Surfing

Surfing as a pastime was first observed back in the late 1760’s by English sea explorers aboard the ship “Dolphin” in Tahiti.

These days, weather and climate permitting, people surfing can be observed on almost every beach in the world where there is ocean swell.

Surfing requires a swell or wave that propels the surfer along the water. As swell or waves are created by wind, beaches that are exposed to large expanses of open ocean provide the best surfing waves. When these waves hit coastal shorelines, the top of the wave is thrust forward over the bottom of the wave forming a wave that is steep enough to ride.

Surfing can take various forms – body surfing, which requires a swimmer to swim onto a wave, then ride it into the shore. Bogie Board riding, which is riding a small foam or fiberglass board along or with the wave. Surf Board riding, which is catching a wave with a short or long board then once on the wave standing up and riding along the wave or with the wave toward the shore.

The seabed directly below the wave primarily determines the quality of a wave for surfing. The gradient of the shoreline affects the steepness of the wave, and the slope of the shoreline in relation to wave direction determines how it is going to break. Waves that wrap around a sand bank or headland have a longer breaking period as the wave breaks from shallow water to deep water

As the waves break from one end to the other they are deemed better than waves breaking altogether which is characteristic of open beach breaks. Therefore beach “point breaks” are often the best places for surfboard riding.

'Surfing', can mean body surfing i.e. surfing waves without the aid of a board or floating device. Kneeboards, which are very short fiberglass boards that surfer kneels on once they have caught a wave. Short boards, which are standard surf boards used by most surfers. Long boards, which were the original form of surfboard but which have been super seeded by small and lighter design. Long boards are still popular and can be seen being ridden on most days. Surf skies, which resemble a very small flat boat that surfers sit on and use a paddle to catch waves and move around.

Let’s have a closer look at some surfers.

Here the swell hits the rocky point and waves peel over from left to right. Surfers wishing to catch the waves must congregate close to the rocks where the waves begin to break and is steep enough to catch. Points like this can very quickly become very crowded and competition for waves is intense. Waves breaking in front of the point are not of sufficient quality for surfers to try and catch. And the danger of being washed up onto the rocks is also discouraging.

This picture shows a typical “beach break”. As the swell hits the beach, waves break in a variety of ways depending on the seabed, which is constantly changing. A build up of sand called a sand bar can occur in any location so we can see an inconsistency in the waves breaking. Some are breaking altogether at one time. Some are breaking from right to left and others are breaking from left to right. Although waves on an open beach break are less consistent and more erratic than waves breaking around a point, they are generally bigger than point breaks which reduce in size when they hit the point and stretch out (called diffraction).

This shot at Snapper Rocks on Australia’s Gold Coast shows an ideal beach break for surfing and is in fact used as one of the venues for the current world surfing championship. Waves, having traveled considerable distances over the Pacific Ocean first hit the point in the top right hand of the picture. Then they break left towards the left of the screen. This break, where the waves break from left to right when you’re surfing the wave is known as a right hand break. That is, after a surfer catches the wave, he travels along the wave from left to right. As you can see from the waves in the picture, surfers have the opportunity to ride along the waves for a considerable distance.

The popularity of this type of break is its consistency. Waves, for the most part will always break from left to right as they hit the point.

Another factor that determines the quality of the surf for surfing is the wind. In blowy or gusty conditions the surf tends to get choppy and the formation of waves tends to break up. In a lot of beaches around the world a sea breeze generally builds up around late morning and steadily increases until the late afternoon when the wind eases.

Ideal conditions are when there is a slight offshore wind, meaning that the wind is blowing from land out to sea. This tends to push against the waves making them steeper, meaning they are easier to catch and more fun to ride.

This means that the best surfing conditions are generally from early morning to lunch time. After that the surf becomes too choppy.

This shot in the early morning of Snapper Rocks shows glassy and almost perfect surfing conditions with waves breaking consistently. Surfers are spread out over a wide area indicating that quality waves can be caught in a wide area.

Surfing, along with many other sports and past times is not without dangers. Here a boat is checking shark nets which have been laid by the local council to protect people (bathers and surfers alike) from shark attack.

It is also highly recommended you should not go out into the surf unless you can cope with the conditions without the aid of your surfboard or float device. Big swells are particularly dangerous for surfers with little experience.

In modern times surfers riding truly huge waves are assisted by jet skis which tow the surfers onto the waves at a speed that surfers could not achieve on their own.

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