Surfing Waves

Hi everyone,

Well it’s been a while, I did join with the intention of being a bit more active than this but well… I’m rubbish!

Anyway, the reason I’m popping back up now is I actually managed to get away for a little surf trip to Barbados for a couple of weeks recently which was lurrrrrvly. Had a great trip, it felt good to enjoy a bit of warm water for a change and I feel like I actually made quite a few little improvements in my surfing. Size wise I didn't exactly push myself, I stuck with what I was comfortable with, mostly a reasonably un-impressive shoulder high or less, but they were nice and clean which for me made them perfect and allowed me to actually concentrate on improving a few areas whilst having a ton of fun. Besides what's a holiday for if not to chill out a bit and enjoy a slower pace!

That said I have returned with my first official surfing injuries resulting in a couple of tiney winey scars. That'll learn me for being over confident.

The trip did throw up a couple of little questions/thoughts that I'd like to get peoples opinions on:

On the last few days I decided to have a little play about with fins, just for poops and giggles, and swapped from 3 to 4. At my level I really don't expect to notice any difference and I don't know if what I felt was due to the fins or just a change in my surfing. Everything felt a lot quicker, I also felt like the board turned a little easier (though I guess that could be down to the feeling of more speed). I did also appear to race ahead of the wave more (and as I’m not that quick a thinker, on occasion it resulted in a nice fast but pretty straight ride). So, I was wondering if the changes I felt were likely to have been due to the fin change, a possible change/improvement in my surfing or just thinking about it more as I knew I'd changed things? is it wrong of me to be playing about with fins like this when there is still so much to learn with regards to my general surfing?

I also tried to work on duck diving. My board is a bit of a whooper (6ft6 x 22 x 2 7/8) so again I wasn’t actually expecting to get much out of it with so much float, but when the waves were small and there wasn’t too many people about I felt any practice is going to be of some benefit. The result was a bit mixed, I can get the front end down pretty far, however, it’s the bum end, I couldn’t get that to go very far at all which meant I did go backwards more than forwards. I know there’s loads of info on this site which I have read so I know a good duck dive will be down to practice and technique. I just wondered if anyone has any tricks/tips for fatter boards? Or perhaps I should just give up trying with this one (my brother has a smaller board, I might try to pinch that and have a go with improving my technique before trying again with mine).

I seem to have a tendency to waffle on a bit so good work if you made it through this lot. I do have a few little pics of the trip that I will put up at some point to try to make up for it (unfortunately I didn't manage to get any of me surfing, my cameraman kept getting distracted by the Banks beer and Mount Gay Rum!)

You have within your post the solve all problems , answer, the huge amount of stoke you have generated. With the fires of your enthusiasm stoked, everything is possible!
Duck dives, more practice try the smaller board , however realistically if you master ( should I say mistress) the bigger board all other boards will be easier.
Fins; speed and quads mean more angular turns and more capacity to drive out of the turns.
It all sound good to me. Build on what you've learnt, next surf you be better still.

Cheers Jaffa, I guess it is all about the stoke.
The more fun being had the easier it is to relax & just get on with it & that's when things progress. I should stop worrying about what I'm doing right or wrong and just get on with enjoying myself.

I'm not a duck dive person (I never do them at all) but if the tail of the board is sticking up then it may be that you arent pushing the tail down properly ie when you push the nose down its fine, but then you have to also push the tail down (with your knee or preferably foot) and the timing might be an issue - for practice.

that said, if you push the nose down and the board is so floaty that it pops up almost straight away and before you can push the tail down, the board is probably too big to duck dive

My non scientific question - when you are sitting on the board out the back, in the line up, how far does it sink (eg your hips are under water, belly button, nothing etc)? If the top of the water is lower than somewhere between hips and bellybutton (so the board is 6-8 inches underwater) I reckon duck diving is not going to happen

(caveat: I have seen people duck dive long boards, but I feel the ony way to do this is to get a shortboard, learn how to duck dive and then apply your skills to a longboard. Rather than trying to learn to do it on a bigger board - it requires more skills to do it on a longboard and it may just be too hard to learn from scratch. Then again, that may be me excusing my lack of ability).

Thanks for the reply DTC.

To answer your question the board is REALLY float, not much of me sits under the water at all (water level is just below my hips with the tops of my thighs just out the water), I'm also not particularly big myself so don't have much weight behind me to sink a big board.

I never really expected to be able to duck dive this board if I'm honest but this trip was probably the closest I've ever come, and as I'd got the nose down quite fair I just wondered if there were any little tricks to use that might help, so just thought I would ask.

I do put my foot on the tail but I think the main reason not a lot happens is that I shuffle forward just slightly to push the nose down so I'm less over the tail (so I don't think I can apply quite as much pressure as I would if I stayed where I paddle). At the moment it's not a major issue and it's not holding the rest of my surfing back so I will continue having a go when the conditions suit and will probably try a smaller board at some point, who knows I might crack it. By the time I'm good enough to really need to duck dive (if I get there) I will probably also be ready to move onto something smaller/thinner/narrower anyway.

Yeah, I reckon duck diving might be hard with your board (other than the duck dip, I think DBB calls it - where you get the nose under some weakish white water when paddling out). On my LB, for example, where I float higher than you do, I can get the nose about 3ft under water but thats only because the nose is just a small part of the board - the rest of it is sitting up in the air and I cant get any of it more than a few inches under.

In terms of the back of the board, 'technically' you push the nose under, then rock back your weight and push the tail under. A board that is not too floaty will then sit under the water (or rise very slowly). If you watch shortboarders, they sometimes have to actually tilt the board upwards to get it to rise to the top again; but for longboards its just like a cork - push under and it pops up again straight away.

The most successful longboard duck diving method is to 'scoop' the nose - instead of pushing straight down, you slightly tilt the board and scoop with the rails going in first, getting the board under water then push down. I've tried this and have managed to get about a foot under the water with this, but that doesnt really help at all. And I'm over 80kg (but unskilled)

I'm sure there is some formula to do with density and displacement that some maths teacher could let us have, which might be able to match weight against volume to understand duck diving. But, basically, if the board is floating you that high when you are sitting on it, there just isnt enough weight (mass/density) to displace the amount of water you need to get it under the water.