the most annoying surfer

[mgx]

the C*** that stole my board last week.

[Butts]

.. the guy who's standing by his car drying off, been out since dark at YOUR local spot and you've just shown up in one farken dreadful hurry because it's about 7.30 am and out there is 6', offshore, breaking way out.
- with about 30 on it
- and this most annoying guy says, as you piss on by with no hair and a red face ... you shoulda been here early Carroll.

That guy. 1994 thereabouts, Newport (not fat that day!) reef.

Larry, that is absolute GOLD!!!

[Animal_Chin]

I hate people who paddle up next you then proceed to empty the contents of their noses in as loud a manner as they can manage.

They get my best glare.

[spork]

The guy who says "Yeah, it looked good out there, but I came down just before you and two guys paddled in being chased by a yakka", "When I came back later, you where out and I figured it was okay" Carnt.

[Nick Carroll]

.. the guy who's standing by his car drying off, been out since dark at YOUR local spot and you've just shown up in one farken dreadful hurry because it's about 7.30 am and out there is 6', offshore, breaking way out.
- with about 30 on it
- and this most annoying guy says, as you piss on by with no hair and a red face ... you shoulda been here early Carroll.

That guy. 1994 thereabouts, Newport (not fat that day!) reef.

Larry, that is absolute GOLD!!!

and yet tragically, I was in California between 1991 and 1997.

[Hatchnam]

How dies the surf in California compare to around Sydney etc ?

[Nick Carroll]

How dies the surf in California compare to around Sydney etc ?

It's totally different. Windswells are almost nonexistent; occasionally you'll get a bit of NW windswell creeping in from gales out past the Channel Islands, but that's fairly rare.

Mostly it's long range south and sw groundswells from down near NZ and under Tahiti, or NW groundswells from winter storms passing over Hawaii.

The water is not pleasant; it's often cold (i.e. 60 degrees F or less) and silty, and there's a lot of offshore kelp that keeps things glassy but also drifts around the lineups and gets in the way.

Because of the distal long period and much weakened nature of most swells (they literally have to crawl across a massive continental shelf), the beachies tend to be sorta shit, lots of closeouts etc. Sometiems they come together with combo swells, or there's spots like Black's where solid NW swells refract off deepwater canyons and come in as wedged up walls, that's super cool.

The flat-faced, long walled nature of the waves is really suited to longboards and Fish which is why both surfboard forms emerged and still thrive in SoCal.

I reckon the best waves in SoCal are found at Black's, Palos Verdes, Rincon (a great point break) and a few other spots here and there but it's a surprisingly thin coast for good surf compared to what most Australian east coast surfers are used to. The variety, power, water quality and swell consistency are all superior here.

[purple pyramids]

ok, the massive continental shelf might explain something...in california they have 14 sec plus swell periods in winter..up to 22 seconds. that type of swell period in sydney would be absolutely brutal. but it never seemed quite as brutal in california.

however, i didn't dare paddle out in northern california...it was big, scary and remote....and really cold. i have lots of respect for the early californian surfers enduring that cold.

[Nick Carroll]

Many of the sth swells that travel up to 7000 miles to get to CA - and make Lower Trestles and Malibu etc go off - have forerunners at 17-20 seconds. But boy are they exhausted by the time they show up. Beautiful lines without much power.

[Lucky Al]

are central and northern california very different nick?

[Lucky Al]

i mean different to southern california.

[Beanpole]

What about the Channel Islands?
Apart from seeing them surfed in Crystal Voyager a million years ago I rarely hear much about them. How hard are they to get to?

[Hatchnam]

How does the surf in California compare to around Sydney etc ?

Because of the distal long period and much weakened nature of most swells (they literally have to crawl across a massive continental shelf)...............
The flat-faced, long walled nature of the waves is really suited to longboards and Fish which is why both surfboard forms emerged and still thrive in SoCal

figured as much, and it sounds totally boring compared to here. and how the fk come did the 'fish' craze ever become so popular here (less so now) when those boards are highly disfunctional for typical conditions here in Aus. Like, where you gonna surf 'em, p-r-o-p-e-r-l-y? Bellambi or some shit !?

The variety, power, water quality and swell consistency are all superior here.

good to hear!!

[Hatchnam]

Yeah that sounds about right. I could never get "why" anyone would want a board that just surfs so fkn flat !?

[purple pyramids]

How does the surf in California compare to around Sydney etc ?

Because of the distal long period and much weakened nature of most swells (they literally have to crawl across a massive continental shelf)...............
The flat-faced, long walled nature of the waves is really suited to longboards and Fish which is why both surfboard forms emerged and still thrive in SoCal

figured as much, and it sounds totally boring compared to here. and how the fk come did the 'fish' craze ever become so popular here (less so now) when those boards are highly disfunctional for typical conditions here in Aus. Like, where you gonna surf 'em, p-r-o-p-e-r-l-y? Bellambi or some shit !?

yeah, but...the fish was popularised by kneelos steve lis and rex huffman riding at places like big rock in san diego...it was designed for a fast, tubing reef break, not at all a flat-faced, long walling wave.

despite that, the fish was never popular in australia among kneeboarders. mcgrigor, a yank, made a few in the early 70s. saltman sold me an old one...unrideable. the magical combination of shaper chris crozier and rider peter crawford made the slab the only choice here in those days.

[purple pyramids]

Fish craze might have been cause in a time of thin boards all that extra volume in the fish helped a lot of fat buggers catch more waves and feel better about their surfing?

that makes sense...the fish had a a stand-up counterpart, while the slab, also with plenty of width and volume, never did have a stand-up equivalent. instead, it just became the thruster when that kneelo at NN stuck a fin in the middle of the wide tail of his slab.

so, you fat standups should try riding a thruster kneeboard, instead of a fish, if you need some volume and width.

[tootr]

In the right waves a 'proper' old school twin keel fish is fun as, that said mine has a thick layer of dust on it. Can't remember last time I surfed it.

Rocker it up, pull in the tail width with double flyers and make it a quad fin, now you're talking.....

[swvic]

Had a few kneelo mates before I moved over here. Sometimes we'd swap boards if the surf was shitty. They were all fast and surfed very flat. Couldn't cut back unless you got down real low and held the rail. Even then the turn was so long you could read a book. Singles and twins - never tried a thruster

Kneeling on them was something else. I could not turn at all. Lean into a bottom turn and the board would go straight and I'd fall off. Punishing on the knees too. Don't know how the fcuk they coped. Given all that, some of them were very good surfers