What went wrong?

[Tudeo]

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba_vktvhJ2I/

[dtc]

He fell off ...

Could have been worse - he could have been felled on- aka: why you don’t do a fade on 80ft waves

https://magicseaweed.com/news/exclusive ... out/10578/

[waikikikichan]

1) He looked DOWN at the nose and flats, instead of down the line to the open shoulder
2) He might have been momentarily distracted by guys paddling up the face
3) New board
4) Slap water paddle and no kicking
5) Maybe, just maybe, his leash caught on his front foot which didn't allow him to pop up

[oldmansurfer]

It was lurching up shorebreak and he didn't match the speed of the water coming up the face and didn't break free from the lip and his popup was a little bit too slow

[Big H]

Head higher/stronger arch, deeper, stronger paddles and more anticipation, should be moving faster

[oldmansurfer]

Also he is shoulder hopping and should have been deeper in the lineup. That is often the most difficult place to take off on a steep wave

[Tudeo]

Great remarks guys! Very helpfull!

My observation is that in the moment of popup he seems to put too much weight on his back foot, maybe he's trying to angle too much, or just afraid of the drop? You see the nose come up and swing sideways and then he's too late, the lip throws him.

Also he could've given it another stroke to get up to the right speed, it seems he initiates the popup 1 stroke too early.

[RinkyDink]

Hard to tell, but he could be taking off against a rip current. The rip kind of gives the incoming wave a peak, but it's often a losing paddle on the takeoff. Big H made me aware of that on the forum a long while back.

[oldmansurfer]

Great remarks guys! Very helpfull!

My observation is that in the moment of popup he seems to put too much weight on his back foot, maybe he's trying to angle too much, or just afraid of the drop? You see the nose come up and swing sideways and then he's too late, the lip throws him.

I noticed that too and my take is his popup is too slow and he hasn't got pressure on the front foot and the rest is just water moving up the face. It is possible he was hesitating and he would have most likely had an easier time about 6 feet or more over. It's a funny thing that people think it's safer to go on the shoulder but it's often much more difficult to get down the face in that area and deeper is actually easier.

[oldmansurfer]

I remembered a video on this problem

https://youtu.be/bfuKBNbawMI

[kookRachelle]

what the heck do I know, but to me it looks like he started paddling too late and too slow... he didn't have enough momentum to match the speed of the wave. He was looking down which contributed to the good ol' hunchback, but that might have been because he could tell he was a goner already? Also, I notice that he angled his board too much and it looks like it got pushed sideways a bit right before he fell.

[saltydog]

Also he is shoulder hopping and should have been deeper in the lineup. That is often the most difficult place to take off on a steep wave

This is counterintuitive to a beginner like me. What makes it more difficult?

[oldmansurfer]

At the peak the wave breaks different and you get a push from the lip. On the shoulder by the time the lip pushes the board it is beyond vertical below. It is something I learned by surfing. I would attempt to take off on the shoulder and fail, move over a little and try again and fail, move over a little again and try and fail but eventually I will be deep enough and the wave will let me drop down. Eventually I don't even try the shoulder. So on the shoulder you are fighting the water going up the face strongly by the shoulder and there is no help from the lip. If you can overcome this then you can make a late drop but you have to paddle hard and popup quick. The bigger the wave the smaller the chance you can takeoff on the shoulder. By the peak there is often much less water moving up the face but in shoredump and some other situations it may be only a little less. The peak gets taller instead of moving more water up the face or something like that. Then at the peak the lip will push your board which will assist your paddling and helps you to overcome the water coming up the face. So sometimes it is way easier but sometimes it is just a little easier. Sometimes you can take off at the shoulder but very often on steep waves it is really difficult to takeoff on the shoulder. This is all my guess at it but there may be other factors involved however I am sure about it being more difficult to takeoff on the shoulder quite often. One of the waves I surf called Horners is very difficult to takeoff on at times. Typically if you are new there and you think you are in the right place based on the shape of the wave, you aren't deep enough and most likely can't catch it from that position. The right place on the wave looks like you are too deep to someone unfamiliar with that wave. I have surfed a lot of breaks where the only place that would allow me to takeoff was so deep it seemed I was too deep but I was actually right in the right place. So if I were surfing and that happened to me the next time I would line up deeper and try that. Typically I know when I haven't caught a wave and will abort and not get tossed like that guy did. I will also abort a steep wave if I hesitate a little even just a quick question to myself "maybe I shouldn't go?" and I will stop it right there and not answer my question. The answer is actually that I could have made the wave if I didn't hesitate but there is no place for hesitation on steep drops.

[Tudeo]

At the peak the wave breaks different and you get a push from the lip. On the shoulder by the time the lip pushes the board it is beyond vertical below. It is something I learned by surfing. I would attempt to take off on the shoulder and fail, move over a little and try again and fail, move over a little again and try and fail but eventually I will be deep enough and the wave will let me drop down. Eventually I don't even try the shoulder. So on the shoulder you are fighting the water going up the face strongly by the shoulder and there is no help from the lip. If you can overcome this then you can make a late drop but you have to paddle hard and popup quick. The bigger the wave the smaller the chance you can takeoff on the shoulder. By the peak there is often much less water moving up the face but in shoredump and some other situations it may be only a little less. The peak gets taller instead of moving more water up the face or something like that. Then at the peak the lip will push your board which will assist your paddling and helps you to overcome the water coming up the face. So sometimes it is way easier but sometimes it is just a little easier. Sometimes you can take off at the shoulder but very often on steep waves it is really difficult to takeoff on the shoulder. This is all my guess at it but there may be other factors involved however I am sure about it being more difficult to takeoff on the shoulder quite often. One of the waves I surf called Horners is very difficult to takeoff on at times. Typically if you are new there and you think you are in the right place based on the shape of the wave, you aren't deep enough and most likely can't catch it from that position. The right place on the wave looks like you are too deep to someone unfamiliar with that wave. I have surfed a lot of breaks where the only place that would allow me to takeoff was so deep it seemed I was too deep but I was actually right in the right place. So if I were surfing and that happened to me the next time I would line up deeper and try that. Typically I know when I haven't caught a wave and will abort and not get tossed like that guy did. I will also abort a steep wave if I hesitate a little even just a quick question to myself "maybe I shouldn't go?" and I will stop it right there and not answer my question. The answer is actually that I could have made the wave if I didn't hesitate but there is no place for hesitation on steep drops.

Great Analysis OMS!

I just want to add a little experience I have on the subject,

I was surfing a pitching wave were the peak was breaking over a wide (10+m?) area, taking of in the middle of that meant you couldn't make it around the white water. So there I always try to takeoff on the shoulder. And yes, it's hard to find the right spot, a little too far and there's not enough push and a little too deep it's too steep. But I found there's a sweet spot right in between, were you can get in so easy, it just feels unreal.

[oldmansurfer]

Another option for that situation is to takeoff way deep to the section if it is breaking in that direction and get up speed before you get to the section that tosses over

[Tudeo]

That requires getting in before the wave breaks, right? What makes this difficult is that this wave often breaks very fast, there is little time between the moment the wave becomes steep enough to enter until the moment it's pitching and too late to enter.
I still hope one day to get in early and deep and angled enough to get barreled in a high line from takeoff. One day..

[RinkyDink]

At the peak the wave breaks different and you get a push from the lip. On the shoulder by the time the lip pushes the board it is beyond vertical below. It is something I learned by surfing. I would attempt to take off on the shoulder and fail, move over a little and try again and fail, move over a little again and try and fail but eventually I will be deep enough and the wave will let me drop down. Eventually I don't even try the shoulder. So on the shoulder you are fighting the water going up the face strongly by the shoulder and there is no help from the lip. If you can overcome this then you can make a late drop but you have to paddle hard and popup quick. The bigger the wave the smaller the chance you can takeoff on the shoulder.

I really enjoy your insight OMS. I wonder, however, if what you're saying is really dependent on the type of break you're surfing. My experience surfing a point break seems like I can pretty well take off all along the shoulder on a decent day. It's almost like on a point break the peak moves horizontally down the line rather than straight toward the beach like it would on an A-frame, beach break type wave. Hopefully, that makes sense. Anyway, I feel lucky to be surfing a point break because it's so predictable and consistent. Even on bigger days, I know the pattern of the break and, for the most part, the waves don't break that pattern. It makes it easy to move around and feels safer to me (I know where to go and not to go). Beach breaks, on the other hand, are exciting in the way they can throw chaos in your way. When it's big and scary, I don't like chaos. I do think beach breaks are more of the thrill ride side of surfing.

[Big H]

In my experience (beachies and reef breaks) there are certain areas that are where you get in....if you are in that spot the wave holds off a split second offering just a bit more time to get up and on your way or spit you out where you want to be.......if you tap into those areas like Tudeo said, it is like magic compared to being outside that zone.

[oldmansurfer]

At the peak the wave breaks different and you get a push from the lip. On the shoulder by the time the lip pushes the board it is beyond vertical below. It is something I learned by surfing. I would attempt to take off on the shoulder and fail, move over a little and try again and fail, move over a little again and try and fail but eventually I will be deep enough and the wave will let me drop down. Eventually I don't even try the shoulder. So on the shoulder you are fighting the water going up the face strongly by the shoulder and there is no help from the lip. If you can overcome this then you can make a late drop but you have to paddle hard and popup quick. The bigger the wave the smaller the chance you can takeoff on the shoulder.

I really enjoy your insight OMS. I wonder, however, if what you're saying is really dependent on the type of break you're surfing. My experience surfing a point break seems like I can pretty well take off all along the shoulder on a decent day. It's almost like on a point break the peak moves horizontally down the line rather than straight toward the beach like it would on an A-frame, beach break type wave. Hopefully, that makes sense. Anyway, I feel lucky to be surfing a point break because it's so predictable and consistent. Even on bigger days, I know the pattern of the break and, for the most part, the waves don't break that pattern. It makes it easy to move around and feels safer to me (I know where to go and not to go). Beach breaks, on the other hand, are exciting in the way they can throw chaos in your way. When it's big and scary, I don't like chaos. I do think beach breaks are more of the thrill ride side of surfing.

Yes there are waves that you can takeoff on the shoulder and perhaps slow moving point breaks such as in a recent video you posted might be easy and certainly using a longboard will help with that also but most likely it depends on the direction of the swell as to whether it will let you takeoff on the shoulder easily. A longboard might help ride the wave in the video above in the right hands but for most longboarders that wave would be a challenge. it has too much water moving up it's face. It would require paddling hard popping up fast and quickly angling and turning the board almost simultaneously.

[dtc]

Point breaks tend not to have ‘throwing lips’ - more crumbling lips. So it doesn’t matter too much where you take off, it’s all fairly consistent. As OMS says, on other waves there are places where you will find it hard to take off, even though if you are up and surfing you can surf through those spots

Mmm, I think I’m saying ‘each wave is different.! I wonder if anyone has realised that before - might be a surfing breakthrough