Surfing Waves

Hi,

I ride a 9" foot epoxy board, and have been surfing for about 3-4 months. Recently I have started to have some success angling the board and riding the line in decent wave conditions. I noticed a trend that in the afternoon when the wind comes and it becomes a bit choppy, I start nose diving when dropping in. I think my positioning on the board is fine as the nose of the board is a couple inches out of the water. I also arch my back when catching the wave and try to angle the board a bit. It just seems that when conditions are sloppy I develop the nose-diving problem when dropping in. When popping up in good conditions I think I automatically jump to a mid-position and have success. Should I be popping up with my back foot far back on the board and then adjust to a more forward position after dropping in?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

-Matt

Your position on the board is NOT supposed to be fixed at 1 spot. depending on the wave you need to adjust. If the face is shallow and flat then you may want to move forward a little to ease catching it, But if it rears up and becomes steep/ a wall like then you shuffle backward towards the tail of the board so when the wave reaches you it doesn't tip you over.

It's a fine balancing act, try to glance back when you paddle and adjust as needed.

Once you caught a steep face/ do a late drop-in you might get hooked, the sensation is like walking on air (for a few seconds).

I like the drop .

The board is essentially a dog, and will make that sort of thing a constant bane.

Nice Roy way to go , prehaps he should spend $30,000 on one of yours?

Ofcourse you know fleshin' all about his board aopart from its length and its an epoxy board, so every 9foot epoxy board is a dog then? Wierd I see people surfing them quite often...

Mate you know nearly all shop longboards are mals, and judging by the board's behaviour it suffers from the same problems as they all do.

The short answer is that yes they are all dogs. . at least the mals are and that's most of them

Hi Roy,

May I enquire to what properties you employ in your own board designs that differ from that of the averaged Mal design that will affect performance when pertaining to the boards likelihood to nosedive in light wind chop?

Hey Phil,
hows the surfing coming along? I follow some of your posts and I've seen you reply to a couple of mine. just wonderin how it's goin for you. I started February this year and although fun, surfing is still quite difficult for me.

nose diving a bit less though. and getting out past the breakers? not really even a thought for me these days, just a given.

Hey Pauly,

Sounds like you started a bit before me so we're probably experiencing the same problems. What are your board dimensions? I'd like to know how you have dealt with/changed your habbits to adjust to nose-diving.

phillwilson wrote:May I enquire to what properties you employ in your own board designs that differ from that of the averaged Mal design that will affect performance when pertaining to the boards likelihood to nosedive in light wind chop?

Can of Worms Status - Open.

drowningbitbybit wrote:Can of Worms Status - Open.

As a regular poster to this group who is always willing to give people pointers on where they are going wrong and pass on experiences from his own surfing and board-making adventures, I'm sure Roy is more then happy to chime in as he is in a well informed position to talk specifics of templates to the first poster who was asking for help regarding nose diving in specific conditions.

I for one was really interested that Roy has knowledge that may help me with my next choice of board, cos indeed I for one, wouldn't want to pick a dog !!

phillwilson wrote:I'm sure Roy is more then happy to chime in

Indeed.

Hi again Pauly,

Nice ride you got there (assuming thats you in your display pic) .

I feel like I am making some good progress here at the moment , and Im sure a lot of it is due to "mind surfing " cos god knows summer has not been kind to us northern uk surfers this year.

If you are finding things are slowing down a little progress wise I would say that in my experiance this is the nature of the beast..the first few steps come reletivly close together cos they are all needed ot be checked off to get up and riding to shore however , once this is nailed, the next bit is much more of a refinement of technique and tis takes much longer and indeed "IS" the activity of surfing in its most base level.


for instance I think i caught my first green ride about November last year....this was a HUGE step and I thought i was off....no... no not at all !!

I had to wait MONTHS for that next green.

but then after a while of not surfing I just seemed to dial it in, now I would say I am a line-rider , its rare that i catch one straight to shore now , and the weird thing is, I dont know what I have "learnt" thats led to this happening...same with going ot the outside i guess, I genuinely was thinking that i would have to content myself with being a surfer who is always on the inside.

Do you find that your surf confidence is directly related to how you percieve your fitness?

I remember when I used to "scrimp" onmy physical activity....walking as far out as i could rather then paddling...standing near my board rather then sat on it while waiting for a wave, trying to catch late waves etc.... now I see all the physical parts of the activity as positives and push myself much harder..gritting my teeth for bigger paddle outs, really committing to getting waves (to the point where im starting to be too far in towards the beach and the wave isnt catching up until its broken...gotta think of a way to get round that!!!!!!!).

anyway, its all good as far as I can see, Im looking forwards to a great winter.

hows things at your end?

Phill

phillwilson wrote:Hi Roy,

May I enquire to what properties you employ in your own board designs that differ from that of the averaged Mal design that will affect performance when pertaining to the boards likelihood to nosedive in light wind chop?

It's very easy if one follows a few simple rules:

1) Abandon noseriding requirements, as that is the root cause of the problem

2) make the tail of the board narrower and the rails less parallel.

3) Allow some nose rocker.

Here's an example of a takeoff in some fairly choppy conditions ( at 1:18 )


Here's a new version of the the same board design ( the Resolute Salmon )



.

Hi Roy,

Thanks for adding in that extra info, was great to see a vid of you in action too. that board is HUUUUGE, how much does it weigh? wouldn't ever want to get in your way!!

hey bet getting a board bag is tricky..do you contact a tent maker?

Peace
Phill

KUROMAGURO wrote:Hey Pauly,

Sounds like you started a bit before me so we're probably experiencing the same problems. What are your board dimensions? I'd like to know how you have dealt with/changed your habbits to adjust to nose-diving.

Hey Kuro,
First off let me say, I in no way am in a position to be giving surf advice, considering the fact that I suck. However to answer your question, I bought a used Stewart longboard in need of some repair. Dimensions are, 9' X 22 7/8" X 3 3/4". It's a squash tail two plus one set up and came with a 7.5" cut away center fin. I took off the side bites and went with a new George Greenough 9" 4A center fin, I like it.
As far as sinking the nose. This was big problem in the beginning for me. I figured out after many pearling sessions that I was trying to catch the waves WAY too late (meaning the curl was too tight/steep to accomodate a 9' board). I wrote in an earlier post to angle the board at 10 and 2, like your hands on the steering wheel of a car. I know now that this is too severe an angle and opt for a more reasonable five degrees off center as I read in another post. Most of my changes occured after much time spent just sitting on my board and analizing waves, thinking "what am I doing wrong?" As I watched the waves pass under me I would visualize my board on them and I could see some that seemed to be the right shape to glide down without pearling. I've been trying to memorize what those waves look like as they approach. Next I would watch other surfers catch those types of waves and this is where I learned a lot and further developed my pop-up. I saw this dude longboarding, easily catching anything he went for, which was cool, but what was different was his pop-up. It was actually slow, much slower than I'd been trying for, less spastic and a lot more measured and deliberate. He would paddle a few strokes like normal, up on the paddling/cruising spot of the board (I believe this spot to be too far forward for lingering in but a spot you have to be in momentarily to get the forward glide going) then I noticed after he glided for a SECOND, he placed his hands flat on the board down by the bottom of his rib cage. His back would be arched up and back like crazy with hands directly below the shoulders (see yoga "cobra" pose for reference) http://carrieanddanielle.com/wp-content ... a_pose.jpg so that nothing above the belt line was touching the board and it would slightly pivot where his hands were planted taking the weight off the front and shifting it to the back half thus keeping the nose up. Then he'd just casually place his front foot between his hands. His hands acted as a fulcrum or pivot point for the board. (Authors note: he was not as sexy as the girl in the pose and his head wasn't thown back like that...) It was awesome. I've now adopted this technique to the best of my ability and pearling is becoming less frequent. I think the main key to success is proper wave selection. If you're going for waves at the wrong time, the end result is not good.
Hope this helps. Keep on keepin' on.

Pauly

p.s. that's me and my board in my avatar and sorry for the novel.

RoyStewart wrote:[
Here's an example of a takeoff in some fairly choppy conditions ( at 1:18 ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyH_bvepS3I

Trouble is roy your video shows nothing you couldnt do at least as well on any mal on the planet.

The OP's problem is one of technique, not board design, yet you are utterly blinded by your own spin.

phillwilson wrote:Hi Roy,

Thanks for adding in that extra info, was great to see a vid of you in action too. that board is HUUUUGE, how much does it weigh? wouldn't ever want to get in your way!!

hey bet getting a board bag is tricky..do you contact a tent maker?

Peace
Phill

Hi Phill that's a 12 footer at 37 pounds, the one in the video is identical except that it weighs 48 pounds.

Regardless of what the trolls say, boards of this general type are far more capable than the malibu type, and much of what is seen on our videos is not possible with a malibu. . .. they like to say that it is because our boards make it look very easy ( as indeed it is with the right equipment ) and they like to imagine that their malibu noseriding boards can match the performance which they see but the reality is that they can't even get close, in the vast majority of waves shown the malibus simply can't get up enough speed to make sections, and/or fail to make the wave due to control issues.

The noseriding type is a slow board type designed for tail pivots and boardwalking tricks. Making a fast board is very easy, any amateur can shape a fast functional longboard which will leave the so called 'performance' mals in its wake if they follow a few simple guidelines. If you are interested I can explain. In fact it's probably easier to do the job oneslf as most commercial foam shapers have grafted themselves into the global surf industry and can't change unless the word is sent from california. The best bet would be to ask for a Longboard Fish or a California cruiser, one might get lucky that way, as those are non noseriding types. Contrary to what RJD says there is no technique which can fix the design faults in the noseriding longboard, particulary because the noserider is specifically designed to make surfing difficult.

Regarding the board bag Geoff Perry at Surftubes in Auckland makes us custom bags for boards of any size, at a price !

Here are a few waves from last Friday, the conditions were marginal and the other boards couldn't get going at all.





.

This is turning into an interesting thread,
I hope no offence is taken as I delve a little deeper into the questions that these posts raise, no offence is meant , I will state that now just in case it all gets passionate...

Roy, could you please tell me a little of what your "Ideal" is? We all, i'm sure, have reasons for our surfing, things we want to achieve, ideas of that would constitute "the perfect ride" etc...these are very often in conflict with the ideas of others...
I for instance found it difficult to use SUSS's surf logging and prediction tool, because it assumes that a bigger wave is always rated as a better wave to the surfer...which in my case is not the situation at all.... 1ft clean is perfect for my tastes and style.

now with that said, and my own tastes volunteered forward, may i venture forth?

Roy it seems that you assume that "stability" and possibly "ease" are key to surfing, indeed they may well be to *you*.... however a large part of what others enjoy seem to go hand in hand with instability and yes..to some extent battling the board as well as the sea.

lets take the paradigm set out by your previous posts out of the world of surfing.....should I equate that a post in "Ice Sliders Monthly" from someone asking for "help on balancing on ice" would yield the allegorical answer of something along the lines of "Try Gravel !!"

what I am trying to say in a round about way is that a lot of the unstable factors that need to be managed while surfing are brought about to enhance the pleasure of doing so.

now im not in anyway saying you are wrong for liking what you like etc... but those few guys in the (heavily-edited) footage who are "failing to catch waves on their sub standard Malibu boards" seem to look as though they are having at least *some* fun doing so..they are surfing in a style that would be something I would probably, myself, find entertaining, where as whilst your boards certainly prove themselves worthwhile wave catchers..watching a few minutes of the vid made me think that if I was in the same situation, that I would get a little *bored* by the style you adopt. nothing is really *happening* and it feels more like taking the bus rather then going for a fun ride.

Like I say this isn't an attack, and I have learnt a lot from watching, just saying that perhaps the things you are trying to achieve are different to that of a majority of others and possibly that is why your needs aren't met by usual board design ( rather then one set of parameters being "better" then another) .

I know from this and other posts that you have a particular distaste of Nose Riding ...however I don't believe that MOST boards are set up for this by default where as your previous posts in this particular thread seem to allude to that. C'mon you are wiser then that, lets not put misinformation on here that new riders could read and make decisions based on these posts.

finally for what its worth... i want to just share with you something ,

I was sat on a cold Christmas day - night in the rainy UK with my then girlfriend..flicked onto a surf doc on channel 4 and BAM..there it was.. some 50's footage of a guy in *THAT* pose............the "Soul-Arch"........the master and commander of the sea, in that glimpse I saw a man living his dreams , paying the debts of time skill fitness and practice to achieve that one moment....

i knew at that moment what I wanted to "do with myself".....and I am now in the process of exactly that, so please don't ever write off this endeavours as worthless , it may lack meaning for you, but for others it can be the greatest of rides.

sorry for length

Phill

Hi Phil,

Actually the vast majority of longboards are basically noseriding designs, and can be identified as such by their planshape and rocker curves. I said most longboards not most surfboards, there's a big difference.

I was merely helping with the design elements which will prevent nose diving.

You are incorrectly assuming that the two main design elements which prevent nosediving ( i.e. more planshape curve through the tail and a decelerating rocker curve ) determine that one has to ride a particular way, that's not the case, and in fact those design features are usually found in shortboards. . . . they can be applied to a huge variety of board lengths, shapes, and lines on a wave.

Regarding the supopsedly 'heavy' editing. .. . perhaps you imply that the photographer was deliberately attempting to present the foam boards in a bad way, but in fact the rides shown were a fair sample. The waves were marginal.

By the way, one of the consequences of making it look easy is that people like yourself incorrectly assume that there's'nothing happening' or that there's little skill or effort involved. It's a bit like assuming that a video of a man meditating shows that it's really easy because he's not doing complicated yoga postures, when in fact it could well be the culmination of a lifetime of experience and effort, not easily achieved.

My suggestion is that you prevent nosediving not be skill combined with functional design, but with skill combined with the dysfunctional design you already have. This will mean that you nosedive more, but if i'm right in judging your aims, will make the takeoffs you do make much sweeter. If you do this for a while you'll find that gradualy the surf industry will move towards more functional longboards which will nosedive less. . . . once that has happened you will no doubt miraculously find it attractive, in response to skillful marketing.

Until then, happy falling off

I have a board to build, gotta go . . . .

I Guess I'll see RG out around chch on the Salmon and see what I think, didnt get a chance on the olo that you sent round.

Still not sure your answeer to a guy struggling with a takeoff is buy a 12ft plank you made is the right one.

Theres plenty plenty people manage to ride mals and noseriders perfectly well without planting the nose, which kid of points to technique.