Your duck dive is going to fail. now what?

scotty hope you're not mad at me about the time we argued over the Muslim population in Indo.


#nosuchthingasduckdives

 

I got reamed by a 4 wave set at Matapalo CR. They were the biggest I've ever seen. I was still attached to my board when the last one blasted me on land. Of course my fingers were inbedded to 2cnd knuckle, but still attached.

 

I do the same sh!t here lol. I usually surf in spots by myself or one other buddy so I don't have to worry about the crowd factor. If a wall of white water is coming my way with a set behind it and I'm in the impact zone not even back on my board yet I'm grabbing the velcro end of my leash attached to the string as close to the board as possible, swimming to the bottle and putting my bear claw in the sand til that b!tch rolls over me. I'm going to get back out to the lineup as efficiently as possible without wasting energy. If I get washed to far in, I'll just walk back up the beach to the jetty or main paddle out and head back out there usually with dry hair. This is usually the option I take when surfing in crowds, but in the impact zone (not the lineup) I'll go deep with my board rather than get pushed farther in. Most annoying feeling to just get washed in and loose all that covered ground. But I'll agree, if your in the lineup, and not inside, when that cleanup set comes through, you better duck dive that sh!t

 

Fock yes. You tell em, Blasters! Carolina cutbacks in da face.

 

Bro, do you even duck dive?

 

I have found that the longer I surf and the more I perfect my duck diving techniques, the more comfortable I am at duck diving a wave that seems futile. I have found that more times than not I was able to get under enough to not get completely pounded, get out the back and back on my board. Sure, sometimes it drags me back some but i'm on my board and paddling out faster than if I bailed.

However, I'd be lying if I said I have never ditch & dived. There have been OH SH*T moments that instincts took over and I did what I had to do. Those are far and few between and I made sure nobody was in danger when doing so.

Having said all that, after trying to come up with a better solution I found that when I hop off my board, flip it upside down and grab the base of the leash by the plug as close to the tail as possible and dive down while holding on with a vice grip making sure to keep my arm pulled in as close to my chest as possible to avoid getting it yanked out of the shoulder socket (which mine are prone to doing), I was able to get under and still have my board within my grasp to quickly get back on and keep paddling. Gotta come up fast and spin her around and keep paddling all in one smooth but efficient movement to avoid losing ground though. Takes a few times to get it dialed in.

The only bad thing that has happened to me doing this is one time it yanked it out of my hand and sliced my finger open pretty bad. I chalked that up to bad luck, but it wasn't the end of the world. This has helped me get through some pretty relentless DD sessions and got me out the back with my board in tact, even on a 9' LB with pounding sets. Doesn't matter what board if you do it correctly.

 

As others have said you need to use reason.

Some instances a failed duck dive is no big deal, some instances its a huge deal.



I realize some people are up tight about this issue.

If there is no one behind me and I can't duck dive I grab the velcro on my leash and hold the board.

If there is people behind me I side paddle so I don't hit them with my board because the places I surf sometimes a duck dive isnt the best option because you will just submerge right into where it is sucking over and you shoot backwards like a cannonball so in that instance it is safer to side paddle if there is someone behind you because even if you perfectly duck dive the guy behind you is going to be picking his teeth out of your board.

If i can duck dive which is 95% of the time I duck dive.

 

Laird would have paddled right through it. Healy weighs 120#.

 

The way I see it, if the pros are DD'ing at Chopes and Pipe and Mavs then why can't we on much, much less-sized waves? Yes, they're pros, but there's clearly an epitome of technique on the move to get er done on even the gnarliest of gnar. How deep does the cylinder go under the water anyway even on a massive wave? Just a few feet right? Seems to me that all you gotta do is penetrate into the face and towards the back to escape going OTF even on a wave that's sucking the trough dry. You want to get in that water that's moving much less, then you're set, right?

All the great technique on DD discussed in the other tread was very helpful to this. The pointing of the nose upward on the end of the DD has made the difference for me lately big time. As DSUP says, the better at it we get, the bigger waves we can do it in. There's definitely a line to draw where volume of a stick becomes physics-prohibitive to DD. What then, do you do the 90 degree roll mentioned, turtle roll, Hawaiian roll?

What did the Hawaiians do back in the day with heavy as hell 15 foot boards with no leashes? Because they got out back and they had full sessions day after day. They had to have figured something out. What are the techniques that each level of surfer should do with each size of board in each size wave?

That developmentally-appropriate technique is helpful for cats to know rather than going out in the wild and risking health of self and others. The "just go and surf" theory doesn't work very well for a heavily-volumed dude who's paddling out into stuff he's yet to paddle out in. It happens, so let's work to solve the problems rather than think they won't exist. Knowledge is power buoys.

 

Bow up and use your body like a sea anchor, while trying to relax and conserve energy. One the wave passes and releases the board, hop on it and paddle back out like a man possessed.

 

Dudes look at Mike Stewart's diagram of wave power pockets(which continue into the whitewater)...there are places where you can magically find no resistance, feels like your own special tunnel(or hole, bagus)...I will search and try and post but a cracker gots to get sum work done...

but seriously, heed what he says about waves.

 

Basically what DPSUP said. I do it a little differently, I hold the base of the leash with a little room between my hand and the tail, too close and you'll pinch your hand/fingers between the tail and leash and that can result in injury. I also don't hold the board as close to myself as possible, I extend my arm out and do it. Less chance of a fin related injury occurring in turbulent water, and I don't have the shoulder issues to contend with so it's easier for me to do this method. As he said there is def a technique to doing this right, gotta be lower than your board in the water when going under. And MIS, only time I'm doing this is in turbulent white water in the impact zone where there are no faces coming at you, just walls of white water. It really only works in waist-chest deep water anyway. Other than that, not worth it. It's just a good way (for me) to get through some shorepound beach break. I would never try this in an actually lineup of guys on a heavy day. Too much of a risk of the board getting sucked over. Never tried it at a reef break and doubt I'd be willing to either

 

You mean straight up and down head up and feet down?

I like this bro. Have seen the same thing with power pockets and it's basically all I focus on when watching a wave at the break or in a vid, especially in the second half of the wave's peeling and breakage. Seems like a ramp that's much more effortless to rip on.

 

Here you go Amigas.

[video=youtube;AMDvj9EwtKI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMDvj9EwtKI[/video]

Also, be sure your bikini top doesn't fall off.

 

They didn't surf macking pipe. wasn't surfed until white people did it. you can surf wikiki all day long and never have to duck a wave. the ancient hawaiians didn't surf when it was huge because thats when the gods were surfing.

bottom line don't ditch your board. if you are finding that you need to ditch your board you shouldn't be out there.

 

Bro I'm not saying to ditch the board. I'm trying to have cats list alternatives to straight DD'ing for the bros who have more volume than a larger SB out there, as many do. Thank you for the clarification on ancient HI practices, wasn't aware of that. I did know that macking pipe wasn't surfed til more recently. I'm asking what they did when it was just big, not even huge, because there seems to be a lot of guys here who don't know how to get out back in a bigger board when it's big and they get caught in between.

How about the pre-leash era? You were either holding onto your board or swimming in and the second situation was time and energy consuming. Surfers were clearly more conscious of their board back then, and boards tended to be larger then, so what did they do when sets were coming in and breaking near or on them?

Using the logic here that these issues have always been around and surfers have advanced just fine til now so what did they do before things got a lot easier for us in several ways? Whitewash and paddling through the impact zone are not just modern phenomena.

 

are you pre-contact historian? I think you are wrong on all accounts of this post, have you surfed waimea on a gun when its 10, 12, 15 feet? (real wave measurement, not faces) rest assured, you arent holding on to your gun while the white water rocks your sh1t, thats for sure.

and I hear ya zombie, I like to clear the board if I am not on it, I have a handful of head/face scars....I look a little funny

seldom seen, those pockets are real, I bodysurf in larger waves sometimes (not more than 5 foot proper) and you can open your eyes while going under water and swim to a calm pocket, its pretty sweet to see the finger of whitewater turbulence surround the serene pockets, its da tits

and thank you man-issues, thats a good informative vid

 

Pre leash days: Hold on to the board. There were lots more bait and sharks in the water back in the early to mid 70s. Swimming was spooooky.

I think in Hawaii there are more channels to get out in heavy surf than the typical east coast beach break. Piers and jetties here can help you find a conveyor belt out to the line up on a good day, or look for rip tides to suck you out.

Turtle rolling: The first time I tried this out was the first time I took a longboard out in decent sized surf (head high maybe). I didn't have the board at the correct angle, and when the wave landed on the board, it's full impact pushed the board into my face. I love the smell of fiberglass in the morning!