Surfing Waves

Hey guys for you people in north africa and europe, how are you guys preparing for the hurricane swell, there's a hurricane passing by in the atlantic and surf is going to be absolutely pumping, I'm only going to surf friday since conditions will be perfect but after that I'm not messing around with surf that could drown me

Fun size!

Any surf can drown you and in fact it seems more people drown in smaller surf (of course that is probably because more people are in the water in smaller surf). Have fun

Big H wrote:Fun size!

Yup, hoepfully the large surface area of my fish won't make a bumpy ride, hopefully the waves are as smooth as I expect them to be, I'm super stoked for the end of the week

Icetime, how do you like your fish? Is it a hybrid?

I have a hybrid fish that is 6'6" that doesn't work for me. It seems to have all the drawbacks of a shortboard and longboard with none of the advantages: slow to paddle, doesn't get into waves early, but can't handle large waves or late takeoffs. It seems to have a very narrow margin of error for catching waves and seems to work best with very small hollow waves but worse everywhere else.

When I say "it" in the paragraph above I refer to both the board and myself acting in unison, I accept half of the blame.

Namu wrote:Icetime, how do you like your fish? Is it a hybrid?

I have a hybrid fish that is 6'6" that doesn't work for me. It seems to have all the drawbacks of a shortboard and longboard with none of the advantages: slow to paddle, doesn't get into waves early, but can't handle large waves or late takeoffs. It seems to have a very narrow margin of error for catching waves and seems to work best with very small hollow waves but worse everywhere else.

When I say "it" in the paragraph above I refer to both the board and myself acting in unison, I accept half of the blame.

Yeah it's a hybrid fish, either yours is lacking the volume I have in the deck or you need to work on your surfing, I'm very happy with my fish so far, I can ride it from 2ft to 5ft surf (no spots near me can hold up any larger then it's just closeouts), because of the large surface area it moves very quickly down the line, when I surf head high and a little bit overhead it just zips down the line, mine paddles great and I can get in waves early, surfed reef breaks to mushy to bigger surf, seems like it's the perfect all around board, can't say the same for duck diving if a wave is landing on you the best you can do is paddle for the horizon, turtleroll or bail it, only thing I can't do with it but I don't think I can blame the board is late takeoffs, I just got used to paddling with all I've got and getting in early before it picks up behind me.

From what you said I'm pretty sure your paddling fitness is lacking, that's pretty much it, it took me 2 weeks to actually be able to surf my fish without failing the take off, most of it was timing but after that I surf just fine

I was thinking the opposite, that the board had too much volume and floated too high in the water for my weight (185 lbs). I'm going off topic and will start a new thread about why I'm terrible on my fish.

I'm glad you found a board that works for you and your waves. Is that your only board? Do you have a longboard for small days?

Namu wrote:I was thinking the opposite, that the board had too much volume and floated too high in the water for my weight (185 lbs). I'm going off topic and will start a new thread about why I'm terrible on my fish.

I'm glad you found a board that works for you and your waves. Is that your only board? Do you have a longboard for small days?

It's my only board since it has so much volume I don't need a longboard for small days, if it's too small like barely 2ft, I won't go out because it's not much fun, mine has the volume a bigger guy would surf with so when I'm sitting on my board it doesn't sink a bit, it's a boat really when it comes to floatation, my next board will probably be a 5'11 with a fair amount of volume

http://bigislandnow.com/2016/08/29/madeline-lester-head-toward-hawaii/ There are likely some swells on the way here too

oldmansurfer wrote:http://bigislandnow.com/2016/08/29/madeline-lester-head-toward-hawaii/ There are likely some swells on the way here too

Awesome, I heard it's flat during summer over there, is it really?

During the summer storms are to the south usually creating huge south swells infrequently during the summer. The north shore is usually fairly small although this past summer there was a huge swell due to a hurricane. The east side often has a swell as long as there are the normal tradewinds blowing. They are islands and one can drive in a hour to any break on the island except for on Maui and the big island because they don't have freeways and have a very long coastline. There are usually waves somewhere any time.