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The Making of the Waimea Bay River Break 📷 @vwhonolulu Most of us here in Hawaii have seen footage of the standing wave at Waimea Bay, which forms when the river flows out of Waimea Valley and breaks through the beach. Have you ever wondered when and how that standing wave forms, or how long it lasts? We did some research into the formation of the “Waimea River Break,” and what we found out was actually pretty unsurprising. First of all, Waimea Bay is one of the biggest waves on the North Shore—this isn’t really news to anyone. Over the...

While the North Shore has quieted down for Christmas, joining the rest of us in taking a holiday and providing very little to get anxious about on the current forecast, last week was pumping—and just in time for the HIC Pipe Pro, which was a qualifier both for the Pipe Masters and the 2022 Challenger Series. The entire population of the North Shore had been watching the forecast for the past 10 days, with the first properly NW swell of the season telegraphed for over a week by just about every swell model and surf forecast in existent. But the...

Carissa Moore and Gabriel Medina World Champions Photo Credit to WSL This was a weird year for the WSL world tour. The abbreviated season started at Pipe (it normally ends there), then had events at Sunset and Steamers Lane cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. A four-event leg in Australia got things going again, but then Brazil and Tahiti were cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic, which left only two events on the schedule—the Surf Ranch and Mexico. When the dust had settled, Gabriel Medina and Carissa Moore had both dominated and were way out in front. But to make things...

SURF TERMS THAT YOU MAY OR MAY NOT KNOW OR UNDERSTAND Surfers have our their lingo and it can be pretty confusing for non-surfers or even the most experienced wave riders. I often have people in the shop asking me to explain some of the more fundamental surf lingo. Here are surf terms I’ve defined: What is a wind swell? And what is a ground swell? You often hear people at the beach referring to wind swell and ground swell and saying things like “Hmm, the waves are a bit bumpy and weak. Looks like we only have a bit...

BACK-FOOTED VS. FRONT-FOOTED SURFING 📷 @adam.eyes 🏄‍♂️@bourezmichel If you talk to enough people about surfing, you are bound to hear the terms “back-footed surfer” and “front-footed surfer”. While these terms are self-explanatory, there is a lot more riding on them than their simple definitions. Different surfboards and different styles of surfing work better with front and back-footed surfing, so it’s worthwhile taking a closer look at the two approaches. Prior to the invention of the thruster, most surfboards being ridden were single fins and twins. Most of them were voluminous with the widest points of the surfboard farther forward than midpoint. While...

  George Greenough is a visionary force in surfing. Over the years, he has been responsible for a number of innovations, including prototypes for camera housings, early shortboard shapes, iterations of the surf mat, the Spoon shape, vertical surfing, and early fish designs. But perhaps his greatest influence has been through the creation and refinement of the modern surfboard fin. His high-aspect ratio fin was based on the fin of a tuna fish, and helped bring about one of the biggest performance leaps in surfing history. Today, Greenough continues to think outside the box, tinkering and refining all matter of...

  It might seem like the simplest of questions, but the reality is that many surfers don’t actually know where their waves come from. And little wonder. In an age of computer-guided swell models and customized spot forecasts, it’s easy to live from surf reports to surf reports rather than understanding the science ourselves. But 20 years ago the idea of an online swell model didn’t even exist, and 20 years before that the only surf reports in existence were word of mouth from the guy who got to the beach earlier than you. Go back a couple of hundred...