Surfing Waves

Hi,

I think I'd call myself an advanced beginner. Anyway, my question is how to handle the close outs where I surf (Venice, El Porto.) I seem to either be popping up too early or too late. When I surf the 2-4 waves, one of two things seems to happen. Either the waves catches the back of the board and just throws it over me or I find I've popped up and I'm kind of standing on the top of the wave as it curls over and I have no momentum. However, when I watch other people, they seem to kind of sink into the wave, as it were, with their board parallel to the ground. In other words the wave isn't picking the back of their board up and throwing it over their head. Anyway, any tips? In case it's relevant, I'm 6'2" and ride a 7'2".

How long have you been surfing?
It sounds like you havent built enough speed to ''catch'' the wave, as opposed to the wave catching you, so to speak. You could be too far forward on your board, or missing the popup opportunity (ie trying to pop up late), or any combination of the three.

Hopefully others will join in too.
Also, maybe get a bigger board for help with ease of paddling?

There is so much that does into learning to surf. For one thing there is your board. It may well be too small for you at this stage of learning. If not then there are the waves. If a wave is actually a closeout what are you doing as an advanced beginner trying to catch it? You should be looking for waves that are going to help you improve your skills. On a closeout wave the only way to get some skills if you are having trouble is to gain skill on waves that don't stop you from taking off or just put your head down and endure the pounding you will take and try to make some sense of it. If I were surfing true closeouts I would go the end of the wave. You know that end part where it isn't all pitching over? Get a little bit deep from there and try to learn to bottom turn. Another thing to do is work on you paddling and positioning. I can sometimes squeeze off a bottom turn to floater on "closeouts" but I have to get down the face fast and back up fast but I need to be in the right place as well as paddle fast.

On true closeouts there isn’t much you can do....bottom turn and go back up and over the wave if you want to stay outside....the takeoff issues don’t have anything to do with close outs....you need a combination of better timing, positioning and paddle speed.......not something that can be learned in a forum. OMS is right about the board....try a bigger one and see if you can catch waves better. 7’2” isn’t much board for an American sized 6.2 begginner something.

I’d recommend putting all your strength into the paddle, when I started I had the same problem but after awhile I realized paddling harder and harder will help a lot.

alwayspearling wrote: the waves catches the back of the board and just throws it over me

Because you're staring at the nose, nose comes up, you're stalling / plowing the snow, board drags / slows up until the wave catches you, lifts up the tail and flap-jacks you.

alwayspearling wrote:I find I've popped up and I'm kind of standing on the top of the wave as it curls over and I have no momentum.

Because you're staring at the nose, nose comes up, you're stalling / aren't pointing down enough to work with gravity, you end up on the wrong side of the sliding board.

Fast steep waves can be tricky; high tide crumblers are much easier to catch. What you are finding is that you have some flaws, and they are now being exposed. Thats fine, in fact totally normal and expected.

If you end up at the back of the wave it could be that you start too far out and never get 'in front' of the wave. Poor paddling or poor positioning. Probably paddling given your other problems. Maybe due to bad body position (looking at the nose, body position on the board not good) or just weak paddling.

Remember that the initial take off down the face of the wave is due to gravity; you need to put the board over the edge onto the slope of the wave. You need to be in a position to do that. Also remember that you are not just fighting to get in front of the wave, the wave is sucking water up its face. You need to paddle to overcome that force. So its not easy, there is a bit of effort involved and you need to ensure you are paddling in the most efficient manner - because it doesnt take much until your inefficiencies become too great to outpaddle

Make sure your body is properly positioned (nose of the board just above the wave) and you are looking up (not down) and you paddle hard. And that you arent starting from too far back. Its easy.... (huh, no its not. But get the fundamentals right and its easier)

Thanks for all the replies.

Looks like, for a start, I should get a bigger board and work on my paddling. So, in terms of a board, would an 8' be good or should I go bigger?

dtc wrote:Remember that the initial take off down the face of the wave is due to gravity; you need to put the board over the edge onto the slope of the wave. You need to be in a position to do that. Also remember that you are not just fighting to get in front of the wave, the wave is sucking water up its face. You need to paddle to overcome that force. So its not easy, there is a bit of effort involved and you need to ensure you are paddling in the most efficient manner - because it doesnt take much until your inefficiencies become too great to outpaddle

It's a minor point, but it's one that I think is important. I don't believe a wave is sucking water up into it. When you see an unbroken set of waves approaching you, don't think of those waves as water moving toward you. Think of them as rolling cylinders of energy moving underneath the water toward you. That's one of the reasons I love waves; they're the most beautiful manifestation of naturally occurring waves in nature. You can see lots of waves with an oscilloscope (e.g. a sound wave), but that pales in comparison to watching them roll through water.

Anyway, a model of what's going on might be possible with a flat table, a metal cylinder (or a rolling pin), and a bed sheet. If I covered the table with the sheet and then put the metal cylinder under the sheet and rolled it across the table, the sheet would slide up and down as the cylinder passed underneath it--similar to what you see with unbroken ocean waves. The metal cylinder would not, however, be sucking the water (bed sheet) up into it like if you took your hand and grabbed the sheet and started scrunching it up into your palm. That would approximate a kind of sucking. That's not happening with unbroken ocean waves. Once waves start breaking, however, lots of things start happening and water starts flowing all over the place. The area between where the waves are breaking and where the breaking water meets the shore is where a lot of churning takes place. There are a lot of rebounding waves and noise out in front of breaking waves and that water is often flowing back out to sea (up and over incoming energy cylinders ) making it difficult to paddle against on a takeoff. It also makes it easy to mistake an incoming wave as having suction.

I thought this article described the relative flow of water around/in a wave pretty well-
https://surfsimply.com/surf-coaching/ho ... ard-works/

They call it an “Effective Flow” of water running up the face from the perspective of the surfer- you're trying to paddle 'downhill' and towards the shore, while the water around you is not moving away from shore but it is moving up the wave face as the wave travels forward. Either way I think it is something you do need to counteract when you paddle into a wave.

when you have a wave that breaks because of suddenly shallow water the height of the wave grows suddenly. The force of the water moving along horizontally suddenly cannot go horizontal and has to go vertical. Those waves created by suddenly shallow water have lots of water moving upwards. It's a real thing.

steveylang wrote:I thought this article described the relative flow of water around/in a wave pretty well-
https://surfsimply.com/surf-coaching/ho ... ard-works/

I never read that article. It confirms my own observations of waves. Thanks for linking it. Funny that they used a similar analogy of a sheet with a round object rolling underneath it. Anyway, I also got to thinking about surfing in different fluids with different densities. For example, what would surfing in an ocean of mercury be like? The whitewash from liquid mercury might actually be dense enough to knock you out if you tried to punch through it. Just a little fun speculation.

As a beginner who has had a similar problem on a 7’6 board (I’m 5’3 and a weak paddler) I highly recommend getting a bigger board. I went up to a 9’ foamie and my wave count increased dramatically and I only seem to pearl now when my position is off on the board. I’m also able to get into the waves much sooner so have more time to pop up. Before when I did make a wave it felt like everything was a late drop. Also, OMS tip about surfing the end of the closeout has helped me a lot! I read that tip a few days ago and it helps me make the most of closeouts. Good luck to you!

oldmansurfer wrote:when you have a wave that breaks because of suddenly shallow water the height of the wave grows suddenly. The force of the water moving along horizontally suddenly cannot go horizontal and has to go vertical. Those waves created by suddenly shallow water have lots of water moving upwards. It's a real thing.

They are also easy to catch because they jack hard...so long as you're in position and the wave is actually surfable.

Hmmm, Surfable is a variable thing according to the surfers skills. I think if your weight can overcome the force of the water moving up the face then it can be easy just a couple paddles and your in but in my experience sometimes even my hefty weight either can't overcome it or just barely overcome it and those waves are difficult to catch.

alwayspearling wrote:Thanks for all the replies.

Looks like, for a start, I should get a bigger board and work on my paddling. So, in terms of a board, would an 8' be good or should I go bigger?

Hey man - I surf the same spots, and am about at your level. I'm 5'9 and have found a lot of success with a 7'6 funboard (or a Wavestorm!), especially this summer when it's smaller.

You're right that there are a lot of closeouts, but generally (not always) you can identify them, i.e. most "big" waves there are closeouts in my experience. If you see a big one coming that looks like it's a similar height all the way across the entire face, it's closing out (logical, right?). But sometimes you do just have to go for it. For me, I turn my board around and start paddling REALLY early. I do tend to sit a tad further out than most might, so I "miss" more waves, but this is where I'm comfortable right now. It also gets you more paddling experience.