Lost Speed... my board or my (lack of) skill

[Canuck in the UK]

Howdy,

I am 5'10", 185 lbs, and currently ride a 7'2" NSP funboard, and have been surfing about once a week for the last year. My problem is that when I come down the face, I seem to lose speed pretty quickly once I am at the bottom. I typically surf 3'-4' waves... just wondering if there is any advice for building speed on the smaller stuff to extend the ride and beat the breaking section. I was also wondering if maybe the board, being closer to the bottom of the totem pole in terms of performance, may also have an affect on my ride.

I am out at Praa Sands or Godrevy about twice a week... if anyone is looking for a surfing buddy, drop me a line.

[trifish]

Im guessing your to far back on your surfboard and triggering the brakes. Try moving up towards the nose on the board some when your moving. On bigger boards I tend to slide up to the nose when I feel the board slowing down. Different boards have different speeds, but im guessing this is technique prob. Most people pump to get speed on shorter boards, riding up and down the face of the wave, but you should be able to glide pretty good on a 7'2" funboard. Also if your looking at trying a faster board you can go with a quad or a twin fin. These move much faster since theres no middle fin causing drag.

[Canuck in the UK]

Many thanks... I will give it a go on Friday. I think that due to some unpleasant experiences in the past, I became extremely paranoid of pearling so I do tend to stay a bit farther back on the board. I was also under the impression that keeping your weight further back might enable quicker turns, but without any speed, I can't really turn well anyways. Cheers!

[Sillysausage]

Sounds like you're just surfing straight, going towards the beach? if this is the case then you will lose speed quickly as you'll out ride the wave speed and then the wave will catch up with you making you wipeout. if this is whats happening then you just need to angle your board so that when you stand up you're already going along the wave and won't need such a big bottom turn

[IB_Surfer]

Great advise so far, you need to lean forward for speed but you can't go straight down or you'll pearl, they hit it on the head.

[senast]

Hey, when i first started out I had a similar problem. I noticed that i was trying to surf in the flats and trough of the wave. My recommendation is to surf in the middle of the wave. Thats what i do now and the wave hardly catch up now. I only go to the bottom then top to do maneuvers.

On your take off, angle about 30 degrees to the direction you want to surf while still paddling. Do a small bottom turn and you should be good.. The turn should be on the face. Not the flats