Dangers of surfing

[peds]

'ello everyone.

i dont surf, i ski, but im going to learn this summer. the thread on this board "wipeout pics" got me thinking of the dangers involved when surfing - obviously rip tides, annoyed marine-life, boards whacking you on the noggin and all that - but i was just wondering, how dangerous is a big fat wave? a lot of you guys are saying a wipe-out in a 30ft wall is definately NOT a pleasant place to be, survival-wise.

in skiing, you've primarily got the risk of avalanches to contend with - but as long as you play safe and ski with a tranceiver, shovel, probe etc, and do a little bit of shovel and shear testing on the snowpack before having your line, you have pretty good chances of smiling at the bar at the end of the day.

im just trying to get some kind of comparison on the safety front between a sport that I know and am familiar with the risks on and a sport that i have only ever watched and know very little about.

how dangerous is this stuff?

[kitesurfer]

Surfing is a risky sport but at alot of the beaches here in the uk there's kind of an in built safety factor. Basically you need to be able to get out back before you can even think about getting a large wave hit you on the head! So rip tides aside and the other dangers you've mentioned you're probaly not going to be in a situation where you need to worry about big waves. As you progress so will the size of wave you tackle and you'll build upto it gradually.
I know my own limits and wouldn't fancy my chances if i caught out by a set of 10ft waves! Big waves are very very dangerous. Even a 3ft wave will give you a good beating especially if it's hollow. Big breaking waves pack alot of punch and are easily capable of breaking your bones, not to mention being bounced off the bottom!
So there are some major risks with surfing but at the same time it is a sport that can be learnt relatively safely but the sea always comands the upmost of respect in my books.

Cheers KS

[pat42]

As a learner you wont have to worry about a 30 foot wipeout
Even being held down for 10 seconds by a 3 foot wave will scare the hell out of you if you're not used to it.

I would compare the big wave surfers to the same guys who jump out of a helicopter up the top of a mountain onto fresh powder.

It's the extreme end of the sport and most people won't be doing it. Don't worry too much, respect the ocean and have loads of fun!!!

And Kitesurfer, I'm waiting for some fins and boxes to get here from US

[drowningbitbybit]

You spend all your money.
You lose your job because your looking at charts all day.
You lose all your friends 'cos you'll never commit to doing anything at the weekend.
You lose your girl/boy friend cos you smell all the time.
You become obsessed and irrational.
You turn into a miserable git when you dont get your swell fix.

Those are the main dangers

[peds]

bitbybit, i hear you

"Even being held down for 10 seconds by a 3 foot wave will scare the hell out of you if you're not used to it."

bodyboarding in scotland around... 10 years ago? i wasnt counting the seconds, but i was underwater for a little longer than i would have liked! absolutely terrifying, as you say obviously we wont be tackling the 30foot waves just yet...

can anyone reel off some statistics or anything for wave dangers? like, back to the avalanche thing, you generally have a 60% chance of surviving the initial slide without being snapped in two by rocks and lumps of ice; and if you are buried deeper than 1m at the end then your chances are not good at all, unless someone you are riding with digs you out sharpish.
if you fall off your board in a wave the size of a house, how likely are you to walk away? (or preferably swim away, at first - walking comes later, i understand.) and how about the smaller ones? i saw a guy carted off the beach in newquay to hospital a couple years back in a helicopter, in what cant have been more than 6 foot waves...

edit - sorry if these questions seem a little morbid, but to be honest, i would consider myself a mug if i didnt know the worst case scenarios for the things i intend to be doing. i know only too well how much mother earth likes to kick you right in the teeth if you dont show her the respect she deserves...

[kitesurfer]

No worries pat!

[dreamer]

mal riders.

[farside]

short boarders

[IdRatherBeSurfing]

spongers

[bluesnowcone]

everyone els

[kitesurfer]

Stats on this would be misleading. The guys who ride these big waves have done so for most of their lives and as such are quite used to the wipeouts that come with big waves. So the stats would be quite good ie chances of surviving a wipeout quite good. However:
Mere mortals like ourselves stand no-chance in my opinion of surviving a wipeout from a proper 10ft wave. I've been hit by a solid 6ft wave (ie 12ft face) and found that to be rather unpleasant as i came up coughing water after having swallowed quite abit.
I'm not sure if you are aware peds but wave height is the distance from the top of the wave to the sea level BEHIND the wave. Face height which is what most people talk about when refering to the waves they've surfed is usually twice the actual wave height!
So the difference in between a 5ft wave and a 10 ft wave is very significant. A 10 ft wave is likely to have four times the amount of water in it than a 5ft wave! So imagine a 15ft wave landing on your head in a second, very simillar to someone emptying the entire contents of an olympic sized swimming pool on your head in a second!

No apoogies required it's always good to ask questions, but you really don't need to be worrying about these kinds of waves, trust me you'll have more than enough to cope with on a 3ft wave!

[peds]

loud and clear on that one dude!

i didnt know that about face-height and wave height. learn something new every day!

[kitesurfer]

Weaver Fish. These little buggers can be quite nasty too!!

[pat42]

1 cubic metre of water weighs one metric ton ie 1000kg!!

[PapaW]

spongers

*Eh hum* And why may I ask ;)

[IdRatherBeSurfing]

spongers

*Eh hum* And why may I ask

because I knew you'd bite!

[PapaW]

Doh... foiled again!

[GowerCharger]

what kitedurfer said.
The guys who ride those monster waves specialise in it and train fro the wipeouts. I remeber reading about laird hamiltons training which included breath holding and even running laps of a pool underwater held down with weights, most people would never get near that, and probably wouldnt want to.

The difference with skiing is that the risks of injury are there from the beginning - any skiier can be hit by another skiier comuing down the slope and get a nasty injury. As a begginner surfing, as long as you can swim a bit theres not much danger as you wont be out of your depth much and the waves youll be dealing with arent gonna do much more than slap you about a bit.

It becomes more dangerous as you progress to surfing more risky spots where your a long way from help if anything goes wrong (think skiing off-piste or whatever). things like rips (which are easy to deal with if you spot you caught in one), loose boards/collisions, and rocks.

Stick to places you know are safe and where you can see other surfers at your standard, follow the rules of the road, and youll find surfing to be very safe and rewarding, driving to get to the beach is more dangerous.

[dreamer]

surfing is less danger than stepping out of your house to go surfing.

a) trip down the stairs, smash your head on the pavement.
b) get hit by a car on your way to the bus
c) get hit by the bus
d) get into a fight with a drunk
e) get hit by a falling tool from a construction site you walk past
f) tread on a nail from that construction site

The list really goes on - compared to life; surfing is the safest thing in the world.

[DayWalker*]

When you're starting out you're bound to screw up
- popup on a section where there's no wax -> whack yourself into the board
- not enough momentum on a hollow wave -> get sucked up and nailed to the floor
- not duck diving correctly -> whack on the noggin.
There's lots more but these stand out.

Umm.. this is just what I've 'heard' from my mates and others.....

At the end of it all, you know you're gonna get back into the water!