The new Vikings spinoff, Vikings: Valhalla, depicts the characters using paddleboards to help them during battle, but it's reasonable to question the historical accuracy of Vikings inventing surfboards. The documentation of the Viking era comes from many sources, including enemies of the Vikings, meaning writers of the show must come to their own interpretation of what life was like. Although Vikings were responsible for many different inventions still used today, the idea that surfboards are one of them is debatable.
Set around 100 years after the end of Vikings, the follow-up series Vikings: Valhalla focuses on famous Norse warriors such as Leif Eriksson, Harald Sigurdsson, Freydis Eriksdotter, and King Canute. Covering new Viking explorations and historical events, the series also depicts a battle in which the Vikings lead an attack on London Bridge. During the offensive, dreamed up by Leif, the Vikings utilized paddleboards to carry out their plan. This raises questions regarding whether Viking warriors might have been the first people to invent and use surfboards.
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Although Vikings: Vahalla depicts Leif creating surfboards for the Viking scouts to paddle silently through the English marshes, there is no evidence that this reflects history. The earliest record of surfboards dates back to 12th century Polynesia, where cave paintings detail surfing in action. Based on this and other historical evidence, it is widely held that Polynesia was the birthplace of surfboards. There are also reports of similar methods of travel, such as stand-up paddleboarding, being used as far back as 1000 B.C. So the Vikings using surfboards in the Vikings: Valhalla spinoff, while clever, was the result of artistic license.
However, although surfboards were not used, Vikings found other means of travel to make their way through shallow waters. The Vikings crafted long, low-slung vessels, called drakkar, with low drafts of around half a meter This meant that they could easily maneuver along rivers or marshes with little water, a significant advantage over their enemies. On top of the low, narrow profile, the ships were built with the boards of the hull overlapping, making the drakkar incredibly flexible, the perfect vessel for getting in close to their enemies' beaches and marsh areas without being shipwrecked. As a result, the drakkar ship became "the greatest military tool of the Scandinavians, as its characteristics allowed them to navigate both Atlantic and Mediterranean waters.” (via OpenMind). So despite not using surfboards, the Vikings certainly invented their own unique methods of navigating shallow waters as easily as deep.
Although historical battles, such as Vikings: Valhalla's fall of London Bridge, did happen, no surfboards were used by the Vikings to carry out the attacks. Even though they may not have surfed the waves, however, they were responsible for creating other maritime tools along with the drakkar, such as their incredibly accurate solar stones made of Icelandic spar used for navigation on cloudy days. Though it took creative liberties with the paddleboards, Vikings: Valhalla does a good job of illustrating this ingenuity and craftsmanship of the Vikings.