Your duck dive is going to fail. now what?

exactly, surfing here and getting caught on the inside it's usually best to conserve your energy just going in, walking back to the jetty or rip and getting out easily and safely vs trying to just fight your way through

 

Its my pleasure. I mean, a forum full of people who go surfing enough to actually post on a forum full of other like-minded people should be giving each other pointers on duck diving, right? What is the next thread, the proper 'pop up'? How to wax your board? Maybe we can have a 'how to use an FCS key' thread.

 

A wetsuite question.

 

Yeah, a couple things to clarify. I think I actually do more like you do the more I think about it as far as where I grab the leash, which is on the velcro part, no on the leash string, because you are right, too close and you get pinched, and you don't wanna get a little pinch on your little finger do you? HAHA, Seriously though, that's important. Also, when I do this, i'm diving head first toward the bottom with my left hand reaching out to make sure I don't hit bottom with my face while I hold onto the leash with my right hand and I pull down as hard as I can and try to pin my hand next to my ribs basically. When done correctly the board stays far away from my face / head and doesn't catch much of the turbulence.

It's not necessarily the "approved" technique, but it's worked for me 99% of the time and with little to no injury. Either way, i'm getting as much speed as I can heading into a duck dive / ditch dive and getting as DEEP as possible while not letting my board do w/e it wants. Gotta keep control of it or your'll lose it, and then the swim in is going to really suck.

 

Oh fo shizzle dude...until I get lasik eye can't open my I's underwater...and obviously do not claim to have a fraction of the wave knowledge MS does...but I've had some dives that were so seemingly effortless(aside from a few strokes prior to gain momentum), you could just feel the lack of resistance in that little section.

 

Next thread will be "How to shred the gnar" with video instructions given by this guy

 

It kinda is fairly new. Before leashes you had to earn a spot in the line up at a heavy spot. one way to do that was to make it there without losing your board. There were less surfers in general so straight up beach breaks were surfed less and places with channels were surfed more. you lost your board less but when you did you swam to get it and paddled back out the channel. This was a great deterrent as only crazy and fit people kept at it and the normals just gave up.

Watch endless summer they don't really surf big waves. when they show waimea i don't think one wave gets ridden to the end. it is a straight up pummel fest. With advances in equipment more waves become surfable.

to the original question on what do you do in this situation is you cop a beating. thats really all there is to it. but on a short board you should try to duck dive. you might make it. the turtle roll works for long boards. and if you are really having trouble making it out, you may be in over your head.

good thing to do is surf without a leash for a while. you get pretty creative quickly and lose the board less. then when yo do need a leash you find yourself relying on it less.

 

not a histoirian i just read alot. i thought Butch Van Artsdalen was the first guy to surf it. as for pre contact:

When the surf of ‘Awili was rolling dangerously high, all surfing and canoeing ceased, for that was a sign that the gods were riding.(Pukui: 2356-257) i just grabbed this off the web on a hawiian heritage web site. so the pre contact historians did all the work for us.

and we are not talking about macking north shore. or cloudbreak or mavericks. we are talking about what we see.those places are fantasy to most of us me included. i saw mavericks once and it wasn't even a big day. i have no place out there.

 

When the White Windowless van was rolling dangerously near, all children ran and hid, for that was a sign that Wayne was bangin kids!


(FL CPS Warning to Kids 2014-15)

 

yea u should never bail ur board,but there are plenty of cases where u should.first off,if the waves are mushy and u cant duckdive,take up golf.seriously

second I see vids in contests with Kelly,parko,mick duckdiving 15ft monsters and still make it through.but then again I seen Kelly ditch his board at the goldcoast pro last year,wasnt 15ft,but equal to a good noreaster on the eastcoast.

my call for tossing a board.when ur in shallow waters,and a big meaty hollow closeout is about to break directly on u,then toss the board.first off makesure nobody gets hit.its like driving up on the sidewalk to avoid an accident and running over 50 people.i personally never ditched my board,what I do,when I have a big set I know I cant make it under,il slide off my board and keep 1 arm on the nose and try to push it under.it hardly ever works but ur not gonna knock out some bystander.

most of the time u let the energy of the wave roll right over u.like when its barreling,il see people duckdiving at the bottom of the wave and they never make it.u casually approach the wave with some momentum and as its going up it usually rolls right over u,the wave does the dive for u.

my first 2yrs surfing,when I was a noob,the only thing that terrified me was not being able to duckdive and get hit with the board.thats why I bodysurfed for a while before I got into surfing seriously.when ur swimming u can go under anything,i can swim under a 20footer in 10 inches of water not get sucked back.i think that's the coolest thing about going to the ocean,swimming under waves.il go deep let me chest touch the sand and feel it whish over.

as far as taking sets on the head,learn to love it.that is all

 

tru that

 

lol i remember when i was younger (i'm 15, so i was really young), whenever there was an outside set or huge whitewater i would turn around and start paddling to the beach so that i would catch the whitewater and go straight to the beach. then i would just paddle back out for that to happen again and again and again.

as for ditching your board or not. i always duck dive. if the whitewater is huge, i duck dive fairly shallow and hold on to my board for dear life. i noticed that i don't get pounded as much if i duck dive shallow as opposed to duck diving deep as hell. it might just be me

but i've never surfed any waves over 7 foot. i got a 5/4 for the winter, so i'll get back to you guys whether i duck dive or not in the winter when it's super heavy

 

I really am surprised at the amount of people saying never bail. Id say never bail with rider up or within 30 foot radius of someone for sure, but one example: poor mans beach in Cape balls on chin, some meaty nearly DOH nuggets can unfold in chest deep water. good luck with that!

 

This gives new meaning to "taking one on the chin".

 

your all ****ing retarded, try surfing a huge wave and paddling a 8'6" gun and a 25 footer is about to pull the old flip flop on ya and hold onto your board just see what will happen next.

 

Yes you can ditch your board when it is appropriate.

Try duck diving any board over 9 feet.

Garrett McNamara knows when it is time to ditch the board...

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

 

Pretty sure people on this thread aren't referring to surfing25 foot Waimea with 8'6" guns when they are saying never to ditch. Obviously different techniques apply in those conditions, and duck diving a 4" thick gun isn't possible to begin with.

 

Mommy make it stop!

 

Anyone saying never bail your board has never surfed big waves or reef breaks. It sounds tough -and cool to say never bail your board but it's absolutely necessary in big surf sometimes. Too many internet jockeys here. Some pros and good surfers regularly bail there board and even stand up and dive off it to get deeper when they are really caught in a bad spot.
Bail your board at crowded chest to head high Jersey and you are an east coast kook. I've seen longboarders bail there boards in waist high junk only to kill the poor kid paddling out behind them.
Bailing off your board in a spot with real waves of consequence or a shallow reef is part of the game.

Like the song goes---"Grab the reef when all duck diving fails".

 

And it's not just in 25' waimea either