Where is "the best" location to learn how to ride barrels

[Raiz]

This might be a bit of a stretch but I'd like to try anyway.

My ultimate surf goal is to get barreled. As simple as that. It doesn't need to be a huge barrel where I can stand up on my board with my arms stretched in the air and still not touching water. A small barrel where you kinda "crouch" through is already perfect (and I assume much easier and safer to learn).

In my country, Netherlands, there are only a handful of days with clean surfable barrels, so it's hard to progress my skill. So I was thinking, there must be places where there are "always" consistent clean small barrel waves to practice over and over again. I do realize there is no such thing as "always" but I think you get what I mean.

So my question is... WHERE? Preferably in / close to Europe but anything is fine.

Also another question, also a bit of a stretch, but if you consider my skill right now is basically a proper pop-up and doing a good bottom turn, how long would it take to learn to surf a small barrel? Days? Weeks? Months? Of course nobody can tell for sure, but just to get some idea what I'm looking at.

Thanks for your input, looking forward to your suggestions

[BaNZ]

I can't ride barrels. But my guess is the fastest way would be to learn it in a artificial wave pool. Since those things are super consistent and you pay for what you get. No need to wait in lineup. In the wild, you will rarely get the chance to take any barrels because the better surfers will be on it before you.

[oldmansurfer]

That was my thought. A wave pool would be the best place. Getting tubes is partly about the wave and partly about the rider. Some surfers just have a knack for getting tubed. You can have 2 surfers surfing the same break and one will get tubed on nearly every wave and the other may not get tubed at all. First off knowing where to lineup and which waves to take is important and the skills to take catch and ride them from the correct place in the lineup. Then it's about reading the wave and guessing at what it's going to do based on the shape you see, then having a set of skills and the board that will allow you to make the big and small changes in speed and direction needed to get tubed. A wave pool takes away most of the wave reading stuff. You should know pretty close what the wave is going to do on every wave. Good tubing breaks are often very crowded which make them poor for learning. The wave pool will likely allow you a certain number of attempts an hour for $$ you spend. I rarely get tubed these days but long ago I was a much better surfer and I would get tubed multiple times a week usually. If I didn't I went searching for a break to get tubed on. I am still working on relearning to turn and control my board and not trying to get tubed so mostly I am not taking advantage of the opportunities to get tubed and working on turning the board instead. When I see what may be an easy opportunity to get tubed I take it but largely I don't get barreled because I lack the timing and skills to slow my board down enough at this stage of my relearning. Since I restarted surfing I probably have gotten barreled 10 or so times but some day hopefully soon I will feel comfortable enough with my board handling and start focusing on getting tubed again.

[Lebowski]

Years is more likely how long it will take.

You need to be a pretty decent surfer to get into a barrel, and an even better one to get out of them.

Barrelling waves are powerful and therefore you have to have all the skills required to surf at a powerful break, including strong paddling, good stamina, excellent wave reading ability, capable of taking late drops, dealing with associated crowds at these sort of breaks etc.

All these skills take time to develop and can't really be shortcut a great deal.

Of course you'll advance quicker on decent waves rather than windslop, but it'll still take significant time.

Somewhere like Supertubos in Portugal would suffice but be prepared for big crowds, localism and powerful board snapping waves as well as disgruntled locals if you blow many waves.

[Raiz]

Thanks for help guys. They're actually building an indoor (yes, indoor) wave pool about 30km away from my home. I've helped it a little bit by crowdfunding I just don't know if they're able to produce barrel waves.

Oh and a fun fact is that I've been to supertubos a few weeks ago, but it was really messy that day. I stayed near Peniche so we took the other breaks that worked well.

If anyone feels like they want to add more, feel free to

[oldmansurfer]

It's actually easier to get tubed on a bigger wave. On a bigger wave you have more room to move around and adjust your speed to the wave. On small waves you often get hit by the lip which pulls you off your board. Frontside is generally easier to do on smaller waves because the form your body takes when you crouch. If you are facing the wave then your head will go to the space at the top of the wave right under where it is pitching over but there is lots of room there. If you are backside your head is very close to the lip. Probably your best bet on learning to get tubed other than a wave pool is a break that isn't popular but has some steep tubing waves or sections. This will allow you more attempts than a crowded break. Also a sand break is going to be safer so if you can find a tubing sandbar break that is not consistently tubing that would be your best bet at learning.

[waikikikichan]

This might be a bit of a stretch but I'd like to try anyway.
My ultimate surf goal is to get barreled.
how long would it take to learn to surf a small barrel? Days? Weeks? Months? Of course nobody can tell for sure, but just to get some idea what I'm looking at.

Might be a bit of a stretch to ask but I'd like to ask you.
If my ultimate Golf goal is to get a Hole-in-One. How long would it take to learn to Hole-in-One? Days? Weeks? Months?

If my ultimate Baseball goal is to get a Homerun.
How long would it take to learn to do a Homerun? Days? Weeks? Months?

If my ultimate painting goal is to paint a Masterpiece.
How long would it take to learn to do a Masterpiece? Days? Weeks? Months?

Of course nobody can tell for sure, but just to get some idea what I'm looking at. But how would YOU respond to those questions, will help you respond to your own question about getting barreled.

Screenshot 2018-12-14 at 6.06.32 AM.png (109.95 KiB) Viewed 2784 times

Are you willing to put in the time ( years ) and effort to attain your ultimate goal ?

[surferbee]

With all due respect, I think you guys are being too harsh. I don't have an easy answer for the "best" place to get tubed, but I do know that I have friends that are not particularly talented surfers who *claim* to have gotten barreled at various locales - Huntington Beach, Baja, Nicaragua, Costa Rica. Now maybe they're lying or exaggerating, but from the sound of it, it had more to do with the conditions being generous than with their ability being exemplary. I suspect someone who surfs those spots regularly might shed some more light on where to find a "friendly" barrel. But since I haven't surfed any of those places, and I've never had an *easy* barrel, maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe I just want to believe that somewhere out there in this wide, wide world an easy barrel exists ...along with a few mermaids and a unicorn.

[surferbee]

Also, fwiw, I just found this: https://radseason.com/10-of-the-best-barrels-for-beginners/

And this, which basically agrees with what you guys said above: "There is no easy place to get barreled, because getting barreled is hard. And that’s what makes it worth chasing."
https://www.theinertia.com/surf/the-best-places-to-get-barreled-according-to-gerry-lopez-and-the-hobgood-bros/

And neither article says anything about mermaids OR unicorns.

[dtc]

There is no magic to surfing a barrel. Its just going straight down the line. Its the wave that is different.

So first up remember why a wave barrels - its when the bottom of the wave slows very quickly and the lip is still going fast, so the lip throws forward a distance and creates a barrel. The slowing down occurs when the water goes from deep to shallow in a very short distance - so most often a reef break, but it can occur from a sandbar. Low tide is often the best situation

So surfing the locations where barrels occur can be risky, because you are often surfing in shallow water. A sandbar that is 4ft deep isnt going to create a barrel (except perhaps in 20ft swell). And often its a very fast wave, so cruising along on a longboard or whatever can be problematic.

But surfing the wave itself (outside, obviously, of big pipeline etc) is just going straight down the line and having the lip barrel over your head. The biggest difficulty is being willing to go into a wave that might barrel or might close out and smash you - the usual/safest option is just to turn down the face and stay outside the lip; you need to overcome this 'fear' and take it on. But you are taking it on in potentially very shallow water.

So how to surf a barrel - find a wave that barrels and commit. Try not to break your neck if you fall.

Finding the wave is the hardest thing. Hossenger is probably the place in Europe - as per surferbee's post above. But you can find barrelling waves on beaches if you are there at the right time, right swell direction, right tide, right wind

For most people - me definitely included - barrels happen when you are surfing a wave and it randomly barrels unexpectedly and you happen to be in the right place and the wave isnt big enough to cause concerns and you just go for it. Crouching small on shoulder front side waves ..

[oldmansurfer]

The problem with an easy barrel wave is the hours of waiting for your turn to ride then if you mess up back to the end of the line to wait for your turn again. Even if it is easy it still takes skills. The first time I got tubed surfing was actually before I tried to learn to surf. I was paipo boarding and my younger brother had a 5'2" potato chip board and let me use it. It took me 30 minutes to figure out where to lineup at a break that I was familiar with from paipo boarding. The very first wave I caught I got tubed on. Little did I know that it would be at least 500 hours or more of surfing once I decided to learn to surf before I go tubed again standing up (crouching really). And then it was entirely by accident. I flubbed up doing something and managed to not fall down and the wave just did everything else. I got tubed and came out. It wasn't a great tube and I wasn't overjoyed by it because I had been in some awesome tubes bodysurfing and paipo boarding prior to starting surfing. I think if you want to learn you have to learn about waves. If you don't want to learn then just put in hours at a wave pool or a hundred time more hours at a tubing break waiting for your turn. This is just my opinion. I used to surf with guys who didn't get tubed when I would get tubed repeatedly while we shared waves at a break so I know if you don't know how to get tubed it doesn't matter if it's easy tubes or whatever.

While I was wanting to learn to switch stance because I thought that would be the way for me to get tubed on lefts since I was a regular foot I was surfing a junk small day shoulder high messy waves switch stance. The whole day I surfed switch stance and maybe this was the second or third day I did this because the waves were small and junky. I took off on a wave and lost my balance on the drop and ended up fading to the right when I wanted to go left but before I could get turned back to the left, the wave had broke and I ended up having to go right. I got tubed and came out. I was so happy and surprised I was yelling and holding my arms up and looking around to see if anyone saw that incredible bit of good fortune. It still remains the only tube ride I had switch stance and it was backside. I gave up the switch stance thing after I found I liked to surf backside as well as frontside. Anyway so even though I surfed a lot and wanted to get tubed my first experiences getting tubed were just lucky and accidental. Now if you surf a good break you might get tubed more often if you know what you are doing but if you don't then you just need to surf a lot and you won't be doing that at a popular break. You'll just be waiting for your turn to surf. I am sure on a given day there are tubes somewhere that no one is riding. That is merely because no one knows about it or if they know they aren't telling.

[Oldie]

Hossegor maybe be the closest, but it is not an easy spot to surf at all. And when it is barelling, it will be full of locals that will make it even harder for you.

Thanks for help guys. They're actually building an indoor (yes, indoor) wave pool about 30km away from my home. I've helped it a little bit by crowdfunding I just don't know if they're able to produce barrel waves.

Where is that? Might be wort the short trip.

[Raiz]

With all due respect, I think you guys are being too harsh.

Thanks for that No problem, I know it's a bit of a weird question and I didn't expect an answer like "go to place X and you can ride barrels after 3 days". Just trying to find some more information about where best to go. It's my goal for now so I'm willing to take a bit of internet fire by asking a question like this

Thanks for help guys. They're actually building an indoor (yes, indoor) wave pool about 30km away from my home. I've helped it a little bit by crowdfunding I just don't know if they're able to produce barrel waves.

Where is that? Might be wort the short trip.

If I remember correctly, you sometimes surf in Scheveningen, right? They're building it in The Hague, so you should know how to get there Actually, from your location (Germany?) it will be even a tiny bit closer than Scheveningen. Anyway, you can check https://www.247waves.com/?lang=en for the English site.

To everybody else: thanks for the feedback, even if it's a bit harsh sometimes. No problem

[Big H]

G Land East Java

Padang2

[jaffa1949]

Raiz have to compliment you on facing the “ hard advice” quite a few of earlier posters on various subjects get offended when told reality versus their egos.

Trouble is most surf sessions anywhere except prime spots do not reliably offer barrels. Often so infrequent that we can lose the fine tuning needed between their occurrence.

The best way, sharpen you all round skills, head to warm surf destinations when you funds and time allow,.

If you are not scared of wipeouts, pull into close outs in Scheveningen, try to ride them as far as you can before you get wiped! One day one time your ride to,the limit will find an open door at the end of the ride, = first barrel!
You will eat a lot of sand , risk minor injuries and board dings, but over the rainbow under the lip, one will open for you, you will learn board control in the more extreme part of the wave!

[RinkyDink]

I know it's a bit of a weird question and I didn't expect an answer like "go to place X and you can ride barrels after 3 days". Just trying to find some more information about where best to go.

As some of the other replies have already indicated, another equally important question, maybe even more important depending on the spot, is when should you go to get barrels?

[pmcaero]

Just 3 steps:

1)Find shore dump with strong offshore winds
2)Go out on a bodyboard
3) Barrel

[oldmansurfer]

I used to paipo board long ago and got some incredible tubes that even after years of surfing and getting incredible tubes surfing are still memorable. When I started surfing I wanted to get barreled but it took me about a year before I got tubed intentionally on a regular basis. I was surfing 2 hours a day and more on the weekends. In my first year of surfing probably 800 or more hours but I quit surfing for 12 years and restarted and it was like learning how all over except I knew what I had to do and the downside was I was old and out of shape and didn't have much time. For maybe the first 4 years I surfed only 30 minutes a week about 26 hours a year. Now I surf about 52 hours a year. However because I know how to get tubed I have gotten tubed 10 times in less hours in the water than I surfed in 6 months just because I know how. Maybe I can't make the board I surf do everything needed to get tubed more often but I am still not focused on that. I would rather do turns at this point than get tubed because I still feel I need to learn to control my board better. But then again I have the benefit of knowing that once I start trying to learn to get tubed I will likely be getting tubed more often. I think I understand the OPs desire to get tubed but for myself I have the unfortunate position of knowing I will never have as good of a tube ride as I already have had because I am old will never be in as as good shape as I once was. So my desire to get tubed is tempered by that depressing thought. But body boarding or paipo boarding definitely makes it easy to get tubed (still some skill involved). Not much help for the OP but just my aged perspective on the matter. Also because I paipo boarded and bodysurfed prior to starting to surf I was very familiar with the ocean and waves and knew how to handle myself on shallow reef breaks or pitching heavy shorebreak. There are lots of tubing waves that break over shallow reef and if you aren't familiar you will become intimate with the reef. So my guess is to go to a sand break that has occasionally steep sections and learn there. No special place because the good waves all have crowded lineups and you won't be catching many waves per hour surfing.