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best structure/bottom material for small waves

PostPosted: Mon May 22, 2006 12:45 am
by tomcat360
maybe the topic heading wasn't clear--

My family has a river/bay house, which forever has been a tease to me. The "waves" a lot of the time make boating and waterskiing and stuff like that difficult and uncomfortable because of the chop and such. But it's no where close to being surf-able still.

But today--today there was a slight revelation for me. It was one of those average days at the river, it was nice and calm in the morning, and picked up to a classic chesepeake small craft advisory wind swell. As I was looking down the becah infront of our place, there are 4 jetties, one made of rocks, the other 3 made of concrete blocks. I looked down them and saw almost rideable waves. I had my shortboard there, because I take it to practice my paddling and duck diving, and I was so tempted to try, but I knew that with my shortboard I couldn't do it.

But I noticed, these jetties were mustering up bigger, nicer shaped waves. Still, no shortboard waves, of course. Probably not even longboard waves.

But is there some sort of structure, or bottom material that will make waves bigger? I have heard that a clay/mud bottom adds resistance to a wave, making it break better and other stuff like that.

Maybe if I can add some sort of bottom material and structure, together with Steve Prish's ultra small wave boards (short, thick and like 30" wide, seriously) there could be a rideable wave, and the place wouldn't be such a tease.

Any thoughts? Or steal a car and drive 2 hours south for some actual waves(sorta).

PostPosted: Mon May 22, 2006 2:05 am
by Spector033
Yeah, I know what you mean. I live on the North Shore of Long Island a block from the water but there are no waves there :cry: , to get to the waves I have to drive 45 minutes south, which is not as bad as 2 hours but its still not good. During a storm I see some waves near my house breaking but they dont really look ridable

PostPosted: Mon May 22, 2006 2:08 am
by tomcat360
yeah....it's such a tease, isn't it?

I think this year when I'm down there boarding up windows for hurricanes (I have a feeling this year's gonna be active) I know that some surf will be breaking.

Then I'll be the only person out! of all time! In till global flooding sets in, and then it'll be ocean front! (and we would have an offshore reef)

PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2006 1:23 am
by Jeffroo
haha, just curious, but where on the bay do they have waves around here?

on the little "beaches" in the bay, all I've ever seen is 5 inches breaking onto the sand.

PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2006 1:38 am
by tomcat360
yeah, same waves. They get a bit bigger, like 8 inches :lol:

They could have possibly been short ride longobard-able (maybe), and that wasn't really a storm. So maybe if I could add basically an artificial reef......

anyways, its a very very long shot to beable to have small, tiny, barely longboardable waves.

north side of the rappohanock at the mouth.