Surfing Waves

so i recently bought my first board, a 8ft tri-fin funboard. i'm not having problems paddling in or on the popup, but it seem that after the initial ride i get too far ahead of the wave, lose my momentum and eventually my balance. thats usually where i fall over. everytime i try and carve into the side of the wave to ride along the break, i simply fall over. i was told by a friend that i should switch to an 8" single fin, which would make turning a little easier so that i could ride along the wave instead of directly out in front of it. is this the problem? will this help? also, what type of single fin should i get?

There's nothing wrong with a single fin, but most of the surfing world is using tri-fins with great success. In other words it's probably not the board.

Try making sure your back foot is near the tail when you pop up to help with turning and keep trying to ride on the face of the wave where the power is. Soon you'll get the feel for the right spot.

I do the same thing when I first get on a longer board. (Surfing short boards for years) If I stand forward of the tail, and try to turn, the board goes straight and I fall to the way I'm leaning.

^i do that all the time when i switch to a long board. i went out the other day with our 9' bic rental board, and kept trying to turn and falling off. i had to keep forcing myself to move to the back of the board if i want to try to turn. after a while i got back into the groove of it, but it was kind of annoying for a bit

agree with scsurf here... probably not the board.
i learned on longboards and though i'm no expert.. (moved onto a shorter board nearly straight away once i was trimming the longboard consistently), i found that as i'm taking off i lean on the rails to get the board facing the right way. then just a little step back to lift the nose and swing it onto the face. seemed to work for me.

on shorter boards you have to get to your feet a bit quicker, its not necessary to take a full drop. with a bit of weight on the tail you can sort of lock in a little down the face, but its got to be quick and fluid. a case of getting your turn in a bit quicker.

Lost on of my fins on the longboard once, so took it out single fin. found it to be a little less forgiving. not the same amount of lift in the tail, so seemed to stall a bit easier when stepping back.

You could try the single fin you have now just to see what happens,but for me a single on a fun board was way to loose and squirly(for sure less forgiving)even an 8"(long board yes fun board no). I found that just what scsurf said foot placement is the key to turning and or slaming on the brakes so you don't speed on down past the wave force ending up just standing there waiting to fall over. A 8" fin hmmm. not so sure on that single fin only idea,,, mabie. For me I'd look for a 5" to 6" fin (like a Future performance) or the likes and stick with it's thruster fin configuration and work on the foot placement. just keep in mind 8' anything is a lotta hog to turn and footplacement is the real key to work on first once ya get it better then think about some fins.

I've tried single fin after using tri fin and the tri fin is more stable. Better if you are a beginner like me. Single fin is certainly looser and in time I'll switch to one. You can try moving the centre fin up a bit and that might help with turning.

Sounds like you're not hitting your bottom turn yet.

On a longboard, you're going to be taking a gradual, smooth leaning turn to get on the face of the wave. You can hard turn by leaning further back on the tail of your board with your back foot, but to start, just try to turn the board slowly.

As you come down the face of the wave, look the direction you want to go. Don't lean your upper body, but shift your weight slightly, bending your knees to do so.

The bottom turn is the single biggest issue after catching/pop-up to conquer.

Only 2 suggestions:

1) If it's a removable fin system, try a slightly smaller size. Bigger fins cause drag, smaller ones less. Many funboards come with M7 FCS fins, try M5, but not M3's. If you already have M5's, try an M3 center, still less drag.

2) You are doing a newb mistake: when you paddle you don't aim directly at the beach, if you catch the wave you go forward while the wave face goes sideways. Cheat! Paddle with a slight angle towards the wave face. If a walled beachbreak, pic a side, but stop paddling straight out.

Hope that helps

I think rich r and themathteachehit hit on the head. As soon as you get up start your turn. Look at the wave. I know when I was learning my mind was involved in popping up and standing it did not matter what the wave was doing. I found myself running to far in front of the wave too. Once up look to see what the wave is doing and shift your weight where you want to go on the wave. Also the slight angle when paddling for the wave is a must too. Not only does it help you start going down the line but it helps with any pearling problems.

I'm going through this myself at the moment. My break is a little sad, so most of the time its no problem for me.

On the bigger days, yes exactly what is indicated here happens... I drop in, but because I'm not used to the speed I'm like sooo far ahead of the wave after the drop. Then the engine cuts out, and I'm too far off the lower rail to make any significant turns.

I was having such a hard time with my bottom turn that on the big days I started dropping in at quite an angle. So I ride minus the bottom turn.

Much later... weeks, while I was rewaxing, I realized that my feet were too far forward... but I mean like way too far forward.

So now I've busy tuning pop-up again (see what happens when you dont learn something properly) and as I'm already so used to my sweet spot - its difficult.

What I would like to do, and please tell me if I'm going to be doing this right, as I dont want to correct myself incorrectly - duh - is... pop straight up into a position much further back, but still dropping in on the same paddling position? Am I on track?

Then... as there seems to be no time to drop in, move feet back, and then bottom turn. Oh I'm on a 7.3 mini mal.

If I'm far enough back to pop-up to the better feet position, then I then wave rolls past under me.

So in a nutshell, I waz thinking, jus pop-up further back on the board?

sounds like you're paddling straight into the wave and not at an angle meaning you go too far ahead of the wave and then losing speed and therefore balance

Angle is a solid voice posted here,,, but it's all good when I switch from short boards to guns or mals or logs I have this problem to but after a few eat shitzzz I remember and get with it. Just keep going out and practice angle a bit more try some fins out and get your feet in the right spots and you'll see that even while speeding down the wave even if your gonna be out front to much will have sufficent speed to pull a hard turn and re-join the wave face (or driving force you'll need/want) and go down the line...

kamikaze272727 wrote:I'm going through this myself at the moment. My break is a little sad, so most of the time its no problem for me.

What I would like to do, and please tell me if I'm going to be doing this right, as I dont want to correct myself incorrectly - duh - is... pop straight up into a position much further back, but still dropping in on the same paddling position? Am I on track?

Then... as there seems to be no time to drop in, move feet back, and then bottom turn. Oh I'm on a 7.3 mini mal.

If I'm far enough back to pop-up to the better feet position, then I then wave rolls past under me.

So in a nutshell, I waz thinking, jus pop-up further back on the board?

Not really, but your back foot should be in the middle of your fins, if not you are still longboarding, but on a shorter board. Also, try spreading your legs open more, you should be able to lean forward to gain momentum and lean back to stall a bit, without moving your feet. Hope that helps

themathteacher wrote:

kamikaze272727 wrote:I'm going through this myself at the moment. My break is a little sad, so most of the time its no problem for me.

What I would like to do, and please tell me if I'm going to be doing this right, as I dont want to correct myself incorrectly - duh - is... pop straight up into a position much further back, but still dropping in on the same paddling position? Am I on track?

Then... as there seems to be no time to drop in, move feet back, and then bottom turn. Oh I'm on a 7.3 mini mal.

If I'm far enough back to pop-up to the better feet position, then I then wave rolls past under me.

So in a nutshell, I waz thinking, jus pop-up further back on the board?

Not really, but your back foot should be in the middle of your fins, if not you are still longboarding, but on a shorter board. Also, try spreading your legs open more, you should be able to lean forward to gain momentum and lean back to stall a bit, without moving your feet. Hope that helps

You're absolutely right. My ass is still longboarding. Feet further apart. Got it. I'll try that out this week-end weather willing and see how that goes.

I suppose this is a bad habit from all the rental BIC logs that I rode up to now.

But on the 7.3 mini-mal, if I spread out my feet with back foot over the fins, and slightly over shoulder width, I'm only covering half of the board... thats okay? Is that something I'm going to have to just learn to get used to? Should I be weighting myself slightly forward and down to keep the weight towards the middle of the board, or is this not even going to be an issue?

You're absolutely right. My ass is still longboarding. Feet further apart. Got it. I'll try that out this week-end weather willing and see how that goes.

I suppose this is a bad habit from all the rental BIC logs that I rode up to now.

But on the 7.3 mini-mal, if I spread out my feet with back foot over the fins, and slightly over shoulder width, I'm only covering half of the board... thats okay? Is that something I'm going to have to just learn to get used to? Should I be weighting myself slightly forward and down to keep the weight towards the middle of the board, or is this not even going to be an issue?

Yes, it is ok for 1/2 of the board to be in front of your stance. One thing I would like to add (lots of good tips here), is that you need to be able to move around on the board. Only on say a Six foot five or less board are you not going to change your stance from move to move. Get comfortable moving around on the board, changing you stance. Your not always going to pop up perfectly and sometimes you will need "choke-up" on your stance to make wave sections. Small shuffle steps work well for me.

Even on your 7.3 min-amal your going to need to pop up in your stance far back for the drop in (gets weight back and can help slow down the drop in), so that you are far enough back to be able to make a turn at the speed without digging a rail.

You get to far out in front of the wave and you try to turn and dig a rail cuz you have too little speed. General rule: When going fast, get to the back of the board to maximize manuverability and speed. When going slow, get to the front of the board to keep the board on a plane I.E. longboards.

Hope that makes sense!

Aaron

Hey, I used to have this problem. In the end I was thinking too much about what I was doing. Just look where you wanna go lean toward it, once you get it you'll be so stoaked.

Really the best thing is gonig on a trip to a consistent beach and surfing 2 weeks straight ( or more ).

Thanks Aaron/Teach. I went last week Friday and tried out some of these new things.

Started riding further back on the drop. Wow this turned out to be a hell of an experience. I was even sliding down on waves I was late for. Interesting thing is, I would have thought that you lost a lot of speed digging in the back, but no, with the extra control, you can wiggle around the green even more, adding extra speed after the drop.

Still digging rails in a little hard. I had thought this was lack of skill, but as aaron indicated, its just riding too far ahead and not having enough speed to make the proper turn. I'm turning earlier now... because I can

Had nice 3-4 footers that day, perfect for trying out new stuff. Not so hollow and very consistent. Still avoiding that bottom turn that kills my engine so still dropping in at quite a big angle headed straight for the green.

I'm not turning properly, so I still outrun the wave on the green. But I'm not missing any drops... yeah! thanks fellas.

I think I gotta work on my bottom and top turns to stay in the power band. Maybe - as suggested - I'll just take a week off work... put this together. :p

Yeeeaa!! Right on!