well mate !! thats a very indepth edition on wave height I must say !!

Its funny that a wave four to five feet is usually called head high to bad if your six feet four ! but if you were six feet four and you surfed head high waves and came in and said to your mates wow! "that was pushing seven foot out there" well in Oz anyway your mates would pull the Pizzle out of ya , Ive heard guys come in from Kirra or Snapper and say "man I got some hideous stand up kegs" and you say "filth mate how big was it?" "Aw ya nah three foot on the sets maybe the odd four footer" well mate your not a friggin midget ! ha ha . Its got to be pretty big and chunky before someone will call it six foot and even then he'll be hoping his mate will agree instead of giving it to him big time !

what about board measurements ?????


i love the 'beer' concept....

uk said...

sorry mates didnt want to upset anyone its just my opinion ive never understood it,mind you i didnt understand a word toadie said eitherbut i get the general idea .

Mate i was not going to comment & i was not personally having a crack at you It is just there is already a universal way of calling the heavyness & size of surf that has been called that way for years pretty much stemming from the north shore & im not about to start calling it any different right now Anyway didnt want to come across to harsh at you

UK

Sorry that you couldn't understand " A thing" ?? I said mate, I thought we spoke the same language ?? ha ha, no I just threw a bit of Aussie Surfie slang in there to make it more interesting .

I don't think you upset anybody there mate , not Me , not Brooko he's a (fair dinkum Aussie bloke) translates into ( a real Aussie ) Aussie being "Australian" hehe !
Remember this is a "forum" its great to evoke discussions , and Ideas on loads of different things to do with our great sport.

cheers mate

Glad you could make sense of it UK. May have to give it a second, third or fourth read before I understand it. May just describe waves as being small, medium, large or laird

If you can duckdive through a "laird" pop up behind it turn round and measure it then respect to you

Australian surfers generally talk about individual wave size as measured from the back of the wave. This equates to about half the height of the face of the wave. If you look at a wave just as it starts breaking (when it's at its largest), measure that in your head, then half it - you've pretty much got the wave's size. Most people measure waves in even numbers, eg. 2 foot, 6 foot, not 7 foot.

When we talk about the size of the surf, we use the above calculation when looking at the biggest waves in a set. Then, to allow for error and fluctuation, we generally speak of surf size as a range, eg. 4-6 foot, 6-8 foot, etc. It's normal to use these ranges in two foot increments and, again, with even numbers.

Here's an example:
You are watching the surf for a while and the biggest waves you saw in that time had about 6 foot faces (head high if somebody was riding them). Just half that to get 3 and make an even numbered range from that to get 2-4. So now you're calling the surf that day as 2-4 foot. Easy.

Note: Hawaiians are a bit more conservative in their measurements.

Gee Casso you hit the nail on the head !! you could of thrown a bit of slang in there to make it more interesting though