Surfing Waves

Hi all!

I've come across a picture on a local surf facebook group which draws my attention, as I have similar experiences before but can't figure out what happened.



Like this picture here, the nose of the board is way above the water. I've experienced something like a sudden/abrupt drop after i pop up -> wipe out, I reckon I may be in this situation? And I kinda want to know what will happen to the surfer next.

Thanks in advance!

Looks to me like he is lifting the nose of the board to prevent a nose-dive, by applying pressure and weight to his backfoot.

jet528 wrote:Like this picture here, the nose of the board is way above the water. I've experienced something like a sudden/abrupt drop after i pop up -> wipe out, I reckon I may be in this situation? And I kinda want to know what will happen to the surfer next.

It's hard to tell, but it might be that you're too far forward on your board. Ask yourself this question while you're looking at your picture: What would happen if I stood up totally straight (at the same moment shown in the picture) and put more weight on my front foot? I suspect you're probably popping up, moving forward on your board in a crouched kind of hang five stance which weighs down the center of your board, but then when you stand up straighter you suddenly weigh the front of the board too much and it pearls. That's my best guess.

It's difficult to tell from a single photo what is going on. My best guess is that this guy is doing a floater where the wave was breaking in front of him and he went up over the back of the wave and came down over the falls on the lip. He probably doesn't have a lot of forward momentum so he is working to keep the nose up as he comes down with the lip. If you have a lot of speed then a floater is very similar to riding the face of the wave but if you are slower then you need to worry about pearling. I sometimes do a "floater on takeoff" where I am paddling for a wave and it breaks/crumbles under me but I can feel the wave pulling me along so I popup and ride the whitewater down and when I do that I try to keep the board parallel to to bottom of the ocean to keep it from pearling. That would be another possible explanation except he is pointed too far down the line to be doing that. It could also be a kook falling down and just caught in a moment that looks like he knows what he is doing.

jet528 wrote:Like this picture here, the nose of the board is way above the water. I've experienced something like a sudden/abrupt drop after i pop up -> wipe out, I reckon I may be in this situation? And I kinda want to know what will happen to the surfer next.

What you are describing is "Fred Flintstone Surfing". Symptoms are:
1) Bad positioning laying on the board - which is usually too far back so it plows the wave not glides on it.
2) Weak paddle or too fast in-efficient stroke - Not enough momentum to match the wave's speed.
3) Too excited to stand up - which leads to stalling the board on top or behind the crest of the wave.
4) Looking down at the nose of the board or into the trough of the wave. - meaning you're afraid / hesitant.


You are basically getting caught in the lip during take off. You need to be in front of it, NOT on top of it. Before that "abrupt drop", I bet you lose most of your speed and teeter on the top of the foam for a bit. Then gravity or for a bit of luck, your board breaks lose and gets tossed over.
Two things might happen:
1) Tail gets shoved up - Nose gets slammed down - wipe out.
2) You land flat as a pan cake with no momentum and then the wave crashes on top/around you.
Either way that is not going "Down the Line", that is just going DOWN. Going "Down the line" is when a surfer TRIMs across the waves face.

My advice is "Catch the wave FIRST, THEN stand up".