be at least one or two favorites of you. This would give me the direction. finally it is all personal preference. You should know what you want, and then the shaper has something to orientate.

Well if you surf several times a week all year round, you must be more than intermediate, but I understood the stance and weight points you have made. Compared to you, I'm a beginner, because I only have the chance to surf on vacation, which is an average of 4 weeks a year :( That is the reason,why I wrote I'm more a builder than a shaper, although I'm shaping my own builds too. Back to your problem. For a decent shortboard I would go very short, to eliminate stepping and allowing shifting bodyweight, which might be in your case less than 5'7". Then I would increase the deck height slightly to put more volume into the board. A shaper should simulate this in an CAD programm. Using the parameter height, the only weight addition is basically foam, which is about 30g/l. Adding 5l of volume means a weight increase of a guessed 200g, which should not be that influence. An increase in height of 1/4 should do the job. To get to the wanted volume you may look on the volume of your 5'7". Then I would discuss with a shaper for example to build a 5'3" with the volume of the 5'7" by increasing deck height. For myself I usually try to emulate a given board in a CAD Programm (BoardCad) and then i increase the height to get to the wanted volume. But as said, I'm not a real experienced shaper, but all my boards at least work for me.

1) Having to take a wider stance to be on both the tail and the sweet spot; and 2) having to climb forward on the drop and then quickly get back. From that description I'm getting the impression to surf off your front foot (which a lot of people do) and that you would prefer a closer stance. Really, that's more of a traditional longboard thing, which if if you're going to bring that into a shortboard suggests that a conventional 5-7 x 18.5" relaxed shortboard shape with a thruster setup would be almost the worst thing you could do to yourself. If you're front footed and a little averse to be widening your stance or moving your rear foot around then a design that allows you to pop a little forward and basically stay there might work for you. TO ME, that would suggest a wide-point forward shape with possibly a rounded tail and a twin setup, mounted maybe 8" forward of center. Then the sweet spot for your rear foot is over those twins at 8" rather than over the rear of a thruster set at 3.5". Add a short tail dragger or nub for stability. I was kooking around with the CAD a little to do a rough illustration of what I'm talking about. If you're not shuffling around on the board then the length shouldn't be a problem for you. I put the wide point a couple inches forward of center so that puts the wide point and the center of mass closer to your front foot. If the 25 liter volume is too much for you then just thin the thickness down - leave the width under your chest so the board will paddle and drop in more quickly for you. Add some concave under your front foot flowing to a shallow vee panel in the tail to loosen that up, and your twins should be right under your rear foot. The board won't be as drivey because of all the curve but it should hold the face and it should come around pretty easily.