Surfing Waves

I was looking at big wave riders online and came across a couple photos of empty surfboards on the face of cresting waves at Jaws. At least one of the photos had a rider already halfway down the face. Took me a while to put things together and really didn’t put it all together until I came across a pic of a surfer that fell off at the lip and I saw how long his leash was. Are the surfers just acting as sea anchors with their boards getting pulled through the face?

The top picture is bailing out. It is often a survival maneuver, sort of like duck diving with your board in tow. The bottom picture is the new extreme sport of surf bungee jumping

On a serious note some of them may not have leashes and if they do they are not just anchoring but actively swimming to get through the wave and maybe also pulling their board behind them. If you actively swim down towing your board behind you in smaller waves you pull the tail down and it goes under the wave.....at least in smaller waves this works. So if you just try to anchor then you may end up getting towed by your board but if you tow the board behind you it is much more likely to result in you not getting towed. However in small waves this is frowned upon because your board becomes a dangerous weapon if you let it go without towing it. If you swim to the end of your leash before the wave hits you it's unlikely to go anywhere but in a crowd it might scare others. However this is a good reason to not be paddling or sitting inside of another surfer. The surfer in the bottom picture didn't ditch his board paddling he ditched it after popping up or while popping up. edit to add i found it

Do you think the last guy in the video is correct saying 99.9% of people that that would have happened to would have died? Seriously? Is bailing like that a common practice on big waves? What would be the primary reason for having a leash that long? So the board has a longer distance to fall before it impacts you? I wonder how many years practice before you’re ready to take on that wave

I wouldn't pretend to know what is survivable in the big wave arena. I think what he is referring to is not only what was seen but what happened after that. So first getting yanked hard by your ankle then smacking the water which hopefully was a lessened impact and slower due to bungee cord effect from the leash then getting sucked up over the falls and pounded for a minute or so and then maybe take another wave on the head before you come up and several more after that. I came very close to drowning on the only big wave I ever wiped out on so my experience is limited. I have seen videos of lots of bails off the top of the wave but none with the guy getting yanked by his cord like that which is why I was pretty sure I could find the video if it. I think the long leash lets the board get further away from you as it is thrashed around by the wave which makes it less likely to smack you.

I guess the inflatable life vest helps out too

Flotation vests including the inflatable ones and jet skis have allowed surfers to surf more dangerously and survive it. Prior to these devices big wave surfers would shy away from certain conditions/waves because the likelihood of death was too great.

PunaTuna wrote: Is bailing like that a common practice on big waves?

It's not only a common way to bail on a 30 foot wave but even a 5 foot wave.
If not that "way", what way do you think he could've gone ?
1) Back way. Momentum / Gravity is taking him the other way. Even if he could jump back, he'd probably get sucked over the falls anyway.
2) Sit down and pull up the nose. He was already up to his feet. And again he'd probably get sucked over the fall but NOW with the board between his legs.

He is 10-15 feet away from the back of the wave where the others surfers are. He is getting pitched. That's all he could do. Wind held him up, couldn't get down the face clean. Poo Poo happens.

As far as bailing, I was speaking of all the empty surfboards lol. The guy that fell off after his poppup was just, um, falling. I don’t see anything that would indicate he was bailing out, but the reason I posted that pic was to demonstrate how long the guys leash was, and wondering if one reason was to swim through to the backside and having enough distance that the board would follow him instead of the board pulling him back from the force of the wave.