Surfing Waves

I decided to surf at a more advanced beach break today. It was just at my comfort zone. My question is why some beach breaks have rogue waves while others don't, does it have to do with the bathymetry? Also the more important question what do you guys do to avoid getting caught by one? and no, I did not have my back towards the ocean. thanks

It seems to me that swell size matters as well as location for the larger set waves to come in. They are not rogue waves. I call them cleanup sets. I think for them to catch you it has to be a certain size so that the regular waves break in a certain point but larger waves will beak outside of that area and instead of a linear range there is a gap in where they break due to bottom contour and depth. Rogue waves is a phenomena that occurs in deep water. If you are interested in them read the book The Wave by Susan Casey

How to deal with them? First it helps if you watch the waves a bit before you go out since you won't recognize a cleanup set till you see one. Once you do then you have 2 options to try to avoid them. One is to keep a vigilant eye on the horizon and find them before they reach you then paddle out to get over them before they break or catch them. Option 2 is to lineup for them and let the rest of the waves go unridden. Option 3 is get caught inside and deal with it. To see them outside is sometimes tricky. One of the places I surfed that had cleanup sets when the wave had about 10 to 12 foot faces you had to look way over to the left for the peak then it shifted along sideways toward the break. I learned right where to keep my eyes pealed for it and could get out to catch them if I wanted. My friends learned to paddle for the horizon if they saw me doing it.

Clean ups sets occur here every 20-30min depending on the day, but at least when one happens you have a rough idea of when sitting inside could be perilous. My surfing improved when I learned how to deal with getting caught inside the clean ups. Prior to that I'd paddle out and sit outside to avoid getting caught at beaches with big swells or on bigger days. That meant lower wave counts. After getting better at dealing with being inside, I can set up inside for regular set waves on good days and fight through the cleanups or better yet figure the rythym and paddle outside anticipating the clean up a few min before it comes. I'm not very good at it but some regulars at Batu bolong are pretty adept so I keep working on my awareness in hopes I can improve this. Some seem to have a sixth sense. Maybe they can just see better than I can.

One of the avoidance things that can happen is the clean up set. Part of the harmonics of a swell where are number of the wave have managed to merge to give the bigger set.
The more surprising clean up is the first pulse of a large long fetch big swell. before forecasting it was on your head.
Rogue waves can occur at beaches but they are really a freak conjunction of super long fetch harmonics or a co joining of different swells.

A catastrophic example was the Boxing Day Tsunami landing on the opposite far side of Shri Lanka for the direction of the event in Indonesia the tsunami encircled the island and doubled in size when the two waves that were refracted around joined to become horrific.
The true oceanic rogues move a long the Southern ocean from eastern South America under Africa and Australia finishing on the west coast of South America, propelled by Antarctic storms , they are big enough to put a huge tanker or cargo ship onto,two crests and suspend the hull between in thin air ( result ships back breaks and rapid untraceable sinking)
So aspects of these wave can make landfall in Western Australia, and South Africa totally out of sync with conditions there. Similarly the Aleutians can generate rogues to the North Pacific .
Forecasting will give swell direction and size forecasts , nothing yet does any more than predict the possibility of rogues unless they cross over a nearshore buoy !
Just to add there are also close out sets ( another form of clean up) where the set closes out the whole bay or beach headland to headland.
The bigger you go to surf in the more likely you will meet the clean up. Be prepared!

Tsunamis and rogue waves are two different things. They know what causes tsunamis but not rogue waves.

Rogue waves occur in the open ocean and occur as usually a single wave that is two or more time bigger than the rest of the waves. As a single wave they don't persist and die off rapidly. Waves that we surf constantly die off and are replaced and reinforced by more waves behind because it is generated by wind across water for a long distance. This in not entirely true for rogue waves. They aren't entirely sure why rogue waves form but they do often form where currents meet and stormy conditions exist. They have been able to document some of them by tracking with satellite imaging, radar I think but they can track them as they form and die off.

I think I will clarify my post a little, Tsunamis and rogue waves are not the same thing ! True ! but as an example of a round island refraction multiplier effect the Sri Lanka wave on the opposite side of the island was a classic and deadly example.
Tsunamis are not very evident in the ocean being hundreds of miles long and only metres high, traveling at amazingly high speeds but once they make land fall they just keep piling and coming on and on.
Rogue waves are aberrant harmonics of caused by winds, storm systems currents and particularly effected by oceanic meetings Atlantic meets Southern and Indian ocean, Southern meets Pacific and so on. They are a rare and deadly breed, dangerous at sea.
Not all oceans have the benefit of satellite, radar tracking and /or buoys , they do at times make land fall, a rare and deadly happening usually totally out of character with the weather and sea state at the time.

Yeah well I think if a big wave hits land an oceanographer would never call it a rogue wave but lots of people call big waves that hit the shore rogue waves.

Obviously that is not what the OP is talking about. He is talking about breaks that have cleanup sets.