23ft Hawaiian or 23ft new jersey?

Talk about beating a dead horse. We get it. According to people who don't live here, NJ is worthless and full of a$$holes. Fair enough. Get over it.

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There, that should cover the 23ft reference quota until lunch time at least.

 

The Hawaiians measure their waves from the back. For instance if you were approaching an island by boat and can't see the wave's breaking face, then you would only measure it from the backside. So Hawaii's scale 23 foot wave would be 3ft back, 20ft face. Teahupoo flat = 23ft face.

 

The Hawaiian wave scale really screws with your ego. I go to Oahu at least every other year and will undoubtedly be out in the water on a rising swell that will scare the crap out of me. When I check the reports they say 4-6ft. I have never been scared on east coast report of the same size but in Hawaii that is the maximum size I surf. Even more confusing is that the scale changes when you go to south shore of Oahu. 4-6 ft on south shore is really fun and nowhere near as heavy on NS.

 

It started as an ego killer. Mainlanders would go out and say 10 foot waves were 7 feet to act like it was nothing for them. Then someone would say no those were like 6 feet maybe you're just a betch.
Then from there it went on into what we have today.

 

well when i was in Hawaii the forecast according to Surfline was 1-2 poor to fair, it was 3-4+ Jersey and the best shape i ever seen. I was blessed one day with 2-3 + and this was one of the best days of surfing I ever had. Diamond Head on south shore was 5-7 Jersey with + sets and firing. I don't even want to know what a legit 5-7 on surfline would be in Hawaii.

 

Yo if it's hitting n ur at either place who the heck cares. Right place at right time make memories. Live it don't wish it!

 

#belmar,nj

 

The Hawaiian scale is not the back of the wave, thats just retarded. its the size of the tube. a 6 foot tube will be starting out with a 10 foot plus face before it folds over to make a man sized tube

6 foot is the size of the tube.

6 foot face will be a 3-3.5 foot tube

 

I never heard it as that, but thats not to say thats not how somebody told it to you. Theres so many different versions of EVERYTHING out here.

The way ive always heard it is; its generally easiest to "measure" it by the back of the wave. So in essence to get your general "everywhere else" size you just gotta double what it is "hawaiian".

Its also why i just call it by body part...ankle, knee, chest/shoulder, head, and overhead.

 

True... Very true.

 

All jokes aside, this is what I have seen/heard having lived on both coasts and traveled to Hawaii.

10 FT east coast == Wave Faces as Tall as a basketball Hoop
10 FT west coast == Barrels as tall as a basketball Hoop. (Not Wave Faces, but Lip to Flats when breaking overhead....

10 FT Hawaii is about a 20 foot wave face.

Regardless of what you use, I think the east coast scale makes the most sense.

In Hawaii and CA, the fluctuation between 4-6 feet or so is massive. Some 4-6FT days out west had waves faces 10-12 feet high, while other 4-6 days, the wave faces are about 8 feet. For planning purposes and board choices, the CA and HI wave height calculations are retarded. If they would put pride aside and actually use a sensible scale, it would make surf forecasting way better.

And its funny that when you talk about Billabong XXL and Big Wave surfing scales, like the "100ft" waves that keep getting proclaimed in Portugal, they use the "east coast scale" That wave in Portugal, if measured by pipeline standards was about 50 foot..... Even at Jaws they do east coast scaling on big days.... 50 foot Peahi is literally about 5 basketball hoops high on the wave faces....

Hypocrites. I guess onces its over 23 feet anywhere, its just the "Jersey Scale" from then on.

 

im from California, and live on Maui (which does happen to be a Hawaiian island). Your knowledge is way off. I've never been to the east coast so i cant say how you guys do it there, but your hawaii and cali info isnt correct.

 

My friend said he is going to slam my face i bt ot thhf the computerrrrhfdbgvdbhnjuegHGVBDF7645WRTVB7TFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGXBL;M

 

leety, I am not going to name drop, but the formula and tube size are both words from people here north shore with waaaaay more credibility than me

 

whoever said it is the way mariners measures waves sounds correct

and after thinking wouldn't the back of the wave essentially be more accurate considering face size changes with variances in the ocean floor?

 

Explain??? Not sure what you are disagreeing with. But as far as CA goes. That is correct. Never lived in HI, just traveled, but my CA wave height explanation is directly from surfline, who set the standards.

 

call it like it is. if a wave face is as high as the top of the average tall guy's head, it's head high. if it's twice as high, DOH. and so on and so forth. Hawaiians and other folks with machismo who surf too much in bigger waves undercall sh*t. even Surfline is getting ridiculous undercalling sh*t lately. yesterday Katie Spagnolo called Belmar NJ 3-5 foot in the morning or something like that. i rolled up around 1130 to macking Jersey death foam waves with gale force offshores. give me a break already.

 

Yea, man... Sunday was freakin' unbelievable. Early afternoon there were a couple sets that were so big and so perfect I couldn't remember the last time I saw it bigger... huge A-frames peaking so far out that even if you got out (which nobody did where I was during the peak of the swell) the cleanup sets would give you a pounding for sure... no way you could scratch and scramble out from the lineup to where the bombs were in time to catch one. Legit DOH+, but not in an approachable way. My wife actually said, "Give me a half hour to call the insurance company before you go out."

I actually headed NORTH for this one. I wanted to surf... days are to short this time of year to waste precious daylight fighting the current ad nauseum.

 

Yeah! Best break around- it was perfect there yesterday! Everyone should check out this break and surf it!

#DOHbelmarNJ

 

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