Race to the Rock

I’m in the very early stages of planning a race for early next fall. I’ve been so jealous of all our west coast and island brothers and sisters for all the races they have available. I figured the best way to insure I had a race to enter was to plan one myself. It’s also good to see some other east coast races coming online. They’ll be a bit of a road trip but hey, that’s half the fun.

Anyway….I think this will be a pretty nice route for a race. 7.5 miles, starting at Plymouth Beach, go around the point, into the harbor, along the downtown waterfront, around the Mayflower II, past Plymouth Rock, past the marina, into the flats, a short sprint across the sand, back down Plymouth Beach to finish. Here’s the map

I haven’t set the date yet. I have to check the tide tables for a good weekend with high tide around noon or so. I want to time the start so that we have the incoming tide to take us through the gut and be at peak when we get to the flats.

Most of this will likely be flatwater, some potential for side swell or chop on the beach legs. Prevailing winds are usually west this time of year. The inner harbor will definitely be flat or at most slight chop. Should be a good route for spectators especially with good weather. Here’s part of the route in windows live birds eye view…Mayflower II in site..
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCC&cp=qzt0nq93bbk0&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=3630423&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

As I said this is still in the early stages but I’m thinking that any proceeds will go to benefit the Nathan Hale Foundation a local non-profit that helps disabled vets with transportation, housing, and employment issues.
http://www.thenathanhalefoundation.org/index.shtml

Should be fun…going to be busy planning this and the CCBC #2.

While planning the route I found that Google Maps allows for collaboration now. Not sure how long that’s been there…pretty cool though. When you are creating the map you can choose to email it to others for collaboration and this allows them to edit it as well.

Surf Guest–That Soap Is Not For You

This is an oldie but a goodie, an article published back in 2008 but as relevant today as it was way back then, a whole year ago.  I’m about to have two of my best friends come visit. they are both perfect guests, but they ARE guys, and that reminded to go searching for this. Enjoy

Once again this column is aimed mostly at guys. It’s not that I’m some kind of pig (though I am) it’s just that I’m male. The notion that I might understand a woman’s viewpoint about guest etiquette is laughable. I’m simply describing reactions and taboos from the position of dispassionate observer. Napoleon Chagnon observing the Yanomami in the dark heart of the amazon. Besides, the topic of this article is no help to women–they understand this stuff from birth. Though it may be useful to women to print a few copies, laminate them, and molly bolt them onto walls anywhere male guests might wander in search of a resting place, food, or relief of basic bodily imperatives.

So you’ve been invited to stay at someone’s beach house. It’s close to good breaks and therefore it’s a great place even if the floors tilt fifteen degrees. You’d like to come back someday. You’d like these people to still be speaking to you after three days of exposure to your habits. But you’re an untamed, natural creature, child of the ocean, at one with your true soul.

Well that ain’t gonna work. If you expose that dog to anyone with sensibilities, much less a woman, they will do anything short of burning the house to make sure you never cross the threshold again. This is a step-by-step plan for utterly fooling people into thinking you are remarkably civilized for a guy whose wardrobe consists of board shorts, rash guards, freebie T-shirts and a crusty hoodie.

You need to memorize this, so I’m going to keep it simple. No explanations–just rules. Besides, I don’t know why these are rules, they puzzle me too.

1. Case the bedroom: If the bed has a decorative cover, a sham (the ruffly thing that hides the wheels and dust bunnies) decorative pillows and/or stuffed animals you will not be sleeping there. DO NOT pull back the covers or disturb the pillows unless you take a photograph that enables you to put things back EXACTLY as they were. Either sleep on the floor beside the bed or try the front lawn.

2. Examine the bathroom: If it is a shared bathroom DO NOT undertake elimination after eating five Spam Musabe or even a single Chile Verde burrito. There is no spray, “aromatherapy experience” or amount of fresh air that will eliminate the lingering evidence of your gastronomic excesses. Lift the seat to pee, put it back down when you’re done. Seems like women could figure out if a toilet seat is up or not before they sit down, but apparently they can’t, and if you give them a surprise dip they will hate you until the sun is a black cinder.

3. The guest towels are not for you. They are easy to identify–they match, and they are brightly colored. You need to look for something in a drawer or cabinet that looks like a ratty beach towel, or perhaps something lifted from a holiday inn. Try not to get it too wet–it can double as a blanket when you’re sleeping on the floor.

4. The guest soap is also not for you. These are even easier to identify–they have probably never been wet and they are in some distinct shape–like fish or hearts. Again, search the cabinets and find a soap scrap with deep fissures, or perhaps an assortment of them that you can bind together with a little hot water.

5. If your buddy farts in front of his wife it’s not an invitation to a contest. Your best bet is a slightly pained and embarrassed look, like you’re not really sure what just transpired. Of course if she’s not around feel free to unleash your rendition of the 1812 overture.

6. Don’t offer to cook–a no win proposition. If it’s good you’re competing with the wife and upstaging your friend. If it’s bad you’re subjecting them to an unpleasant meal, if you make a mess you’re a pain, if you clean the whole kitchen you’re a neat freak who finds their housekeeping not up to your standards. When Suzy Homemaker makes you anything, including some strange casserole with green things and mushroom soup in it, act like you’ve just enjoyed the best thing since that crazy two weeks in Paris. Good idea to go for a walk afterwards (refer to rule five above).

7. Do the dishes. Takes twenty minutes, any fool can do it, and you’ll permanently be one of the good guys. You can screw up any of the rules above (except some parts of #2) and a bit of dish washing will put you back on an even standing–probationally.

8. Get lost. If you’re hanging out more than a single night you’ll be in the way. Unless your friends are a bit kinky they probably ain’t having sex if you’re hanging in the living room. A couple of days of that and even the kindest soul will wish you gone. Provide some space and make sure they know you’ll be gone for at least a couple of hours. Don’t come back early.

That’s about it. You can make life a lot simpler by staying with your bachelor buddies, but they usually don’t have much room, and their towels have hash marks.

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SUP Expeditioning on the Costalegre

Dave Collins is at it again, another interesting (and heavily packed) SUP expedition. Last August we covered his last SUP adventure, a SUP expedition around Cape Scott, the tip of Vancouver Island (http://www.kenalu.com/2008/08/) . This time he’s in tropical waters, the coast of Mexico, but the amount of gear he’s crammed onto his ULI looks about the same. SUP cruising and expeditions are a growing part of the SUP adventure. Let us know about yours. Here’s Dave’s story.

Expedition Report
As I finally scramble out of the surf zone I´m reminded of how impractical it is to paddle a loaded SUP.  I´ve had to go back to shore once already to repack my load—shifted by the hammering surf.  I wave to Elysia to paddle toward me.  At first petrified by the waves, she dug deep and made it out of the surf zone before me.  She´s still a bit wide-eyed, but maintains balance and equanimity in the mild noon chop.  This is her first SUP expedition, and my second.  Our shuttle driver is nowhere to be seen now.  We are alone on the open ocean of the “Costalegre”, the southern coast of the state of Jalisco from Barra de Navidad north to the southern tip of Banderas Bay where Puerto Vallarta is located.  I sense that this realization is still sinking in for Elysia, as I sense that my loaded board is sinking deeper into the water unless I paddle—which is what we begin to do in earnest.

Where are we going to put all this?

Packing up

A rational load

There’s a SUP board down there somewhere

I packed it, I’m gonna use it

Pelicans and a Costalegre Sunset

Only five minutes into establishing a rhythm we sight humpback whales about 100 meters offshore.  In a magical instant two of them breach simultaneously about 60 feet out of the water, exposing some two-thirds of their cetacean mass.  Awestruck and humbled, I wonder if the expedition might all be anticlimactic from here…?  In any case, I take it as  a most convincing sign of an outstanding trip to come.  As Elysia and I look at each other there is a sense that the scene is a metaphor for our union on this long-awaited journey.  “Wow,” is about the only word we can conjure.  The whales cruise south with us for a while longer and then disappear.

Arriving at Punta Soledad

Heavy going

A headwind picks up and the paddling becomes even slower, especially for me as I am carrying at least three times the weight of Elysia and weigh twice as much as she.  My mind is drifting and I´m beginning to fall under the awkward load and increased chop, while she is flying ahead featherlike and laughing.  At me perhaps, but her laugh and lightness are inspiring nonetheless.  With renewed concentration I try to drive thoughts of the outer-world from my mind and drive my board forward.  There is no better moving meditation than this sport and the need to focus is magnified by the load.  With every new stroke thoughts of the economic recession are replaced with concentration on balance, strokes, foot placement and then flashes of the Snickers bar in my camelback.  After two hours of hard paddling we sit on the boards to eat lunch, until I realize that we are drifting north, away from our destination, at a disheartening rate.  There will be no opportunity for lunch on the boards today, and landing on the open ocean is not a viable option either considering the size of the surf and our already slow progress.  We throttle down our Snickers and get paddling once more, but from here on out, due to our, and the ocean´s, conditions, we switch between sitting or kneeling on the boards and paddling standing up.

Look out below

Punta Soledad

Moving the load back made it balance better

Shoot quick while we’re still standing

Stroking for the beach

Some two to three hours later we come upon the aptly named Punta Soledad (Soltitude Point).  A reddish volcanic sea stack capped by agave and Prickly Pear cactus, framed by scrub forest and unrelenting surf, juts out like an exclamation mark ending the phrase, “You are alone now!”  Initially we decide to paddle around it and look for camp, but this strikes me, in a fleeting moment of clarity, as not a very wise idea.  The sun is going down and we are completely exhausted.  Not only should one plan on going about half as fast as a sea kayak on a loaded SUP, one should also count on getting twice as tired.  I suggest we backtrack a bit and grab a protected cove for the night and Elysia agrees.  The first thing we do upon beaching our boards is rip open the dry bag that with yesterday´s leftover pizza in it.  Between mouthfuls we smile, laugh and comment on the bounty and beauty of this beach, which I later discover is named Las Cuatas, or “female companions.”  I´m not female, but I soon switch into my pareo, or beach skirt, the ideal after paddling wear in a tropical climate, and the name seems fitting.

Welcome to our camp

Cocktail hour, thank God

Dusk is upon us as we hike up to get a view of the surroundings, the sunset, and the moonrise—the brightest full moon of the year due to the phenomenon of perigree.  Along the way we spot a fleeting Orange-breasted Bunting, one of the 22 endemic birds found in the Jaliscan Dry Forest, and a group of snorting, scurrying White-nosed Coati, a carnivorous raccoon-like mammal common to the region.  At the top we are so enveloped in the sunset that we don´t notice the moonrise until we turn around to walk back down.  Once again, as with the rising humpbacks, we are stunned beyond words—this time though, my imagination, far from thoughts of anticlimactic occurrences, now explodes with thoughts of infinite possibilities.

Rise and shine

Threading though a basaltic maze

Coves and inlets

Pelican Crossing

The door opens to these on day three, our final day, when we find some secret surf.  This is when the slower and more exhausting travel of SUP-expeditioning gets paid off in waves.  The payoff is abundant this particular day: overhead faces smile in consistent sets, greeted by an offshore breeze.  Elysia bows out gracefully and sets up the camera gear.  I am unduly impressed with her performance on her first SUP expedition and grateful for her company.  I know it won´t be too long before she´ll be joining me not only to enter and exit the surf zone, but to play madly in it…

A little Costalegro shoulder

El Tubo

The invisible man carves a tasty face

A little sunset samba

The SUP Expedition Set-Up
I am testing different gear than that from my first SUP expedition around Cape Scott last July (http://www.kenalu.com/2008/08/) and wearing a lot less gear thanks to the climate. I am using two of Werner´s (www.wernerpaddles.com) new paddles, the Advantage and the Carve.  The Advantage is Werner´s new touring/racing SUP blade, and the Carve is their new specialized surfing paddle.  Compared to all other SUP paddles I´ve tried, Werner is dominating the industry hands down.  All those years of R&D in the paddle industry have transferred directly into their SUP line, offering superior quality, diversity and durability.

To start, the ABS Palm-style grip on both the paddles just feels right.  And ergonomically it makes all the difference for stroke control while also lending to less strain on the wrist and hand joints at the end of the day.  The attention to detail—just the right width, thickness, and angle of the grip—make all the difference, especially after taking some 10,000 strokes.  Also, although I´m still quite fond of my Werner Spanker, I find the tear drop blade design on the Advantage and Carve more sophisticated and fluid.  First of all, the surface area of the blade is now more elongated throughout and not as wide at the bottom of the blade.  This reduces torque and makes for faster cadence, especially faster on the smaller Carve blade, which is ideal for making short, rapid strokes where they count—up front—when you need to build hull speed instantly to drop into a wave.  The dihedral of both blades is also more pronounced, allowing water to spill off the back of the blade more quickly, further decreasing torque.  And there is more scoop in both power faces of the blades which means more water catchment, and ultimately more efficiency.  The versatility of the adjustable shaft makes it possible for me to fit Elysia with a properly-sized paddle as well.  Finally, the durability of these paddles under the extra stress of paddling a loaded board is unmatched, an especially crucial detail on an expedition.

ULI and Werner Carve

Regarding boards, I am now paddling an 11-foot ULI inflatable board (www.uliboards.com), and Elysia is paddling a 10-foot Infinity (www.surftech.com).  I´ve mentioned that one should plan on going half as fast on an SUP expedition versus a sea kayak one, but that is a very rough equation and has much to with conditions—e.g., headwinds versus tailwinds.  An experienced SUP paddler has potential advantage in a tailwind, but any SUP paddler has an extreme disadvantage in a headwind.  Speed is also relative to what length and width of board one is paddling.  ULI has now come out with a 15-foot board, which I imagine would cruise along much faster than the 11-footer.  However, what one gains in speed by using a longer board, one will lose in performance in the surf zone, so it all depends on one´s preferences.  On this particular trip my preference is catching waves at otherwise inaccessible spots, not on making faster time or longer distance.

The ULI board is proving quite worthy, though, once I figure out how to better balance and secure the load.  The first day I had the load packed too far toward the front of the board, and I have now moved it a bit further back which cures the problem.  Also, my previous method of gluing E-Z plugs to the board and using nylon cord to strap down the load is not working as well either because the plugs do not adhere to the inflatable board material as well as they do to an epoxy board (at least with the glue I am using, which is a marine epoxy).  The method I´ve switched to is simply using two cam straps and wrapping them completely around the load and the board.  There may be a little drag on the hull, but I consider it miniscule, and far outweighed by the newly achieved security of the load to the board.  I flip in the surf again on my take-off, but no going back to shore to re-pack this time—the load holds steadfast to the board.  There is also the issue of increased board flex using an inflatable board versus an epoxy one, which tends to make paddling a loaded SUP slightly more unstable and slower.  But again I find that the positives of the ULI board far outweigh the negatives for SUP expeditioning.  I can travel anywhere in the world with this set-up without paying outrageous airline fares and worrying about the board getting damaged along the way.  And finally, I don´t have to sweat dinging or breaking a board on an expedition, where the consequences matter more.

An Extremely Diverse Ecosystem Under Pressure
Globally there is little good news for the state of our environment.  The Jalisco dry forest eco-region is no exception.  Tropical dry forest is the most threatened tropical ecosystem on earth.  And among this type of ecosystem the Jalisco dry forest, encompassing 16,218 square miles, is the most biodiverse in the world.  It hosts 1,100 species of mammals, 270 of birds, and 1,700 of reptiles and amphibians, and contains the highest rate of endemic species—84 animals and 110 plants found only in Mexico.  This forest is largely coastal, containing the section referred to as the “Costalegre”.  The area has been identified by Conservation International as falling into the Mesoamerican “Biodiversity Hotspot”, one of 34 in the world, and by World Wildlife Fund as one of the 200 global areas in most critical need of conservation.  These areas are selected for being the richest, rarest, and most endangered freshwater, marine, and terrestrial reservoirs of biota left on earth.

The Costalegre is undergoing an unprecedented environmental crisis due to unsustainable and unregulated development, tourism, agriculture, fishing, deforestation, contamination and poaching.  In collaboration with the University of Guadalajara´s Center for the Sustainable Development of Coastal Zones, I formed the nonprofit organization Tierralegre (www.tierralegre.org) two years ago.  Its mission is to protect the biodiversity and natural resources of Mexico´s Costalegre.  As I paddle this coastline I never take for granted that it is one of the least spoiled, most beautiful places on earth—for now.

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New Starboard Catalog

I downloaded the new Starboard catalog. What a neat piece of work. It’s actually worth sitting down and giving it a good read. The design work is top-notch, the photography is superb, and the writing is simply excellent. It will make you feel happy and privileged that you are already part of this sport. That’s good marketing, that’s a fine piece of work.

I’ve done this kind of thing, I know how hard it is to do something this good. You have to make too many compromises to get complex catalogs done. Too many editors, too many people saying “maybe we shouldn’t say this…people might take offense.” Most work gets nibbled to death by a committee. Anyway, enough raving. It’s good. It’s going to be hard for them to beat this in 2010.

The lineup has some very nice additions. I like the looks of the K models–a kind of cross between Kayak and SUP. I also like the looks of their smaller boards. they make my checkbook feel all warm and fuzzy. I think that’s what a catalog like this is supposed to do. Get your own copy here: Starboard Catalog

SUP Surf 101 Basic Track Chapter3

This ebook is being written in four parallel paths: Basics; Surfing; Theory, and Conditioning. It will also eventually have a lot of pictures and video added. I have an outline, a shot list, and plans for the videos, but they have to wait until I can get to them.

Chapter 3 of the Basic track covers entering the water, paddling out through whitewater, finding the right place to be, and reading incoming waves. I used a lot of source material for this section including the following books that you might find very useful if you’re a beginner or intermediate surfer:
Learn to Surf for Beginners

This is a good basic primer for surfing of all types. If you already know the basics you might skip the title above and get this book:

Learn to Surf: Intermediate Level

Another source book I referred to a lot is “The Art Of Surfing” It’s a general training manual that has both surfing and conditioning information. It’s aimed more at surfers than SUP surfers, but I found it very valuable.

The Art of Surfing: A Training Manual for the Developing and Competitive Surfer

Let’s get in the water

Chapter 3: Entering the Water

This sounds a little stupid, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched people carry their board into the water, put it down in the wrong place and the wrong way, fiddle with their leash or paddle, and have their board swept into their ankles by a wave, taking their legs out from under them, running them over, tangling them up in ten inches of water. Furthermore, entering the water is probably when most board damage gets done.

You want to read this.

A lot of SUP boards have handles these days. You can often carry your board right into the water by the handle, but sometimes a steep or constrained entry prevents this. A common and relatively safe way to carry your board into the water is on one shoulder. You can also balance it on your head, but in this position it’s harder to handle wind, and a sudden gust can put a substantial compression on your neck that you might regret for a long while. The shoulder carry is a little safer.

There are also carrying straps and handles like the “Surf Schlepper” strap or the Big Hook that can get you to the water’s edge with ease, but then you have to deal with storing them. If you have a long way to go, or need to carry a lot of other stuff, the Surf Mule is an excellent device that turns your board into a trailer that can be pulled behind a bicycle. The entire trailer collapses into a package about as big as two hardbound books.

As a beginner you should choose a sandy, sheltered, safe entry. If you don’t have that option we’ll cover the tougher entries in a few paragraphs. Carry your board in one hand or on one shoulder with the fin behind you, the leash end and paddle in the other hand. Walk straight into the water until you are about knee deep. Wait for a lull in the waves and set your board down with the nose pointed straight out. Never let the board get across your body, especially with the board on the outside, facing the waves. You might think you can control your board sideways in small waves, but you’re wrong. A board 12′ by 30″ has more than 20 square feet of surface area. Water in a tiny wave can exert more than 30 pounds of force per square foot. That’s 600 pounds of force against your board in a SMALL wave. Good luck holding that with your ankles.

If you are carrying your board on your shoulder and there are no people and no rocks nearby you can let the board pivot off your shoulder to plop top down in the water next to you. In either case, get the board pointed out, lay your paddle on top and hold it by the tail. Wait for a lull and attach your leash, keeping an eye on the board and the waves, being prepared to abort the leash attachment and keep the board under control if things go wrong. Once you have hour leash on, pick up the paddle, hop onto the board and paddle out.

You might like to try a beach start just to keep your boardshorts dry on a chilly morning. To do that you get in water deep enough to clear your fin, put one foot dead center on the board and push off with the other, hopping into a parallel stance. Takes a little practice, but it’s handy when you haven’t warmed up enough and you’re not quite ready to take the plunge.

In a rocky or challenging entry, it’s even more important to keep your board pointed the right way. In rocky areas, choose your footing carefully, and don’t lift your anchored foot until you have tested the stability of your next step. Surf booties are a good idea. You can tuck them into the back of your boardies once you get away if you just hate wearing them. Be careful stepping into sand between rocks, if you lose your balance you can get your ankle caught. Sometimes it’s helpful to put the nose of the board in the water ahead of you and hold on by either a fin or the edge-saver web of the leash. Once you are in water deep enough to clear the fin you can rest a hand on the board to stabilize yourself. Keep the nose pointed at the waves and the board in control–this is no place to get your feet swept from under you. Slide yourself onto the board and off you go. his is one place where it makes sense to wait until you get away from the shore to attach your leash (unless there’s a possibility of immediately losing your board).

Coming out is a lot like going in. Take your leash off when you are close to the shore. Paddle until you are in knee-deep water. Watch the waves coming from behind you. If one is about to hit at a bad time you can hop back a bit on the board and sink the tail, which will let the wave pass without sending you forward as much. Drop to your knees, put a foot down, and keep a hand on your board, pointing the nose straight to the beach. Find your footing, get stable, pick the board up by the handle and walk in. If you don’t have a handle and the beach is sandy you might find it easier to pick the board up by the tail, run the nose up into the sand and stand the board straight up, making it easy to get it onto your shoulder. Otherwise reach across the board and hold both rails, swing the board over your head and put it on your shoulder. Head in.

Such a simple thing that it almost seems superfluous to write about it, until you see someone struggling even after they’ve been SUP surfing a few weeks.

Paddling Out
We covered choosing your way out in the chapter on Channels and Rips. But here’s a quick review–you want to wind up behind the break you’re aiming for, outside the impact zone for any wave you’ve observed. You aim for the rip or channel and watch the waves coming through. You’ll want to exit the rip at a little angle towards the break–this is most likely to release you without drama. As you paddle out, look for the spots where the waves are breaking and where the shoulders last the longest. You can punch through whitewater, but a smooth, unbroken wave or shoulder is much easier. You’ll also see places where a broken wave reforms, usually with a little whitewater still on top. These are nearly as easy to get through as as an unbroken wave. Try to pick the line of least resistance. When a sharply peaked wave rolls under you it will often give you a little kick upwards. Fun when you’re ready for it, but unsettling if you’re not. You can go into a surf stance, or at least step back with your natural back foot, before every wave hits, but many people prefer to stay in a parallel stance for much of the paddle out.

When a breaking wave approaches, don’t panic, you can go over a pretty big wave easily. Move your back foot further back, stroke hard for the wave. Try to time your paddling so the paddle will be behind you as the wave hits. When your board starts to hit the ramp of the wave lift your front foot to let the board come up and lean forward a bit with your weight braced against your back foot. The board will hop over the wave. As the board starts to come flat push down with your front foot to get the board flat, and let your weight come back to center. You can lean on your paddle to brace yourself. You will generally fall AFTER you’ve gone over the wave. Pay attention to which way you are falling. If you are falling forward, start pressing against your front foot sooner and shift your weight a little further back. In the rare case that you are falling backwards, keep weight on your back foot a little longer.

When you get outside it’s a good idea to keep your board pointed out, even if you decide to sit down. Waves can double up, or the sets can stair-step up suddenly and you’ll find yourself caught inside of a wave you’re not ready to handle. If you see a wave on the outside that looks bigger than what you’ve seen, don’t wait for others to sprint for the horizon. Just go–don’t be embarrassed, it’s a lot better than being pounded. If you’re sitting down, don’t get to your feet, just kneel up and paddle.

Next Time: Take a WAve

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Two New Paddles

One good thing came out of my losing my favorite QB paddle (I left it on the beach at Kanaha in one of my classic ADD moves) is I got two more that i really love. I bought one of the 8″ QB’s and I absolutely love the thing. It’s remarkable how good this paddle feels in either surfing or distance paddling. I cut it to 82″, I kind of wish it was 84″, but it’s great so I shouldn’t whine. You might be surprised that such a big moose likes such a little paddle. All i can say is try one–bigger isn’t necessarily better.

Jimmy Lewis also gave me a Kanaha version of his paddle. It’s the nine inch QB blade, and it’s amazing with the JL flexi fiberglass shaft. I asked Jimmy today why he decided to make such a flexible paddle and he said “I just wanted to try something different. Everyone else was doing stiff carbon fibre, I wanted to try something else”.

Given that it was just a try, i’d say he really hit on something. It takes a while to get it to work, but once you get the cadence right you get a little flick at the end of your stroke. It’s not like the same shaft with the Peahi blade, where you get a longer push. With the Kanaha blade you get a pronounced “flick” feeling near the end of the stroke, like a little burst of acceleration. Of course you pay for that with a little hesitation at the beginning of the stroke as you load the shaft.

I found myself tuning my stroke to optimize the flick. You have to stroke pretty fast to feel it–short strokes that end just before your toe. As you stop pulling to push down the top of the paddle and lever the blade out it gives an extra push. I can’t really describe it, but it felt really good.

I’ll add pictures shortly.

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SUP Surfing 101 Theory Track Chapter 15

No, you didn’t miss anything, This ebook is being written in four parallel paths: Basics; Surfing; Theory, and Conditioning.  It will also eventually have a lot of pictures and video added. I have an outline, a shot list, and plans for the videos, but they have to wait until I can get to them. I’ll add them later and then integrate the whole into a complete book. So that’s the plan, and with Chapter 15 we begin the wave theory track. This track will help you learn to predict waves at your local and distant breaks. It starts with general wave theory–how waves are formed, how they travel, how they become surf-able (or not) and as much science as I can stuff in without equations. Subsequent chapters cover swell angle and refraction into breaks, tidal effects, wave buoys and maps, using different wave forecasting sites effectively and how to build a wave forecast.

I think you’ll find this useful, perhaps the most useful section in the book for surfers. I used a lot of source material for this section, some of it really impenetrable. The most useful theory book for surfers, hands down, is Surf Science: An Introduction to Waves For Surfing by Tony Butt and Paul Russell. If you are a serious surfer, then surf immediately over to Amazon and grab a copy. Simply excellent: Surf Science: An Introduction To Waves For Surfing

A little less technical, but more oriented towards forecasting is the Wet Sand Wavecast Guide To Surf Forecasting by Nathan Todd Cool. If all you want to do is learn to use forecasting tools then this is your book: The WetSand WaveCast® Guide to Surf Forecasting: A Simple Approach to Planning the Perfect Sessions.

Let’s dive in:

What We Surf On

Waves are oxygen to a surfer–not something you can go without for long. When we don’t have them we want to know when they will be back. Even the most unquestioning grommet has sat in the lineup and wondered why the good waves come in threes, of fives, or whatever. And then there’s that guy with no neck, huge deltoids and the hundred yard stare that says things like “the tide is going out and the swell’s at 14 seconds out of the north northeast, so we should be seeing some good faces in less than an hour”.

What? How does he know that, and what does it mean. And wouldn’t that be a good thing to know? Perhaps we could distill all the theory down to just the very basic stuff you need to know to be somewhat predictive. But you will never really understand waves unless you understand the fundamental mechanics of what they are, how they are formed, how they travel, why they peak up and break, and why wave forecasting is so hard. So we’re going to tell you about that.

In the beginning…

Waves are solar energy, converted to another form. Of course all energy on earth comes from our sun, except nuclear energy which comes from the heart of a star that exploded as a supernova a few billion years ago–but that’s a different story. The sun’s energy reaches the earth in the form of light, is adsorbed in the atmosphere, water and land and converted to heat. It’s not an even heating process–the poles don’t get as much heat as the equator, and one pole is warmer than the other depending on the tilt of the earth as it travels around the sun (winter and summer), and water and air convert less light to heat than dirt, trees, grass or rocks do.

This differential heating is the source of waves. Well, that and the Coriolis effect–the gentle force associated with the earths rotation that makes cyclones spin in the opposite direction from hurricanes. And local highs and lows, and refraction from the sea bottom, sediment shifting, currents, storms a few thousand miles away and a butterfly flapping it’s wings in Malaysia. In other words, it’s a bit chaotic and complicated. But the basic source is uneven heating of the air making wind.

On a local basis, especially in the islands, the effect of warm air over the land and cold air over the water is pretty clear. In the mornings, the ground warms up and heats the air above it, the warm air rises, and the cooler, heavier air over the ocean rushes in to fill the void. The result is convection winds. Get up early enough in the morning and you’ll find less wind, since the machine takes a while to get going. You can even see it sometimes on a micro basis–a hawk in a circling climb over a black parking lot, taking a free ride on the thermal.

On a global basis, the poles have colder air than the equator, so there is a continual exchange of cold polar air pushing down into the tropics. Air rises at the equator and sinks over the poles, so there’s a continuous circular exchange.

Now we add in the Coriolis effect, generated by the earth’s spin. The Coriolis effect is the reason why every large scale motion in the Northern Hemisphere turns to the right and everything in the Southern Hemisphere swerves left.  It’s generated by the relative speed of the earth at different latitudes. On the pole, you have no ground speed at all–you just spin. At the equator you’re zooming along at 994 MPH. If you send a powered blimp from the pole to the equator in the Northern Hemisphere it would steadily lag behind relative to the earth’s surface unless it stops long enough for the air to accelerate it to something close to groundspeed. While it’s moving south, it’s swerving right each bit of ground is traveling a little faster. Turn it around and send it north and it’s still swerving right as each bit of ground it travels over is moving a little slower. If you push your blimp east your push will give it a higher speed than the rotational speed, which increases the moment of inertia (we can call it the Centrifugal force, even though there really is no such thing). This results in a swerve to the right towards the band of earth with the same grounspeed. You mighthave an easier time visualizing this as a particle stuck lightly to a spinning ball. Drag a little bit on the particle to slow it and it will move towards the pole where the rotational speed is slower. Push on it to make it faser and it will spin outwards towards the equator of the ball to match it’s new speed.

The net result for a north south north voyage is a circle. Weird, eh, but you can look at the effect anytime by watching a weather forcast and seeing those big circling lows that are visible because they condense warm wet air into clouds and fog.

Even something as relatively compact as a tornado is commanded by the Coriolis effect to spin right in the North, and left in the Southern Hemisphere. Not so sure about the toilet bowls and sink drains.

With the Coriolis effect added, the transfer of air between the warm equator and the colder pole is now a lot more complicated. You might think at first that it would change into a spiral, but remember the net motion tends to be always towards the right in the north, left in the south. So instead of a south-north spiral we get cells of air moving in big circles. In fact the way things work out there are six rotating bands from North to South Pole, spiraling steadily in opposite directions north and south of the equator, creating a complex series of high alow pressure areas. Add to this the fact that the forces are more intense when a pole is in winter (a bigger temperature difference between equator and pole) and the huge effects that continental masses have, and we have a very complex system of wind and pressures.

We’ll talk about how that generates waves and makes them propagate in the next chapter.

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This Will Get Your Heart Going

This clip has been around awhile, it’s from the opening scenes of the Billabong Surf Odyssey movie. A worthwhile video anytime. The video LOOKS like it’s been doctored because it’s shot from a helicopter down low on the water and the camera zooms back as the copter retreats. But it’s real.

It’s kind of surprising that YouTube hasn’t pulled this video, it’s clipped from copyright material and the site shown at the bottom is a porn site. Enjoy it while you can.

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SUP Surfing 101 Surfing Track Chapter 10

No, you didn’t miss anything, we’ll go back and cover the rest of the fundamentals later. I just know how irritating it can be to trudge through basics you already know, waiting for the stuff that might help you now. So I’m going to do this ebook in four parallel paths: Basics; Surfing; Theory, and Conditioning. I expect the conditioning part to be particularly useful to me.

This e-book will also eventually have a lot of pictures and video added. I have an outline, a shot list, and plans for the videos, but they have to wait until I can get to them. I’ll add them later and then integrate the whole into a complete book. So that’s the plan, and with Chapter 10 we start into surfing, assuming you already know how to get out to the lineup, how not to get killed or piss people off, and what a rideable wave looks like. Grab your paddle, let’s go.

Surfing your SUP
Since you are beginning SUP surfer, you’ll either be in a small, unused break, or well off to the side in a bigger one. Moving off to the side is no guarantee that you won’t get in the way of other surfers. Good surfers will be coming along the face of a wave very fast in any popular break, and will reach you in seconds. If you wobble into their way they will not be amused. If you are using the edge of a break that has other surfers in it, watch down the line carefully to see that no one is in the wave. If they are, then immediately turn out of the wave or sit down on your board. Don’t do anything (like falling uncontrolled or ditching) that might release your board into another surfer’s path.

Starting Position

Your starting position should be facing outwards towards the waves. You don’t need to be completely perpendicular. You’re looking outwards for two reasons. First, you want to spot a rideable wave. Second, sometimes wave double up very quickly, or a huge set wave appears out of nowhere. You want to be able to paddle out over these waves before they break. You DON’T want to be caught inside. If you think a particularly big wave past your skill level to ride is coming, don’t wait to see what others do–paddle for the horizon as fast as you can. We’ll discuss strategies for minimizing the damage when you are caught inside in the chapter “Caught Inside”, but for now, be like a nervous rabbit and sprint out to safety when you see something overwhelming.

A particularly good time to take waves is when everyone else is already gone from the lineup after a good set comes through. There are often some slightly less desirable waves following right behind. Everyone else has gone, it’s your turn.

Turning To Catch the Wave

So now you’ve spotted a wave that looks tasty to you. Look for the peak of the wave and turn in that direction, parallel to the face. You can usually spot the peak in a wave when it’s fairly far out by looking for steeper sections, or look for a section that is feathering. The ocean bottom can fool you and change the peak as the wave travels. Experience is the only help for that.

Start paddling towards the peak, still parallel to the wave. You should have an idea of how long it will take you to turn 90 degrees. Paddle until you think you are at that limit and start turning the board to be perpendicular to the wave. Usually this means heading right towards the shore. You want to paddle hard enough through the turn to gather some speed. Don’t get excited and start taking long strokes. Not only will this slow your turn, but it will also pull you off balance on the board. Keep your strokes short, from the front of the board to your feet.

When you feel the tail of the board start to lift in the wave, stroke hard, continuing to make short strokes. If you don’t feel the board start to slide down the face immediately, you might try putting your front foot forward if you are still in a parallel stance, or shuffling forward if you’re in a surfing stance. Pull hard on the face of the wave as it forms. Push down with your front foot and the board may tip over the edge and start surfing. If not, hey, there’s another wave coming.

Two possibilities: You caught the wave. Yahoo, read the next paragraph. You didn’t catch the wave. Bummer, but don’t stand there feeling bad. Look behind you and start to turn sideways with the nose pointed up the line (the direction other surfers will be coming from). Assess your situation. First, is a monster wave bearing down on you. If so, scoot for the horizon if at all possible. If not, you’re going to need the “Caught Inside” chapter. Too bad I haven’t written it yet. Here’s a link to the old version, hope it helps: http://www.kenalu.com/2008/08/25/caught-inside/ . IF the wave coming towards you looks like something you can handle, it’s time to look up the line and see if a “Mulligan” (a do-over) is an option. If there’s no one going for the next wave, you should be in pretty good spot to catch it.

Bottom Turn

So you caught the wave, or at least you’re starting down the face. If you are still in a parallel stance, now is the time to take a big step back with your rear foot and get into a surfing stance. Knees bent back straight, weight centered. Don’t weight that back foot right away or you might pull out of the wave. As the board reaches the bottom of the wave transfer some weight to the rear foot to keep your board’s nose from digging in (pearling) and turning into a submarine. On a steep wave with a long board you’ll need a LOT of weight on the back. At the same time you need to decide which way you are going to turn. If the wave is breaking to one side of you, then you want to turn away from the whitewater so you can ride in the pocket, on the shoulder. If you’re a regular foot surfer (left foot forward) then turning left puts your back to the wave (called backside) and might be a little more difficult for you.  Turning right is a little more natural. We’ll talk about both.

Your paddle still comes into play, if the wave is mushy and hasn’t formed a shoulder you might still be paddling to keep up your speed. Even if the wave face gave you a good push and you accelerated well, if you went straight down the face you might now be out of the wave’s power. Your board will slow, the wave will catch up, and probably knock you off the board. You can angle down the face to avoid that, or you can paddle as you turn, or do both.

Frontside Bottom Turn

To turn in the frontside direction (right if you’re standard foot), swing your upper body weight a little towards the wave face. Look in the direction you want to go. You can plant your paddle in the wave face or drag it’s face a little to help the turn and stabilize you a little, but that’s optional for a simple turn. Lean your body weight forward. Press the toes of your rear foot forward, and you’ll turn. In the early going it’s all more subtle than you’d think. If you really push your weight into the turn you’ll probably either turn out of the wave or fall. You can almost just think about turning and you’ll turn. Later on you’ll want to get some Oomph into your turns, but for now lets get on the face and get some power.

Backside Bottom Turn

Going to the backside requires a little more effort and finesse. The least challenging way to initiate a backside bottom turn is to move your back foot closer to the inside rail (the rail that’s towards the wave), then shift your body weight towards the inner rail and weight your heels.  On a beginner backside turn you generally won’t swing your shoulders as you do on a frontside turn. Instead just steer with the back foot and rail pressure.

Keep your knees bent when turning in either direction. this gives you more latitude for balance adjustment. If you stand straight and lock your knees the only way you can balance is to sway at the ankles or the waist–neither way gives good control.

More Advanced Sup Bottom Turns

As you graduate to larger waves your speed down the wave will increase, and you’ll want your turns to have more snap than is possible with just body weight shifts. To initiate a harder turn you need to move the board’s pivot point backwards so you can lever the board around. You can move your rear foot backwards, but this might result in too wide a spread in your legs for good control–the infamous “stinkbug” posture used to great effect by Greg Noll but ineffective and very foolish looking for anyone else. You can put more weight on your back foot, but that generally will shift your body backwards into a position you might find unbalanced. Many people find it more effective to unweight the front foot instead. Basically lift it from the board without losing contact. This puts more weight on your back foot without shifting your body backwards.

In a frontside turn, as the nose lifts, lean in the direction you want to turn, plant your paddle on the inside of the turn and drag against it. You can plant a surprising amount of weight on the paddle to help the board pivot. Swing your shoulders into the wave, press on your toes and push with your back foot to pivot the board. As you carve into the turn, press down with your front foot to end the turn and retrim the board.

In the backside version you move your rear foot to the inner rail, unweight the front foot in the same manner, bring your paddle across the board and drag it on the wave face, press your back foot out away from the wave to pivot the board, then press down with your front foot to end the turn and trim.

Improving a faster bottom turn will depend mostly on upper body movements. Once you are getting your weight back and using foot pressure to pivot the board, the tuning elements all come from your shoulders, arms, head and paddle. Your head should always be pointed where you want to go. Where the eyes go the body follows. Your chest and hips swing the board and help your feet push it around. When it all works, it’s pretty, fast, and efficient.

Once you have completed the bottom turn, you can trim into the wave and ride it out, or you can execute other turns.

Carry On

Other than tricks, most surfing turns are aimed at keeping you in the power section of the wave, which is the steepest section of the face, right in the shoulder where the wave is breaking and whitewater is forming. This generally means performing a bottom turn, going across the face of the wave and rising up to do a top turn. At that point, depending on where the shoulder of the wave is you might either extend your top turn into a cutback, or just turn down the wave for another bottom turn

Next time… Top turns, Cutbacks, paddle planting and skimming.

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SUP Surf 101 Basic Track Chapter2

Reading Rips and Channels

If you are surfing shorebreak or some reef breaks you’ll want to know where the currents and channels are,  because that’s the easiest way out. Later we’ll tell you how to punch through whitewater on your SUP board. The kind of whitewater that would send a shortboarder duck-diving or a longboarder into a turtle roll can be punched over with a SUP board because if the unique combination of low resistance in whitewater or small breaking waves (it hits is your feet instead of your whole body), the ability to weight and unweight the board as the wave travels under it,  and the power and balance advantages of a paddle. But still, if you can go through a channel or power out in a rip, that’s the way to go.

Spotting a channel is usually easy–waves are breaking and peaking on both sides of it, but only the largest waves in a set break in the channel. You’ll also see other surfers using the channel to get out past the break. Channels can “close out” as the swell either grows or the tide changes. Close out means that the waves break across the channel and make it difficult or impossible for all but the most experienced surfers to get through.

Rips are a little harder to spot and take some practice to interpret. Since a rip is simply water from waves flowing back out you can spot them by discoleration of the water from sediment being carried, or from ripples in the water where the water around it is either calm or moving in a different direction. Sometimes you’ll see waves breaking on both sides of the rip, because the rip and the small channel under it disturbs the waves enough to prevent them from breaking.

While a rip is the surfer’s friend–a free ride to the lineup–it can also be extremely dangerous. If you are caught in one when you are already tired or when your paddling is still weak, it can take you places you don’t want to go. The easiest way out of a rip is to paddle perpendicular to it. Eventually you’ll hit the edge and be out of it. Don’t be surprised if the rip bends and twists–there’s no law that says they need to go straight. SUP surfers have huge advantages over prone surfers–they can see more and they paddle more powerfully. You will generally use a rip to take you out to the edge of the lineup and then paddle at a diagonal to leave the rip and make your way to yur chosen take off spot.

Remember in all cases that you can become separated from your board if your board or leash breaks. You may be swimming in rips, currents and waves. Keep your head, don’t swim against currents, take your time and make your way to shore. If there is assistance available from other surfers or lifeguards, make a smart decision about when to ask for it.  Signal for help before you are struggling or exhausted. If no assistance is available and you get tired, tread water or float to collect yourself. People have survived many hours in the water without floatation. You can do it if you don’t panic and exhaust yourself.

Your assignment

Go to a popular surf break stand on the shore and find the channels and rips. Should be pretty easy since surfers will be using them. Try to find alternative ways to get out.

Go to a place where waves are breaking but no surfers are out. Find the rips and channels. If possible, toss a piece of driftwood into the rip and see where it goes.

Studying rips from shore is just as valuable as studying them in the water.

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Race/Distance Board Showcase

Well, I’ve done it. I committed to doing another board showcase on Maui, though this time it’s going to be Race/Distance/Downwinder boards and I’m going to try to keep it small and manageable. I’ve sent this letter to all the manufacturers I know of who make race/distance boards:

We are preparing to do a showcase for Distance/Race/downwind SUP boards on Maui at the end of February or early March similar to the general SUP board showcase we did last year. This showcase will not be a direct performance comparison–we don’t have the facilities or the expertise to rate board performance. It will reflect the paddler’s subjective opinions of the boards and provide general specifications. We will also provide some GPS data about general performance in downwind (a Maliko Gulch run), flat-water paddling, and over a Battle Of The Paddle-style closed course with legs in four directions.

Just to set expectations, this will NOT be a big event like last year’s showcase. Because of the nature of this showcase we expect to keep participation fairly small, and we will have only as many paddlers as we have boards.

Boards will be grouped in categories of Stock (12′6″ or less) 14 foot, and open length. All paddlers will try all boards (I hope). The showcase will run over multiple days to accommodate wind and weather as well as deal with the three venues.

If you would like to participate, please let me know as soon as possible. We cannot be responsible for your equipment, and you are responsible for getting the board(s) to us and any shipping cost for return. Please plan on us having your boards for at least a week. I understand this may be cost prohibitive for you, that won’t prevent your boards from appearing in the showcase. Shortly after the showcase is published we will provide a self-rating form that will enable you to add information, update specifications, upload pictures, screenshots of GPS data, or add boards to the showcase. In the event that you are not able to participate I believe you will find this system provides much of the showcase benefit.

If you have paddlers associated with your company that would like to participate, please let us know. We will need contact information for any participants. The participants will need to be available on relatively short notice for the three trial venues from roughly 2/25/2008 to 3/4/2009. We will try our best to complete all three in as short a timeframe as possible, but we’re counting on the cooperation of weather and swells.

The current general SUP board showcase receives about 11,000 visits per month. It’s a worthwhile place to have your boards listed. In the event that some of your boards are not in the general SUP showcase you will find the form for explaining the design aims of your boards, riding impressions, providing specifications and uploading pictures here: http://www.kenalu.com/report/board-showcase-form/ . Listing boards and paddles is completely free.

All the best,

Bill Babcock
Editor
Ke Nalu e-Magazine
Paddlesurfing’s Web Journal

As I said in the letter, this will NOT be an event like the last showcase. It’s going to be low key and mostly in the water. Last year’s showcase was fun, but way too much work and quite a bit of expense. I’m going to do my best to keep the lid on this one. You’ll see it all unfold right here.

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New Starboard Lineup

I got a somewhat odd press release from Starboard today regarding their new catalog. I assume the release is not the full catalog, but it does show some of the new boards. Seems like they need a new proofer–it’s not everyday that you see a major company’s name misspelled in the header of a highly designed piece. I’m EXTREMELY sensitive to this kind of thing since I used to run an advertising agency–it’s every agency principal’s nightmare.

Anyway, here it is. Interesting looking boards and some surprising additions to the lineup.

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Konrad’s Ship Gallery, Paia

You can spend  a small fortune at Konrads or you can buy a beautiful model of a Victorian Pond Yacht for a few hundred buck. Nautical models and art is a specialized market, but there are a few really great shops in the world that carry high-quality models of historic ships, and they’ve got nothing on Konrad. Not selection, not range of quality, not rarity, and not price. Pretty unbelievable to find a shop in Paia, Hawaii that makes the expensive shops in Carmel, Susalito, Boston, and London look like pikers and dabblers.

One of Konrad’s specialties is Hawaiian Canoe models, and his shop has become known as the premier source of these models. The quality and beauty of these models is simply amazing. If you’re anywhere near Paia and you don’t eperience this shop, you’re missing a very enjoyable experience. It’s best to be there when Konrad himself is tending the shop (which is most of the time) because he’s a wealth of information about everything in the shop. If you show an interest he can tell you the history of each ship, artifact, sculpture or painting, the story of the artist, and the special characteristics of each piece. all related in his relaxed, offhand manner.

You’ll enjoy it.

Here’s a little Animoto video  of some photos from Konrad’s:

SUP Surfing 101 Basic Track Chapter 1

This post is the first in a very long series (I hope) on surfing your SUP. A lot of people are buying SUP boards just for flatwater paddling. More power to them, but there may come a day when you decide you’d like to try a bit of surfing. The good news is that all the things you’ve learned in paddling flatwater–balancing on the board, paddling techniques, turning, moving around on the board–will all come into play. The bad news is that it’s not nearly enough.

This series will give you practical knowledge about surfing. It won’t teach you to do it–only time in the water can do that. But it will accelerate your learning by showing how to best spend that time.

I’m not qualified by long experience to teach you to SUP surf. I’m a writer who SUP surfs. The knowledge here comes largely from other, more experienced people and from the lessons I’m learning as I take the same path you will take. I’ve been doing SUP surfing for about two years, but I do it intensively. I live in Portland, Oregon and Haiku, Hawaii, and I SUP surf and paddle in both places. I have the luxury of time–I’m semi-retired. I try to get in the water every day and probably succeed about 300 days per year. When I’m in the water I don’t just play, I’m always trying to learn new things.

Chapter 1 Section 1
Etiquette, safety, and wave knowledge

Step one is to reassess your swimming ability. When you’re SUP surfing, as opposed to flatwater paddling, you’ll be in rougher water, and you’ll have a higher likelihood of losing your board, even if you have a leash. You need to be able to swim to the beach from wherever you are surfing. In some cases, like reef breaks, that could be a mile. You also may be swimming in currents, chop, whitewater and breaking waves. Beef up your swimming before you tackle surfing.

Step two is to practice your breath-holding. It’s easy to get held down by a wave, even in relatively small surf. You might be held down for just a few seconds, or it might be more like fifteen. In very rare cases you might have to hold your breath for thirty seconds. That may not sound like much when you’re sitting on a couch, but it can be difficult. It’s worthwhile to practice holding your breath while you’re doing inactive pursuits, like watching the TV, and especially worthwhile to practice swimming underwater. The key to surviving a long hold-down in a big wave is not to panic. The only way to train yourself not to do that is to experience it many times. Start small–trust me, a hold-down from a chest-high wave can scare the hell out of you.

Etiquette and Safety
Before you venture into the water you should know what the surf community expects of you. There aren’t any true rules other than to respect the people you are going to surf with. But there are some customs and expectations you should know about. The “rules” of the SUP community are contained in a site called SUPright (HTTP://WWW.SUPright.com). these rules will change over time as other people add refinements to them, but here is what this site says today:

First thing to understand is that there really aren’t rules–not yet anyway. Right now there are simply ways that the community of SUP surfers believe we should act. If you don’t follow these ways, someone might yell at you, and people might think you’re a jerk, but that’s it.

And that’s the best reason of all to follow these ways–because we don’t want that to change. Join the community and share the stoke because that is what makes surfing–all surfing–so very special. Don’t put yourself outside of that by being an idiot.

Beginners and experts have a different set of responsibilities. We’re going to take pains to explain everything as clearly as possible, which will make this a little tedious. If you find that too slow just jump to the summary at the end.

Beginners
What’s a beginner? Well obviously if it’s your first week on a SUP and you’re still falling in every few minutes you’re an absolute beginner. Once you get into waves you’d probably count yourself a beginner if you can’t turn easily without falling. But the definition needs to be a little more precise.

Beginner: You can paddle out past the breaking waves without falling when knee high whitewater hits you. You can pick the right place to be in a wave, paddle to the right spot and turn in front of the wave without falling, then catch the wave.

Intermediate: In waist high waves you can do a bottom turn, a cutback, and turn out of the wave without falling. When you do fall you can grab your board. Your leash is rarely needed.

Beginners have no business in a popular break. You’ll get in the way, you can get hurt if a closeout wave or set comes through, if you catch a wave and fall you’ll lose your board to the end of your leash. Almost everything you do will endanger yourself and endanger other surfers. Paddle away from the break, find some small waves and practice.

One very important thing to practice is controlling your board. If you watch experienced surfers you’ll almost never see their boards at the end of their leash. They either turn out of waves at the end of their ride, or in the rare cases that they fall they grab the board as they fall.

The leash DOES NOT prevent your board from hurting other people. When your body is outstretched, being dragged by your runaway board you have four feet of body, perhaps ten feet of leash and eleven feet of board. That’s at least a 25 foot radius you can hurt other people within. Your board will generally be in the wave, sticking out just waiting to nail another surfer.

One disciplined way to practice controlling your board is to surf BY YOURSELF without a leash. By yourself means NO ONE in the water who could be hit by your board–all the way to the beach, because that’s probably how far you’ll have to swim to regain your board. You can certainly simulate this with a leash if you don’t want to do all that swimming, but going leash-less is a useful training aid and a commitment. Just never do it around other people.

If you are a beginner, and you want to paddle out and watch the more advanced surfers, stay in the channel (which should be obvious–it’s the way most surfers will be returning to the lineup) and sit down. Don’t wobble around in the lineup and loom over all the prone surfers. It’s rude and intimidating.

Intermediate: If you can execute basic surf maneuvers without falling and can control your board, you should be welcome in an uncrowded lineup. If the crowd grows you should paddle off to the side or go looking for new spots. Your SUP board can catch waves that longboarders can’t. Don’t be a sheep, you don’t have to be in the pocket of a lineup with twenty other surfers. If you can’t thread your way through a half dozen people in the way, and contend with people dropping in or the need to pull out from the wave at ANY time without EVER losing control of your board, then you shouldn’t be there. Yes there will be be people there that can’t do that. Just because someone else is a kook doesn’t mean you need to be. Ride your own ride

All SUP Surfers

1. Don’t be a wavehog: It’s easy to grab every rideable wave with a SUP. You can always be first into the wave, closest to the shoulder. Everyone else is just dropping in. If you are spinning laps, paddling back out quickly and setting up for the next wave, you’re the worst kind of hog.

2, The second worst wavehog is the guy that maneuvers outside, coming in like a locomotive on every good set wave. Do it once and you’re getting all the wave can offer. Do it five times and hoot others off your wave and you genuinely, truly, absolutely suck.

3, When your turn comes, take your wave, surf it well, paddle back out and sit down. Talk to people. Watch for good waves. Let them pass and make it obvious that you’re sharing. Show some aloha, some kindness, some wisdom.

4. Don’t drop in. Dropping in means another surfer has caught the wave closer to the shoulder. If you find you accidentally have, turn out of the wave immediately. If you can’t do that without falling then sit down on the tail of your board (and if you can’t, what are you doing in a crowded break?). Never undertake a maneuver that might cause you to ditch your board in front of the overtaking surfer.

5. Using your high vantage point to call out waves might be a good thing, but ask your fellow surfers if they’d like you to do that. A lot of people surf to decompress and relax. Having some guy bellow “here’s a good one” five times in a row for mediocre waves may disturb their Wa.

6. Don’t paddle out through the middle of the break. Go off to the channel, or if there is no channel, well to the side out of the surfing zone. Killing someone’s ride by standing like a deer in the headlights will not gain you any points.

7. If you must paddle in the surfing zone, signal which way you are going to try to pass any surfer on a collision course with you. Generally you want to pass behind them so they don’t have to cut back, so if you fall you won’t take them out. Make your intention clear. It might not work but at least you tried.

Any time you think a rule doesn’t apply to you, you’re just BS-ing yourself. “I didn’t really drop in because I was so far down the wave”: BS–you wouldn’t come up with an excuse if you didn’t KNOW you were wrong.
“I tried to grab my board but I missed it” BS–go back and practice control.

Find new places. SUP boards are magic for that. You are missing out if you don’t explore, and you’re just adding to the congestion. Five miles is no big deal for a SUP board.

Don’t let nitwits control your standards. Just because someone doesn’t appreciate your efforts to share and to observe traditional etiquette doesn’t mean you should abandon it. Set your standards and live by them.

Summary

Beginners: Stay out of popular breaks. Find some small waves and practice controlling your board. Learn to turn out of waves and/or grab the board as you fall. Do not rely on your leash–in fact consider learning to surf BY YOURSELF without a leash with NO ONE in the water who could be hit by your board–all the way to the beach. Alternatively simulate this with a leash if you don’t want to do all that swimming, Going leash-less is a useful training aid and a commitment. Just never do it around other people.

Intermediate: If you can execute basic surf maneuvers without falling and can control your board, you should be welcome in an uncrowded lineup. If the crowd grows, paddle off to the side or go looking for new spots. If you can’t thread your way through a half dozen people in the way, and contend with people dropping in or the need to pull out from the wave at ANY time without EVER losing control of your board, then you shouldn’t be in a crowd.

All SUP Surfers

1. Don’t be a wavehog.

2, When your turn comes, take your wave, surf it well, paddle back out and sit down.

3. Don’t drop in. If you accidentally have, turn out of the wave immediately.

4. Don’t paddle out through the middle of the break.

5. If you must paddle in the surfing zone, signal which way you are going to try to pass any surfer on a collision course with you.

Any time you think a rule doesn’t apply to you, you’re lying to yourself.

Waves and breaks
Before long you’ll be sitting in a lineup with other surfers and they’ll start talking about the waves. That they are mushy, or blown out, closeouts, or sectioning or A frames. That there’s too much west in them (pick a direction), that the tide is going out or it’s all short period stuff. There’s a lot to know about waves, but you don’t need to know much to start with. Here’s the basics and we’ll talk a lot more about waves later.

Waves for Surfing

Surfers ride waves on the shoulder (or curl), which is the steepest part of the wave, right where the smooth face of the wave and the whitewater of the already broken part of the wave meet. Beginners can have fun playing in the whitewater, and a SUP board can use it’s speed and size to ride a wave almost anywhere on it’s face, but the shoulder is the sweet spot of the wave.

The broken part of the wave is called whitewater, foam, or soup. It’s turbulent and a lot of the power has been spent. You can ride it if you point your board mostly toward the beach, but it’s bumpy and hard to maneuver in.

The lip is the top of the wave, especially when it’s starting to curl over as it gets ready to drop. How the wave drops is an indication of the amount of energy in the wave and how the ocean bottom is shaped to form the wave. When the lip pitches way out and falls into the trough at the base of the wave or even well past it at some fabled breaks it can create a tube (called the shack, a pipe, the green room, breaking top to bottom, etc.). But most waves crumble or form just a partial tube as they pitch over and fall into the face of the wave

Beginner Waves

What you want as a beginner is a wave that has a shoulder that is gently spilling as it travels across the face of the wave. And you want mushy waves, which are waves that crumble down their face, rather than the ones that toss a lip far out and fall with a whump to the base of the wave. You also don’t want waves that are breaking right onto a steep shore or in very shallow water. In other words, you don’t want to paddle out at Pipeline, unless you have grown tired of life.

Waves create rip currents and often have channels in them, that are simply deeper water that doesn’t permit the swell to kick up into a wave at that point. The rip currents and channels are useful for moving back out through a wave, but they also can be a source of danger. A rip current can move a lot faster than you can paddle. If you get separated from your board you may be battling rip currents while you try to get back to the shore or to your board. Simply put, don’t fight rips. Go with the flow and look for a way to get back to shore when the rip dissipates. Generally you can make your way across the backside of the breaking waves and find a place where there either is no current or it’s going more in the direction you want to go. Often you can bodysurf your way closer to shore. In any case, you need to assume that you can be in for a tough swim, in conditions that cause most beach emergencies, injuries and deaths.

The channel might seem like a happy place, non-breaking waves, a favorable current, a fine seat to watch the real surfers from. And it often is, right up until it isn’t. Waves can come up quickly in size, and even if they don’t there is often a sneaker wave that will clean out the lineup as everyone scrambles for the horizon, and not everyone makes it. In those conditions the channel can sometimes be a lousy place to be, because the wave can be at its biggest and most poweful right where they weren’t breaking before. The sneaker waves usually break outside, and sweep up the slow movers in the whitewater. But in the channel they can break right on top of you, and that’s the worst possible situation. The full power of the wave is unleashed on you and your board, You can be pushed to the bottom, grabbed viciously and wrenched back to the top of the wave in a second. Going back over the falls and being pummeled repeatedly. Surfers call this the spin cycle, and that’s exactly what it’s like. You have to be ready for that and constantly vigilant for what’s happening in the outer waters.  We’ll talk about that more later in the sections titled “caught inside” and “big wave safety”.

The best places to get initial experience is beaches that have a sandy bottom or a relatively friendly reef–by that I mean not much coral or rocks sticking up close to the surface at low tide. You don’t want a heavy shorebreak or a steep beach. Not much rip, not much current, and not much wind. Look around for the kind of place that has other beginners, but don’t plan on surfing right in the middle of them, you need to be able to get away from the other beginners.

…to be continued

Dry Pak Waterproof Phone/iPod Bag

I have a lot of waterproof cases–I love having music along when I do a distance paddle. So I have a H2O Audio case for my Video iPod. Then I wanted something smaller, so I got the H2O Audio iPod Nano integrated headphone/case designed for swimmers. Works great.

But then I decided I wanted to take my iPhone along on long paddles so I could check in with Diane, or coordinate a ride back to the Jeep, or call the Coast guard if I found myself headed for Japan. At first I just stuck it in a waterproof gear bag and carried it in my Camelback. But I decided I wanted something I could stick in boardshort pockets. All the waterproof cases I looked at were bulky and expensive, and most limited access to iPhone features (iPhones have a touch screen). Then I found the Dry Pak.

These are simple, cheap, and work amazingly well. the one I bought was $15 (instead of $80+) and I’ve been using it for months with no problems. The closure clip is a little bulky, so I have to fold it carefully to fit it in my boardshort pocket. But it works. I use a rubber armor case around my iPhone that I slip my license, ATM and credit card into, and I’ve got everything I need in one waterproof packet. I could go around the world with just what’s in that one pocket.

With my phone, credit cards and license I’m good to go anywhere

Simple, cheap and effective, the Dry Pak gives full access to all the iPhone features

You can do all the phone functions right through the soft clear plastic front. And you can talk and listen right through it. Works just fine. I took an important business call a few days ago while sitting on my board half a mile from the shore. Sitting there in the sun, bobbing gently on my board while I talked about stressful business issues made the call a lot less onerous than it would normally have been. When I was done, I stuffed the phone back in my pocket, hopped to my feet and resumed my paddle.

The only thing you can’t do is plug headphones into the iPhone to use it as an iPod. That’s fine for me, I have other ways to listen to music.

Highly recommended

A little Hydrodynamics

I gotta know.

That’s my burden, probably comes from the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) that so clearly determined my career path (Motorcycle mechanic, nuclear reactor operator, PR flack, software entrepreneur, technology marketer, direct and interactive agency founder, surf bum). When I start looking at something critically, I have to have some kind of authoritative or at least comprehensible answer for the question “why is it like that?”. And I really can’t let the issue rest until I know.  Questions pop back into my head at any time, distracting me from whatever I’m doing. It might take years, I might still be looking for some particular answers when I kick the bucket. But I gotta know.

When I started looking at SUP race/distance boards they looked “wrong” to me. The majority had long, tapering pintails. How could that work? Most of the folks I talked to said the idea was to disturb the water as little as possible, to join the flow back at the tail of the hull. That sounded a bit too zen for me. It looked to me that the flow would start separating from the rails as soon as they started to converge. That you’d have turbulence on both sides, causing not only parasitic drag, but also uneven buffeting force against the rails and the stabilizing fin, which would add more drag.

The Ku Nalu board is known to be a relatively fast standard board with a short nose and squash tail that permit straight rails

Most race boards, even 12′ ones like this Naish Glide, tend to have long pintails

Joe Bark’s racing boards, like this 16 footer, are even more extreme

While the S.I.C. F16’s and F18 tend to have blunter tails

I talked with designers like Mark Raaphorst whose F16’s figure large in the top ten finishers at almost any race, almost any place. Most of Mark’s open class race boards have a somewhat flattened tail. I asked him why his boards didn’t have pintails.  I didn’t take notes, so these aren’t really quotes–just the sense of what I recall  Mark saying:

Some of them do. Depends on what people are using the board for and where they paddle. If people are going to paddle in flatwater then a pintail is great, but in swells, especially following ones or in high wind, the squarer tail separates flow cleaner and the straighter rails let you catch the swells and plane quicker.

I suggested that the pintail might balance buoyancy better and he said: Nah, look how little difference we’re talking about. He grabbed a pintail template off the wall and dropped it onto a F16 tail. I could immediately see that it wasn’t much. This is all about flow and making a board catch a swell, or not.

Mark’s explanation made sense–sort of, but I still didn’t really know why a pinail would work in flat water.  One of the guys on the Stand Up Zone came to my rescue with an email address for a guy named Al Bowers who he said was an aerodynamicist for Nasa and a Surfski paddler. I sent him this email:

A fellow Stand Up Zone member gave me your email address and said you might be able to blow some smoke away from the issue of watercraft tail design.  I’ve seen that most Surf Canoes, OC’s and racing SUP boards have a pintail, and this doesn’t seem particularly logical to me. Most of the designers I talked to say something like “All the successful designs have Pintails” or “The idea is to disturb the water as little as possible” but neither of these are satisfactory answers.

Viewing the issue strictly from a viscous drag and friction side, it seems the pintail would have more drag for a similar waterline length since the flow would (I think) be separating along the length of the converging sides and the unequal turbulence would create side thrusts as it does in race cars. Seems to me that straight rails and a relatively abrupt square or squash tail would offer less drag.

I would appreciate your views on the subject. I’ve done quite a bit of searching on the web, but haven’t found many technical papers that offered enlightenment. I’m not planning to design any craft, I’m just looking to satisfy my curiosity and perhaps stimulate some new thinking on these issues. People tend to design things because they have “always been done that way”. Absent budgets for tank testing and sophisticated analysis I don’t think attempts to make a better hull will be very creative without some discussion to spark experimentation.

Thanks for your time in considering this request.

In  remarkably short time I got this reply:

Thanks for the note. I dunno if you’ve received any info on my background. I spent 20 years as an aerodynamicist in the Fluid Mechanics branch here at NASA dryden (located at Edwards Air force Base). I love aircraft, especially low speed and motorless flight (both a hang glider pilot and a sailplane pilot). I did my graduate work on laminar flow and sailplane airfoil computer code validation against wind tunnel and flight research data. I’m also an avid sailor (since I was a kid), paddler, and rower. Used to swim a bit and freedive. The one thing I never did do was surf (long story here, but I didn’t have much time for it, you see I also backpack, hike, do photography at a very serious level, and a bit of climbing). I’m also a bit of a musician (guitar mostly), did some studio work a zillion years ago. After I did my 20 years as a working aerodynamicist, I was promoted to the position of Chief of Aerodynamics, and then did a stint as the Deputy Director of Research at NASA Dryden, and I did an invited residency as a Special Assistant to the Associate Administrator of Aeronautics at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. I am currently the Director of Aeronautics Projects at NASA Dryden. One other bit, I have sat on the board of Cal Poly University (San Luis Obispo) for 16 years for Mechanical Engineering, and two years ago I paid for four students to do their research project building a custom ICF Sprint K1 based on an optimal genetic algorithm (we were trying to rebalance the wave drag to skin friction drag, the theory said we should see a 3-4% decrease in drag at sprint speeds, we didn’t succeed, but the kayak worked as predicted, it failed due to other problems; I still have the boat and the molds). BTW, my wife and I paid for that project out of our own pockets.

ENOUGH! It turns out your friends are right. A pintail IS the optimum for most of the paddling we do. The flow REALLY does stay attached and flow back along the sides, FOR MOST OF THE PADDLING WE DO. Note the caveat at the end. Below hull speed (that taking the LWL in feet, take the square root of that, then multiply by 1.34, and that is the approximate “hull speed” in displacement mode) we are operating in pure displacement mode. Above this speed, we start to experience some hydrodynamic lift. By the time we get to double the hull speed, there is enough hydrodynamic lift that we start to leave the displacement mode behind. This regime is the transition range. Above this, we make enough hydrodynamic lift that we can consider ourselves planing. To plane is where all shortboard surfers and windsurfers operate. They need enough speed to LIFT the board and rider out of the water. At this point you don’t want a pintail anymore. You NEED straight rails and the hull should resemble a speedboat or a ski boat more than a kayak hull.

Now, back to those speeds, the “hull speed” of a 17 ft paddleboard or kayak is about 5.5 knots. A 21 ft surfski or solo outrigger is about 6.2 knots. So to breakout and plane we need to be going about 11-12 knots. This is well within the range of surfing.

There’s a long complicated theory with all this, but that’s the way it works out for us. BTW, sprint speeds are right in that 10-11 knot range. And people have played with planing type hulls for the 500m and 1000m races sprinter run. But its VERY marginal to plane. There was a French windsurfer that built a special low-speed planing board some years ago. In the 7-10 knot range his board was unbeatable. Below that, the old style long boards crushed him. And above that speed, the shortboards annihilated him. It always works out this way.

I hope this helps. If you’ve got further questions, drop me a line.

Best regards,

Al Bowers

So OK. Now I know. On to the next question

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New Race Board

Some time ago there was a somewhat heated challenge on the StandUp Zone (the most active forum in the SUP world: http://www.standupzone.com) regarding the notion that a long hulled racing board with an average paddler on it could beat an elite paddler on a 12 foot board. In the course of the debate (I favored the long hulled board) I wound up buying the board in question.

I know you might have some trouble making that jump. All I can say is that you kind of had to be there. But I’m thrilled with the outcome. There is now an amazingly zooty-looking 18′8″ 572 Penetrator making it’s way to Maui with my name on it.

My “ownership” of this board is kind of a debatable concept. There’s already quite a queue of people ready to use it for a day or three, and it’s being spoken of as sort of community property that I’ll be storing. That’s a fine thing. I’m looking forward to sharing this thing. I just want to pat it at night and perhaps wax it now and then to preserve the shine.

Should be here on my Birthday, or thereabouts. I plan to paddle it 62 miles the first few days (NO, I’m not going to try to do that in a single day) to celebrate.

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