Tips

YouTube is full of excellent content on how to get better at surfing. However, there are some tips/hacks that I’ve “learnt by doing” that I’ve never seen referenced anywhere else. Here they are.

This list is a work in progress. Disagree with anything? Open a pull request.

On turtle-rolling

IMO, this is one of the most important and most under-appreciated skills in surfing. But most videos on turtle rolling/turtle dives seem to miss the points below that are in emphasis:

1. Roll off your board into the water flipping the board over at the same time so that you are underneath it — holding onto each rail.
2. Bring your hands up the nose of the board so that they’re a third to a quarter of the way towards the end of the nose.
3. Open your eyes underwater so that, as best you can, you can see the bottom of the approaching wave.
4. Thrust your hands down and forward just before the wave energy hits the board in a strong, single stabbing motion.
5. Bring your hands back to the middle of each rail and push up with one hand and down with the other — so that it’s effectively on its side and you’re sinking the rail that is more underwater — this “corks” the board to help you flip it back while simultaniously popping you back onto it.

Steps 2-4 are a game changer. It’s the same forces in play that make a duck dive work. As you are bringing the front of the board down and under the energy of the wave rather than letting it all pull the board horizontally back to the shore.

Drying your wetsuit

This sounds ridiculously obvious, but when hanging up a wet wetsuit, make sure you ring out othe excess water first. The more you ring it out, the faster it will dry. For a long time my wetsuits were taking a lot longer to dry than they needed to.