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Just wait until you realise you love surfing, but living many, many hours away from croyde, putsborough, saunton etc, and with cayton/scarborough/north norfolk being hugely unreliable, you then turn to windsurfing...
If you thought surfing and MTB were expensive.
A single board? £1000-£2000.
One sail (you need 2 or 3)? £500 each
A decent carbon mast (you'll need 2) £200 each
Boom? £200
Great fun though 😀 Did it for about 10 years.
i thought kitesurfing had killed windsurfing. can't remember the last time i saw someone windsurfing other than the old boy at the tip the other day dumping loads of boards, masts and sails.
anyway, buy that board. it'll be perfect for what you want.
and now a gratuitous shot of my new fins. just because I like them...
I have a nice fibreglass board in the loft
Bought at Polzeath about 10 years ago
Would have thought it would be 8 ft
Midlands based if of interest
Where Midlands?
Solihull
Thanks djflexure, but I went with eBay.
So now - where to go? We're staying near Cardigan next week and the week after. We need a nice sandy safe beach where the kids can bodyboard, swim or build sandcastles and I can learn how to stand up.
Haha
In Cardigan Bay too
Might have to go down to St David’s for waves
Lovely beach’s further up
If in Cardigan then try Poppit Sands, Tresaith, Llangrannog or Penbryn beach. If you're OK to drive a bit then Whitesands just outside St Davids can be good but busy, Newgale, Broad Haven or Marloes.
https://magicseaweed.com/Pembrokeshire-Surfing/12/
Forecasts and spot guides (click on "navigate" if viewing by phone).
There is Mwnt too
We went to Whitesands two years ago.
Poppit Sands and Tresaith are probably where we'd be going with our buckets and spades anyway. Thanks.
Late reply but think you’ve made the right choice with the foamie!
Someone mentioned longboards and hanging ten further up. Best feeling in the world. Micro dosing stoke on Saturdays dawn patrol
Some great photos there ceepers.
One other thing for you MG. When you find there's no surf and the weather isn't ideal for sandcastle building, there's a new stand up paddleboard business that's just been set up in Cilgerran. It's based on the river just below the castle and is cheap as chips. My brother still lives in Cilgerran and he took his wife and two children and was charged £20 - that's for all four of them rather than each! If you need any information on what to do in the area let me know as Cardigan is my hometown.
Someone mentioned longboards and hanging ten further up.
So here's a photo of meeeeee!
(Obviously if I'd anything a tenth as good I'd have posted it😉)
Thanks Salad Dodger that sounds reasonable. Canoeing etc was much more expensive.
So, it came with wax. Apparently wax goes in the top not the bottom.. what else do I need to know?
Just wax from 3/4 from the top down to nearly the bottom, stay a few inches in from the sides (it just rubs off)
Put the board in the sun for an hour first so it's warm before applying
Circular motion is fine, don't get too finiky as you can just add more
Don’t soft tops blow up like a balloon if you leave them in direct sun?
Leash goes on your back foot. Put it on at the waters edge or you’ll provide entertainment by tripping over it.
Check the fins are in the right way.
Don’t drop in.
Never bothered with stepping up from a body board.
As far as I can see, most UK surfers spend 80% of their time waiting for decent swell.
For an occasional boarder like me, I take the more consistent hits from using a board and fins.
95%.
I do other stuff in the meantime...
Although according to dawn patrol, I’ve caught 600 waves and surfed 27km in the last year.
Don’t soft tops blow up like a balloon if you leave them in direct sun?
One hour is not going to be the end of the board in the UK
Put the board in the sun for an hour first so it’s warm before applying
Blimey, I'm about to reply to a post on how to wax a surfboard. You can tell I've a work deadline to get a paper written. Anyway...
If the board's too warm the wax just smears. Cold board and the right wax (usually 'frigid' for the NE, 'cool' when I'm in europe, wherever that is, and it lumps up nicely. Crying out loud, there are people out there in internet land who'll talk about using 'tropical' extra hard as a base coat. Something I've not bothered with in decades. But do you even have to wax a foamie? Don't they come with ready placed rubber bits. Ooh er?
I just bought some of that hexagrip wax replacement stuff. Not got around to fitting it yet but seems to get good reviews.
i thought kitesurfing had killed windsurfing. can’t remember the last time i saw someone windsurfing
nope....still very active round here (Gower)...20 odd out a week or so ago (15 at 7am the previous monday)
Cold board and the right wax (usually ‘frigid’ for the NE, ‘cool’ when I’m in europe, wherever that is, and it lumps up nicely. Crying out loud, there are people out there in internet land who’ll talk about using ‘tropical’ extra hard as a base coat.
Yep, that's what I do and it works nicely.
Well that's just typical:
https://magicseaweed.com/Poppit-Sands-Surf-Report/3743/
Still, should be nice for a swim.
Finally got some waves at Llangrannog. It wasn't a great success. I couldn't catch anything, not even a cold thanks to my nice new wetsuit.
I don't think the waves were great. But the problem I had with catching them was that I had to have my weight a bit back to paddle, otherwise the front sank, but that means I couldn't get the nose down enough to ride the downslope and catch the wave. Most of the ones I did catch I got by standing on the floor and jumping into them. Of course I didn't manage to stand up but this was to be expected.
It seems the way to catch waves was to try and paddle with my weight slightly back (although this seemed not to produce movement when just under a wave) and them somehow scootch forward a bit or maybe lift up my legs to move my CoM forwards. Once caught, I often seemed to surge forward and then slow down again - could this have been the beach itself?
Standing up was hard, I did manage to get two feet on the deck a few times, but I ran out of water pretty quickly.
Are you supposed to grip the board with your feet or just lie there? Should they hang over the back when paddling?
You don’t need to grip with your feet.
Trim is key, too far forward and you’ll Pearl, to far back and you’ll stall. Four or five good paddle strokes and push down on the board should get you into most waves.
but from your description the waves were pretty poor and gutless.
Just watching vids now, the 'trim' seems to be the issue. And the waves of course 🙂
We're not in the best surf area. Maybe see if I can get somewhere else this week.
Should they hang over the back when paddling?
Very unlikely unless you have a shortboard. I'm 5ft 10 and my toes don't hang over the back of my 7ft 2 board.
It sounds like you were too late on a wave and getting flipped over, then trying to compensate by moving back on the board. Then you won't get any speed when paddling and the wave will go under you without getting on it.
If my feet don't hang over the end then the nose is basically underwater which means I nose dive when trying to catch waves.
In any case I managed to get my feet on the board fairly easily today at Aberporth and even managed to surf a wave for a while. For me what seemed to work was to pop up as soon as the wave hits; in pushing up my body it pushes the board down which catches the wave. Previously I had been waiting til I was already moving with the wave before attempting to stand.
Nice one 🙂
You need to have your weight really far forward and arch your back (a lot) to stop nosedive...you can change your trim a lot just by changing your back arch. Depending on the length and volume of the board you may well be paddling around with water breaking over the nose but as you paddle for a wave, the combination of increase in speed (and you have to paddle really hard) and arching your back will prevent nose dive. Sounds simple, but in reality...it takes a long time to figure out
Very unlikely unless you have a shortboard. I’m 5ft 10 and my toes don’t hang over the back of my 7ft 2 board.
are you a midget? my toes are near the tail of my longboard when I'm paddling.
are you a midget?
I’m 5ft 10
Couldn't figure out what you meant by arching your back whilst paddling, but you mean lifting your shoulders or legs.. yeah I can understand that. I found lifting my legs up helpful. The beginner vids don't seem to mention this kind of trim, they seem to assume that if you are in the middle of the board you'll be fine, but for whatever reason it seems important to me. I have very heavy legs relative to my upper body, maybe that has something to do with it.
Also, having spent tons of money on wetsuits I found it soooo much nicer to go without! Way more comfortable, cooler (I was too warm) and I could paddle and move about much more easily.
Member
Couldn’t figure out what you meant by arching your back whilst paddling, but you mean lifting your shoulders
Sorry..not clear...try to lift your chest off the board. You don't need to so much if you're just pootling around but as you paddle for a wave you need to do so more to stop the nose digging in, assuming you're far enough forward in the first place, which you won't be..you need to be really far forward to catch a wave...
Try it...just paddle around and position yourself further forward, as you paddle, lift your chest off the board and the nose will rise up
Newgale tomorrow.
Newgale should have more swell than Cardigan bay area, more exposed to deep ocean swell.
Looks like swell period is picking up a bit thursday and friday, you'll probably find it a lot easier with slightly more energy in the waves. winds are better too.
re. trim, micro adjustments make a big difference, dont expect to master surfing in a week! I've been surfing for nigh on 30 years and still feel like I'm learning/improving (how much that relates to the nature of surfing vs my lack of inate athleticism is open to debate!)
25yrs here, still have days where nothing clicks and I feel like a complete kook...
Yeah, surfing is really really difficult, except on the for me increasingly rare days it feels easy. But getting started and up in a big board in the white water is pretty straightforward. There's loads on YouTube.
(East coast doing it today. Work also, annoyingly.)
Obviously not expecting to master it, as per the first post, however I'd like to feel like I was making progress and solving issues.
Caught plenty of white waves today until even they started fizzling out. However still having problems with trim and timing. With my weight neutral in the middle of the board I am really unstable and wobble side to side a lot.
Tomorrow and Friday will be better. Have a look at this from about four minutes in -
finding the sweet spot and bellyboarding white water, before getting on to popping up.
(I keep saying how shite I am, but was actually able to paddle out, catch white water and get standing on my first attempt with a borrowed board as in literally first wave, and I don't think that's unusual. (Had been on kids polystyrene body boards before but that's it.) OTOH, my wife when she's tried can't lie on a board without falling off.)
Unstable paddling or standing up?
Tomorrow evening is shaping up to be ok, but I fully expect the models to overpromise and underdeliver. But given it’s been shit for weeks so it’ll be good to get in regardless, just trying to decide how best to avoid the wave-starved mob.
Unstable paddling. If I can get up it is fairly easy.
I think that catching white water is good practice for popping up but the process of actually catching seems somewhat different. I think I am not paddling early enough for the green ones.
Going to Mwnt tomorrow, not sure it's even with taking the board.
the process of actually catching seems somewhat different. I think I am not paddling early enough for the green ones.
Ah, catching unbroken waves. Something I'm still fully capable of messing up. Two things you need to do:
1. be in the right place. If you're in the wrong place - too soon so it's not catchable, too late so it's breaking, or in a section where it all breaks at the same time (a "closeout") rather where it's than peaking, or about to peel down the line of the wave - then it ain't happening unless you're a god of surf.
2. catch the wave. Paddle fast chest off the board, feel the energy of the wave, nose down a bit, look where you want to go down the wave (after checking no one's already on it, slide to your feet. Again loads of stuff on youtube.
Watching the vid up there (again) the picture of the guy finding the sweet spot on his board - that's basically what I look like. Ever so slightly nose up. And I do have my shoulders raised. I think I just need more confidence popping up so I can get my weight forward as it seems to work just fine when I am up, as long as I have popped with enough energy to get my feet in the right place.
Roll on winter...
Possibly the best I've seen a local beach yesterday, in blazing sunshine, had a quick second surf in boardies to avoid a sandy wetsuit, I'm happy with summer for now!
Went late last night, was rammed. Should have gone this morning instead.
Tried out my new AliExpress hexagrip knockoff. Ordered a couple more sets, no more wax for me.
Luckily there was a crazy rip and outside wash-throughts to keep everyone honest. Went first thing this morning and the wind was crazy and the swell half the size.
I knew polzeath would be busy but it’s easy to get to and didn’t get away from home until 6.30.
I got out of the water about 9.30 and there must have been 100+ people still in. Just long enough lulls for the foamies to get out back, it was carnage on some sets...
Is 1ft of surf worth bringing the board to the beach for?
Personally, no. If you are learning, probably.