Genuine picture from Mentawai for Iggy.

[gibber]

I have a feeling that those who voice discontent on the validity of the ignatious' scale probably didn't go through the rigours of grommethood

[marcus]

I have a feeling that those who voice discontent on the validity of the ignatious' scale probably didn't go through the rigours of grommethood

i went through a torturous grommet hood, i have used iggys scale... but i dont agree with it.
i first seriously questioned it one swell as a kid when chris ricco said a nice slabby shark island swell was 4 ft.
it would have been 8-10 feet lip to reefy trough.
since then i have avoided calling the size of a wave if i can.
if im talking to my brother about it i will use feet of face or bouy readings, or describe what reefs are working.
for example 1st reef point, second reef point, second reef island, second reef and hollow, phantoms etc etc
if a certain bombie,reef or shelf is breaking thats all i need to know to understand how big it is.

north gong bombie peaks, big walls left and right, rights all the way in to puckys, closing out with the harbour wall, this i understand and can picture

if someone tells me its 6 foot, that hardly tells me what the situation is

[Beanpole]

I would probably say the change came when the pro curcuit started and everyone adopted island style wave calling after hanging over there. So I believe you Iggy when you say you haven't heard any other way of measuring wave size. But a lot of old calls have been rewritten in retrospect. I remember reading an article where Rabbit said he saw MP catch an 8' wave in a comp at Burleigh but the later scaled it down to meet current trends. A lot of old shapers talk about hawaiin size wave measurements.

Anyway I accept thats what goes but its still stupid and innaccurate.

[Beanpole]

I have a feeling that those who voice discontent on the validity of the ignatious' scale probably didn't go through the rigours of grommethood

Nah they treated you way worse than that in the 70s, gibber. It got much safer in the late eighties.
They still measured wave faces then though, even if the groms were tied to telegraph poles and set on fire.

[diggerdickson]

I dont use i99s scale at all. I use to as a 9rommet when I use to undercall waves because I would 9o out in anythin9 while my mates wouldnt. I feel Ive mellowed a bit lately and have a totally different and very simple scale.

1. The surf is small today, weak and 9utless, mal wave only wish I had hueis sin9le fin.

2. small surf but worth a paddle

3. 9ood fun waves out there

4. its 9ood out there, can even 9ive you a poundin9, yeee haaa.

5. Lar9e surf, lets 9ive it a crack but I first want to sit and watch a bit to see where to paddle out and where to sit, do rou9e sets come in or not.

6. "Shite, Im to old for this stuff, its bi9, Im under9unned, damn I left my wax at home, han9 on is that my missus on the phone - yup it is 9otto 9o home my little boy has hurt himself, wish I could join you out there as the surf is pumpin9"

This is a simple scale to use, stops you undercallin9 or overcallin9, stops you lookin9 like a wanker.

[gibber]

I have a feeling that those who voice discontent on the validity of the ignatious' scale probably didn't go through the rigours of grommethood

Nah they treated you way worse than that in the 70s, gibber. It got much safer in the late eighties.
They still measured wave faces then though, even if the groms were tied to telegraph poles and set on fire.

I started surfing in 79 on a real board and probs three before that on a coolite. I remember grom abuse...legrope floggings, soap wax jobs, pushes being lost and later found high up in a pine tree, to name a few.
I recall wave heights being called pretty much similar to what they are in ig's scaling...actually I reckon they seemed twice as big back then.

[offshore1]

measuring from the back of the wave is pointless..
everyone knows that abrupt ledges can amplify swell etc..
stick to measuring face height..
here it is again for those who missed it..
print it out and stick it on your fridge..

The following is the unofficial Aussie but commonly understood wave measuring scale...
All measurements to be taken from base trim line of wave...
Heights are based on average Aussie male adult height (5 foot 10)...
Stated wave height is NOT a representation of the peak as it jacks up on take-off, it must represent the wave for the majority of its run...

½ foot = knee high
1 foot = waist high
2 foot = shoulder high
3 foot = just overhead (or 6 foot face)
4 foot = head and a half high
5 foot = just under double overhead
6 foot = double overhead
7 foot = nonexistent (it's either 6 or it's 8.)
8 foot = double and a half overhead
9 foot = nonexistent (it's either 8 or it's 10)
10 foot = a touch over triple overhead
11 foot = nonexistent (it's either 10 or it's 12)
12 foot = almost quadruple overhead
13 foot = nonexistent (there's a big void between 12 & 15 foot)
14 foot = nonexistent (there's a big void between 12 & 15 foot)
15 foot = is the bucket measurement for anything between quadruple and quintuple overhead for the entire length of the wave, and not just the take off)
...anything over 15 foot?
only very few people have the authority to even pass comment on this, and it’s likely that either you nor I are one of them, so shut up and don’t call that size unless you’ve surfed it, because you’d be too busy standing there slack-jawed to comprehend what the f*ck’s happening...

my immediate reaction to 'THE SCALE', is why have the left hand side of the equals marks at all? Knee to waist, waist to chest, chest to head, head to a few feet overhead, double overhead ... etc. ... is good enough for me.
And, as has just been mentioned, there are soo many other factors involved to wave description over and above simple height that play important roles in describing the waves that really should be included if one is to get anything like an accurate picture: glassy or choppy, sectiony, a-frame, close-out, peeling, dredging pits, gnarly, fat, pitching, crumbly, barrelling off its nut,
piss weak, thick-lipped .... any of these modifiers could and would change everything.

[The Oracle]

Knee to waist, waist to chest, chest to head, head to a few feet overhead, double overhead ... etc. ... is good enough for me.

Agreed. Simple, understandable, indisputeable. Numbers just complicate it (and generally make you look like a w@anker whether you over- or under-call it, or just by the act of using numbers at all)

[otway1949]

[FFS just go surfing :?

shuddup Otway, whatdoyouknowanyway

I go away to the Mentawais and I find out how much I don't know like when,where and why NC snatched it?
Why is Dino having a firesale and will the chickenshack survive it??
Psychologically why is Dae taking it all to heart?
Why are there suddenly locked threads?

My thread, give me the time of Dae! Cause I won't shut up

[Dingus]

I'm on your side otto, I'm just poking fun to amuse myself. I was onto your foot-in-the-wave thing from the start.

[matt...]

nice scale, iggs - i like it...

however, explain to me a 3ft wave that has a 6ft face that is just overhead ???
you MUST live on the Northern Beaches!!

i love your calls on 7, 9, 11, 13, 14 ft waves!! i agree, these do NOT exist in the surfing world!!!

[Beanpole]

Definitely think people get feet and metres mixed up these days but I definitely only listen to calls that mention wave face to body measurements. Geezs there are enough variables with out muddying the waters with esoteric measurement systems.

I too would find 5 or 7 feet ridiculous measurements if the scale jumped by over two feet for every one foot of increased wave size i.e.
½ foot = knee high
1 foot = waist high
2 foot = shoulder high
3 foot = just overhead (or 6 foot face)

[offshore1]

or solid double overhead.
Matt agrees with iggy's scale, which automatically disqualifies it...

[Yuke Hunt]

Under-calling wave sizes is for tools and the too cool for school crowd ... over-calling is either the domain of try-hards or kooks ... or try-hard kooks even.

The Iggmysters scale reeks of the former ... although at the lower end it is reasonably close ... but as one moves into the middle and higher end it is ... well ... quite silly really ... for example 8' equaling double and a half overhead. Lets take this measurement and look at it from another angle ... wave face ... so for a wave to be overhead it would need to have a minimum wave face of 6' ... simply speaking an overhead wave face must be six feet or over ... an 8' wave on the iggscaleometer would by definition have a 15' face ... or near enough to a face double the wave size claim at 8'.
The rest of the iggscalometer follows this definition ... wave size being half the size of the face measurement.
OK ... now I've got it ... to figure out the wave size I have to first calculate the overheadness-ness of it ... so working on the assumption that overhead is at least six of our now obsolete imperial feet ... I estimate the faces six-footness ... that being its six-foot increment and/or parts there of ... now that that is done all I have to do is halve the measurement ... done.
Sorry ... no can do ... by the act of working out the size of the wave face and chopping the conclusion in half ... for some reason ... it still remains a wave face measurement with a twist ... why bother.

Knee to waist, waist to chest, chest to head, head to a few feet overhead, double overhead ... etc. ... is good enough for me.

Agreed. Simple, understandable, indisputeable. Numbers just complicate it (and generally make you look like a w@anker whether you over- or under-call it, or just by the act of using numbers at all)

Yep I'm with these guys ... ankle ... knee ... waist ... chest ... head ... overhead ... Keep It Simple Stupid ... as they say ... and no I don't know who they are.

Anyway ... back to you Iggy.

[jimmy]

or solid double overhead.
Matt agrees with iggy's scale, which automatically disqualifies it...

I was thinking the same thing OS. I have always agreed with the Iggometer until Matt did! Now I don't what the fcuk to do.. I just can't in all conscience agree with anything that Matt embraces.

If I do I fear I'll end up in church every Sunday and start wearing budgie smugglers

[oldman]

15 foot = is the bucket measurement for anything between quadruple and quintuple overhead for the entire length of the wave, and not just the take off)
...anything over 15 foot?
only very few people have the authority to even pass comment on this, and it’s likely that either you nor I are one of them, so shut up and don’t call that size unless you’ve surfed it, because you’d be too busy standing there slack-jawed to comprehend what the f*ck’s happening...

At the large sizes all relativity breaks down, and nowhere moreso than Hawaii.

The Eddie Aikau, which we all watched from work last year, had huge waves which they were calling 25' plus.

And from the pictures taken from the water, the wave faces looked roughly around the 5 to 6 times overhead (25 to 30 foot face) so there is this sliding scale where the one for two is lost.

I don't mind, call it what you will, but the whole thing breaks down completely over 12', and that also applies in Hawaiian surf calling terms, where their quarter of the wave height incomprehensibility suddenly looms much closer to actual wave face height the bigger it gets.

I'll work on posting a mathematical formula for it, as an addendum to Coops Law.

[marcus]

so how does all this relate to swellnet, coastalwatch , windguru, and the bureau of meteorology's predictions?

Swellnet/Fluidzone and Coastal Watch do the Iggy scale.

coastalwatch says today is 5.6 foot

coastalwatch.gif (9.96 KiB) Viewed 3241 times

swellnet says 6 foot

and real live cam says this

hardly 6 or 12 foot faces

[marcus]

yes, but 4 foot isn't 12 foot faces