Need advice on first board

Hi Kiger,

STOKED that you are getting a new deck!

First off, you do not want a soft deck at 240 lbs as you are looking for better control in turns on groomers. You want a board that is on the firm side that will stand up to your weight and maintain its shape. A soft board (actually most boards) will distort heavily under 240 lbs of load and will not have the correct resulting shape or proper edge contact to allow you to turn effectively.

2nd, Don't bail on wavy edges (magnetraction) if you want to check them out - and they are very useful for big guys in your situation. Mervin (Gnu, Libtech, Roxy) make boards that are right up there with the other top builders in terms of warranty rate (very low). The boards all do have full metal edges and they are tucked into the core after the contact points which (if anything) makes them stronger. The only portion of the boards which are not wrapped are the last few inches of tip and tail and that is done to ease repair if tip damage from hard impact does occur.

Thanks for the advice guys and Riley, I really like the list!

So out of the four which is the best park board? I think they all look good but narrowed it down to sabotage and carbon credit (stats from thegoodride):

Gnu Carbon credit
(+) Cost: 279 for 2013 in 165
(+) edge hold 5/5
(+) turn initiation 4/5
(+) uneven terrain 4/5
(-) carving 2/5
(-) speed 2/5
(-) on snow feel 2/5

salomon sabotage
(?) Max length 161
(+) on snow feel 4/5
(+) edge hold 4/5
(+) carving 4/5
(+) speed 4/5
(~) uneven terrain 3/5
(~) turn initiation 3/5

I am not going to be jumping, jibbing, piping, etc until I drop some weight. I'm not fat by any means and have good muscle but could still stand to lose 20 pounds. Also, I don't expect any deep powder, mostly groomed runs. So any of these variables don't matter to me at the moment.

Stability.
When I'm going down the groomed park sometimes a rough patch gets somewhat unstable, so this is an uneven terrain factor right?. Also I think when going faster the board wobbles a bit and it takes a lot of energy (tires me out) trying to maintain it, so this is a on snow feel factor?

Turns
A bigger board means everything takes more effort and energy. A board with good turn initiation means my body can make the board move into a turn with less energy, right?

Edge Hold
It looks like the carbon credit takes the cake because of magnetraction but the salomon isn't far behind. I have been on some craptastic groomed slopes that seemed like hard packed ice.

Summary
I think it comes down to Salomon Sabotage or GNU CCredit. Is the Sabotage at 161 too small for me though? Of the two, given the above, what do you think I should pick? I simply can't decide...