Surfing Waves

I have a question about performing a bottom turn on a longboard.

Where I live, the waves rarely reach higher than 3 - 4 feet. Oftentimes while riding, I drop down the wave just fine, but when trying to perform a bottom turn, lose all my speed and the wave just goes right by me.

I ride a 7'10 mini-longboard, and was wondering if a bottom turn is useless in waves this small. Is it more efficient to just angle my takeoff, and not worry about dropping directly down the face?


Also, is bottom turning a longboard generally not done as often as on a shortboard?

Thanks!

formanproject wrote:I have a question about performing a bottom turn on a longboard.

Where I live, the waves rarely reach higher than 3 - 4 feet. Oftentimes while riding, I drop down the wave just fine, but when trying to perform a bottom turn, lose all my speed and the wave just goes right by me.

I ride a 7'10 mini-longboard, and was wondering if a bottom turn is useless in waves this small. Is it more efficient to just angle my takeoff, and not worry about dropping directly down the face?


Also, is bottom turning a longboard generally not done as often as on a shortboard?

Thanks!

A bottom turn is a major part of a long board skills and can be done on most waves except ( unless you are very very good ) exceedingly hollow waves, use an angled take off and partial bottom turn comb to suit.
Exceedingly small waves angle take off to suit. A good bottom turn provides the speed to set up the rest of your ride, something is not quite right with your technique suggestion lots of surfs and concentrate on get your bottom turn working.

Uncle Jaffa's tip if you want to get a skill down repeat review change slightly and do and do again and again, until you get it.

I'm curious, how do you define 3 to 4 foot wave? Unless there is a wide difference in our definition of wave height?

3 to 4 foot on ANY day is a good solid swell, and should be more than adquet to set up for buttom turns and other manuvers IMO.

Katsura wrote:I'm curious, how do you define 3 to 4 foot wave? Unless there is a wide difference in our definition of wave height?

3 to 4 foot on ANY day is a good solid swell, and should be more than adquet to set up for buttom turns and other manuvers IMO.

I'd be happy with a 3 to 4 foot wave right now it's been six inches for most of this month, and watching webcasts of Teahupoo doesn't help, although I wouldn't even go near any of the waves there. Safe spot in the channel for me

You should have been up here in Queensland last week. We had a good solid swell for almost the whole week.

yeah so i grossly overestimated the wave size - I meant about 1 - 2 foot. I've since fixed my problem - on waves that small, angling the takeoff is enough. Bigger days as you said is where I saw myself bottom turning without even thinking lol...

Cool cool: Here's a photo for my definistion of a 3 footer just for reference


A 3/4


This is a 2 footer:

A 40 footer; of a different sort