What Fun!
Flipping thru the current Surfer's Journal the other day.
That would be Volume 17 NO. 4 Summer '08 for those of you playing the home game and reaching for the stack...
So I am reading the UnderCurrents section in the back when I get to a piece by Jim Growney describing a day in 1965 when he and some friends shared some large and looong waves at Waikiki.
I won't go into too much details, it's a great read.
But at the end he gives credit to the Paipos they rode and speculated that is the only craft would allow them the long and speedy rides they got that day.
I had two thoughts,
what fun! (check the paipo shots in the article)
Second thought, it would have been unreal on a mat!
PS I get a bunch of regular readers from Hawaii that may be more familiar with the setup on big days.
Please let me know what you think, would a mat be the call?
That would be Volume 17 NO. 4 Summer '08 for those of you playing the home game and reaching for the stack...
So I am reading the UnderCurrents section in the back when I get to a piece by Jim Growney describing a day in 1965 when he and some friends shared some large and looong waves at Waikiki.
I won't go into too much details, it's a great read.
But at the end he gives credit to the Paipos they rode and speculated that is the only craft would allow them the long and speedy rides they got that day.
I had two thoughts,
what fun! (check the paipo shots in the article)
Second thought, it would have been unreal on a mat!
PS I get a bunch of regular readers from Hawaii that may be more familiar with the setup on big days.
Please let me know what you think, would a mat be the call?
Comments
From Tony Lum of Oʻahu:
"The waves are big, but it's really choppy and the sections close-out too fast for my surf- board. I'm not having much fun, so I go home and grab the surf mat.
As I'm paddling out on the mat, I remember... the less I try to ride the surf mat like a body board, the better off I'll be... I see a big set on the horizon so I slide myself up a little further on the mat. I kick hard as the swell begins to wall-up and pitch-out. Instead of pushing the nose of the surf mat down, like I would on a body board, I grab the two front corners of the mat and "pull" it into the wave. I'M IN!
It's an extremely vertical drop, but the surf mat conforms to the steep face of the wave and I survive the late take-off.
Instinct tells me to dig my legs and fins in for control, but I fight it off. I lay down low to the mat, lift my legs and the FRICKEN THING TAKES OFF!!
I end up going so fast that I blast right by an entire closed- out section. I see a long boarder paddling out, with his eyes and mouth wide open, totally awestruck that I covered so much distance and was rocketing straight toward him.
When I finally kicked out of the wave, I was so far away from my
original take-off spot that I didn't recognize any of the faces of the surfers waiting at this new peak...
I'm learning new things every day. For example, I've discovered that with the surf mat, you can sit further out than the long- boarders and catch swells that they can't even paddle for!"