Surfing Waves

It's my favorite part of the wave dropping over the edge of a steep tall wave. It's an adrenalin rush and sometimes everything goes into slow motion. There are three basic parts to this and all are somewhat under your control. First part is the wave and really the wave is never under your control but you can pick the waves you want to take off on so somewhat still under your control. Then there is your board and you can't change your board in the middle of trying to catch a wave but you can pick your board. Then there is you and you can't do much about your genetics but you can train yourself and get into shape.

First I will mention the board because I am not a shaper and have minimal knowledge of designs and how they affect your performance but they do affect your performance. So the size of a board, bigger the better to take off on a wave (to a point) however once on the wave the smaller the better (to a point) so depending on your physical fitness and arm strength you need to find the best for you. The design of the bottom and rails are also very important but at this point I can't say much as I am not familiar with board designs enough. If you are surfing a board that limits your ability to take the drop then it's time to get one made for you that will help. Talk to a shaper, they can tell you what you need.

As for yourself, you need to be able to paddle well to take off on steep waves although sometimes you just need the knowledge of where and when to take off. Knowledge comes from practice on the waves as does paddling power although you can build arm strength with weights when you aren't surfing. Surfing often isn't really great exercise unless the waves are pumping and it isn't too crowded. Otherwise you catch a wave paddle out and wait. If you spend most of your time waiting then you aren't getting exercise. If your days surfing are like that then perhaps some days you should just paddle long distances to build your paddling power and endurance.

To be safe start with waves you are comfortable with and gradually move deeper into the lineup to where you are less comfortable. You will find that different waves have different places that allow you to take off easier on them. Generally the shoulder is the most difficult place to take off on a wave so if you have been doing that as you move deeper into the lineup it will get easier at some point. Right at the peak or very close to the peak or highest point of the wave is often the easiest place to take off, but not always depending on the conditions and the wave. When a wave is breaking fast and slows down it may seem like a good place to take off but it's often difficult to take off there and you need to move into the faster breaking part of the wave to catch it.

When you paddle for a big steep wave you have to commit completely to it. Hesitate and things may not go well. If you hesitate it's better to just stop and wait for a wave that doesn't make you hesitate. The thrill of taking the drop helps you to perform better, it's the adrenalin released by your body. You have to pop up fast and focus on the task at hand getting down the face of the wave. I used to point my board down the line as I took off on bigger steeper waves which worked for my single fin board but now with either a thruster or a quad I find it's not a good idea on bigger steeper waves. The single fin would slide sideways down the wave but a thruster or quad won't and either I go over the falls with the lip with my board or it grabs me and the board drops down away from me and I go over with the lip. What I do now is angle my board so the board is pointed down to the bottom of the wave and maybe slightly down the line but not appreciably and then I push on the inside rail so it turns the top of the board in the direction I want to go so that as I am dropping the rail is all that is contacting the water. I may also slide my front foot to a position closer to the wall of the wave so it puts pressure on the inside rail. If the wave isn't completely vertical I don't do any of this and just drop normally with the board slightly angled down the line of the wave.

I don't know if this will help but I love taking a huge drop although not so huge as I used to.

good post!

Good post

oldmansurfer wrote:The design of the bottom and rails are also very important but at this point I can't say much as I am not familiar with board designs enough

To add something about the board design...

The rocker of the board is ultra-important if you're taking a big steep drop. A beginners board, as well as other types of board including fishes, will have very little rocker (ie curve of the board) and if you plummet down the face, the nose will dig straight in and... game over
A board with a fair bit of rocker is much more forgiving down a steep face and allows you to make a steeper, more critical drop (which is why "high performance" boards have much more rocker than most boards).

So if you're a newbie on a board with not enough rocker and you're not making the drop, there's three things you can do...

1) Weight the back of the board to keep the nose out the water. Unfortunately, this will stall your board just when you need some speed for the bottom turn... but sometimes it's the only way you'll make it at all.

2) Take off at an angle and go straight along the face. Takes some practise, but is a basic skill, so keep at it. You won't get as much speed as if you went down the face, but will give you a nice cruisy ride.

3) If it is your board that's holding you back, time to get a board with more rocker

The single fin would slide sideways down the wave but a thruster or quad won't

why is it happening like that? My board is 9'2 thruster, wonder what would be maximum wave height which I could drop on? For now the biggest take offs for me were on around 4-5ft only.

yoba, for more info (and probably all you'll ever need to know about fins and their configurations, read "Uncle Jaffa's Fin Pimer", here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16523

yoba wrote:

The single fin would slide sideways down the wave but a thruster or quad won't

why is it happening like that? My board is 9'2 thruster, wonder what would be maximum wave height which I could drop on? For now the biggest take offs for me were on around 4-5ft only.

I used to surf and not give much thought about how things happened. Basically on a vertical wave a single fin with the board pointed sideways down the line has only the rail in the water with the fin hanging useless in the air under the board until it slips far enough down the wall to where the waves is less vertical. With a quad or thruster there are fins close to the edge of the rail so these fins still engage the wave and keep the board from slipping sideways or at the very least it greatly reduces the amount of slipping sideways although these are small fins relative to a single fin so they may allow some slippage. I have been trying to figure out a way to graphically explain this. I may come up with a pictoral explanation of this later.

carb&oldman, got it, thank you. The thing left to learn - how to angle freaking massive longboard properly, probably should use my hand to raise the rail which is not in water? (Like all pros doing) Or if the wave is big (4-5ft) - should get down straight and do a bottom turn?

LB are fine in big surf unless the surf is also steep and hollow; certainly you can surf a LB on 4-5ft waves, which in the scheme of things are not huge. Until the 1970s (?maybe earlier) all boards were longboards (12ft+), and those guys went out in all sorts of waves. Try watching the original Big Wednesday. But unless you already have good skills, bigger steep surf is the one time where a smaller board is probably going to make things easier. With a big wave, the wave is already giving you more power then you need, and the emphasis shifts to keeping all this speed/power in check. This requires a different board to a LB, which is designed to give as much power as possible from minimal inputs (eg small waves, or a weak paddler). So something narrower, more rocker, narrower nose and tail.

But, to answer your question - yes you can do a rail grab; I reckon your best bet is to start off going at a slight angle and start turning part way down the wave (with or without rail grab) rather than waiting to the bottom. As DBB said about rocker, if you go straight down you may end up burying the nose; you want to go down just to the part where the wave is flattening out and be turning. But you dont want to be turning too early, because the face is too steep and you end up dropping sideways. Possibly bigger fins (depending on what size you have) will also assist.

For a long time longer boards were necessary to get the paddle speed to match big waves, but with a shorter board and increased nose rocker a shorter board can be used in the steeper pocket to take off.
On either a long or a short board a pigdog rail grab take can be utilised to enable stabilisation in the initial turn if you don't have awfully capable bottom turn.

Pipeline and other hollow waves can be ridden on a long board and they can be used in steep drops !
It is the skill of the rider, often too there is applied knowledge of your home wave.
The pipeline crew ride everything from costco foamies and inflatable thingies and longboards, but joe average going out on a short board would not make it in any way!

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Modern longboards are so much better than the old ones. They have rockers and concaves and thrusters or quad fins setups. They can handle some larger and steeper waves. To set the rail use your ankles to tilt the top of the board toward the direction you want to go.