The sound of surfing

[oldmansurfer]

So lately I have been noticing a sound which I assume is spray coming off the exposed tail that sticks up above the wave. Does anyone else notice this? I can't recall hearing it maybe because usually the lip is smacking back so much it covers it up. But it brought up this idea do you hear sounds when surfing? What do you hear? I can recall when surfing the biggest waves I ever surfed the sound of my board going very fast on smooth water a kind of zipping sound that I never heard before or since. Mostly I seem to block noise out. I recall on one big day the sound of the lip hitting the water. It sounded like what I imagine a tree trunk snapping would sound like. Loud and scary but mostly I seem to just block out the noise the wave is making. What about you all?

[dtc]

For some reason I always feel like surfing is really quiet. The fin just cuts through with no noise and I'm gliding along like a fish.

But I suspect its much more me being focused on something else and blocking out the noise

[IB_Surfer]

So I have had some off brand fins do a whistling and sometimes humming noise, supposed to be that they are not finished correctly and they vibrate under the water. Too thick a foil, uneven foils, too much rake, not sure. This makes all kinds of noise, more notable on bigger waves.

The worse for me where the Dorsal clear plastic fins, they are so flexy that they make a lot of noise, but not their fiberglass model. Haven't heard it on FCS brands, even the generics.

[oldmansurfer]

Yeah fin sounds. I once tried to patch a cracked single glassed in fin and it hummed and vibrated when I was going fast. Turns out you have to remove the fin and reset it just in case you have any glassed in fins patching the crack won't probably work. I also remember hearing a loud thumping when surfing my longboard with the fin missing the screw. So far no other fin sounds.

[jaffa1949]

A simple explanation for it being quiet is the wave projects most of the sound of breaking shoreward, although the full of an immense lip does have a lipsmacking sound.

occasionally I‘ve heard a crack like noise when I hit the lip, but most of my surfing is too mellow now to raise a noise!
Humming fins yep!

[oldmansurfer]

The sound I am hearing recently is probably because I am surfing differently. I think prior to these recent turns I would push really hard when I pushed the tail above the top of the lip and water would fly all over but don't recall hearing anything. Now it's just a normal turn and I hear this spray because I am getting the end of tail above the lip on my normal turns when I didn't before. It's just a little shusssssh sound like a little bit of spray coming off the tail. The sound was similar to recently when I did a very hard top turn on a waist high steep wave and it made a loud prolonged shussssshing sound and when I looked I saw all the surfers in the area looking back at me and saw a good amount of spray still airborne. I guess they heard it too. I looked back because this was an end maneuver as the wave was ending shortly so I wouldn't miss much if I was distracted but prior to that I don't recall ever hearing that noise as in ever in my entire time surfing. On these turns however I never looked back to see what it was because I was intent on doing something else after that turn. Anyway got me to thinking how weird it is that I don't recall noise from waves I rode (mostly). Of course I am getting old so maybe memory is going

[BoMan]

Hoots and yews, and of course $#!% when things don't go well.

[krustyburger]

The pre-surf sound of waxing a board...

[Jripper53]

Not a ton of experience to vouch here. But in my time in the water so far, I've only heard the sort of whisping sound the board makes as it runs along the water. More noticeable with my fish which has less volume and sits farther down in the water. Hard to explain the sound exactly, but I assume it's probably the water running along the rails, out the tail. Oh yes and the occasional lip-smacking as well.

[oldmansurfer]

In the far reaches of my memory I recall surfing at Hanalei and hearing a sound off the normal top turns. When you are surfing the wave blocks out the sound behind it but you can hear from around and in front of the wave toward the beach. When you go to the top you can hear over the top of the wave out back toward the lineup as well as toward the beach. It's almost like you are in different places below the lip or above the lip. Of course in small waves you are always above the lip.

[Naeco78]

My favorite sound in surfing is when you're paddling over a big set wave with a strong offshore wind. The ocean spray comes off the top of the lip and lands around you like a torrential rain storm with a gradual WHHIIIISSSSHHHHH that sounds like nothing else that I've heard before.

[krustyburger]

Monstrous swell this morning hitting its peak. I stood on a jetty, where I could get a nice and up close look out at the huge sets coming in. The sound made by the biggest waves had the crack of THUNDER...

[oldmansurfer]

Here is the smith brothers miced up for pipeline