Surfing Waves

I've heard a few people say that the Firewire Addvance 7'6" is nearly impossible to duck dive.
I'm 180lbs, 5'9".

Does the 7'2" duckdive much better, or the 6'10"? I'm a tad worried about going too small on account of my pie eating habbit

I can duck dive a Bunty Bullet 7'4", not particularly deep but enough to get me hair damp. It's also probably less volume than the Firewire.


Anyone got experience of ducking the Firewires?

Here are the dims for the addvance in sizes 7' to 7'6":

LAV-606-3 6' 6" 21 1/2" 3" swallow vol 48.0
LAV-608-3 6' 8" 22" 3 1/16" swallow vol 53.6
LAV-610-3 6' 10" 22 5/8" 3 1/16" swallow vol 56.9
LAV-700-3 7' 22 3/4" 3 1/16" swallow vol 59.7
LAV-702-3 7' 2" 23" 3 1/8" swallow vol 61.9
LAV-706-3 7' 6" 23 1/2" 3 1/4" swallow vol 69.6

The 7'6" is about 5L shy of the volume of my 9'6" longboard....you have zero chance of duck diving a board of that volume at your weight. I would say the same for all the boards listed above. You could duck dip them, launching yourself up on the nose as the wave comes and bury the nose under the lip, but no way on a proper duck dive.....turtle rolls, sure, no problem....I'm 85kg and couldn't properly duck dive any of those boards enough to make a duck dive attempt worthwhile....I would turtle the lot of them.

Big H is 100% correct. I am 6' 235lb guy and surfing most of my life and I cannot duck dive those boards. The 6'6" with 48 liters I can do a pretty decent duck dip but not a proper dive. A proper duck dive is more than merely getting your head wet, you should be getting deep enough with board and yourself to dive under the turbulence. Those other boards - no chance of that happening. The lower volume boards you may be able to get the first half of the board under the lip and allow the wave to do the rest but that's it.

I can (just) duckdive my Add 606, I'm 165lbs/74kg. But if the whitewater is big and/or powerfull then no way, u can't get it deep enough to get under the turbulence.

It's just one of those surfing dilemmas, easy duck diving or easy paddling/wave catching, u gotta choose 1..

Hey Surf Hound, how do u like the Add 6'6"? I'm happy with mine.

So is there a rough formula dictating whether you can duck dive a board? For example body weight ( kg) needs to be double the volume ( liters) to be able to duck dive ............?

MSL wrote:So is there a rough formula dictating whether you can duck dive a board? For example body weight ( kg) needs to be double the volume ( liters) to be able to duck dive ............?

That's close enough.
If you're good at duck diving - and it is a skill just like any other in surfing - you can duckdive more volume than that, but not a huge amount more because physics get in the way - you have to be able to submerge the whole board before the wave arrives. If you can't submerge the board, then it's not a duckdive, it's a duck dip, which is much less efficient.

Also, the shape of the board will make a difference - a pointy-nosed board is much easier to duckdive than a similar volume round-nosed board.

It all comes down to effectiveness and efficiency like DBBB stated....the goal is to get out back without getting demolished or spending all day and a lot of wasted energy because you take three steps forward then two steps back....if you can just smash through waves, either paddling right through, pressing up when you hit whitewater and letting it pass under you then back on the board paddling, duck dive deep enough to avoid the white cloud underwater, a turtle roll pulling the nose down a bit to get under the wave energy or a little duck dip through a face under the lip, the goal is to be back in the saddle, poised and balanced ASAP & paddling away....don't worry too much about the chosen technique, just so long as you can control the amount that you're pushed back or sloshed around....precious seconds will be lost if you lose momentary control via a too shallow duck dive that flips you around and unbalances you as you're returned towards the shore whereas if you'd done a turtle roll, which unpracticed can be a cumbersome manuver, but with practice can be relatively smooth and more importantly, you'll stay in control, not be pushed back and be able to keep your rhythm as you work your way methodically out back....if you're doing dips that just get you hair wet there is a good chance that you could just paddle and smash right through, maintaining momentum and control and getting past the break that much quicker.....

Quote from Big Wednesday - ".....just keep paddling"

Depends on your definition of duckdive and on wave size.

I live half a mile from the tijuana sloughs, i've surfed iit 10ft+ a dozen times. I use an 8f 1/2ft gun for those waves. When I duckdive, it only goes down about an inch under water, then the wave hits me and rolls over me, then I lift up and use the buoyancy of the board to come up behind the wave.Sometimes, if I am directly in the impact zone where the whitewash releases with a roar it doesn;t work, what can I say, but it works most of the time.

Why am I describing a bad duckdive? Because unless you are out in 10ft waves all boards duckdive. Not necessarily the sexy duckdives the pro's do with 5'8" potato chips but they all do.

So to answer your question, since I have all sizes: I think my 6;8" is the size where duckdiving works, not perfect, but most of the time. I have a 6;5" that I use in big waves in mainland Mexico because it duckdives big waves easy but still has enough size for big 8ft faces. My 6'1 is no problem at all, but only take that out up to overhead and a half, bigger than that I need a bigger board to catch the waves. By the way, I could use my 6'1 all the time, but I am more about the wave count than anything else. For example, when it's a good day but crowded I use my 6'3" fish or my 6'8 stepup just so I can catch the wave a few yards outside the pack, again to impriove my wave count.