I found this wave size chart and was bummed to find out I’ve never really surfed anything above 6 feet Hawaiian…
Well, I got ON a hawaiian scale and was bummed to find out I only weighed 13 pounds (but then I’m only about 2 feet tall hawaiian, so maybe that’s ok…)
WTF… my d**k is only 1/4" long. 
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WTF… my d**k is only 1/4" long.
that just made my day
as far as i know its nz and aus scale as well
when i say 5 to 6
i mean double overhead faces at the bottom turn
which to date has been as big as ive ever really surfed
was odd cleanups bigger but it doesnt count unless you actually catch one
Spent a lot of time in Indo and there 8’ was triple overhead. I found people start getting all macho about waves in the larger realm and under estimate for cools sake often and thats wanking really. Well at least their holding their 1/4", (1/2" in my case), dicks with 1/16" hands.
Maybe too much air in their brain … . .
nah i dont know
i reckon its all right
new zealand scale is all good
is more humble
so your not saying to non surfers or girlfriends " oh yeah it was like 15ft out there"
when in fact its a 2 meter swell
we measure a wave by the swell hight and the period
actually its good to measure by swell hight
cuz the waves are gunna break with different face hight depending on the sea bottom
and defraction
swell hight and period is the only constant
when i say what they missed at one particular break i might say
lully sets with with 2 meter “faces” offshore etc (3 ft offshore)
when i describe what the whole road trip was like
i say things like 1 meter swell, long period swell, variable winds etc
its all good
Ok–let’s talk speed. Of the swell.
1.5 times the period equals the velocity of the swell, right?
Is that the velocity of the swell as it travels across the open ocean?
Take Jaws for example; if a swell has a period of say, 20 seconds (yikes!); does that mean the swell is traveling 30 mph? What happens to the velocity as the swell feels the bottom and gets ready to break?
So what would that be Hawaiian? 12 mph?
Thanks,
john brewer
hawaiian really makes no sense IMO. but then again i’m from the east coast…
I surfed double over ankle all weekend. Mike
no
its just the swell height as opposed to the wave face height
cuz the same swell can break with 3 ft face or 6 ft faces
depending bottom contours and defraction
i guess its the difference between what you would call
“grunty 3ft” or just “pus 3 ft”
anyway
thats just the way it is!!
dont try and fight it
at the risk of being labeled a Kook(egads)
ill stick with hawaiian scale thanks
evrythings 2 ft bro
even if it nails you
The hawaiians are measuring amplitude - see above diagram…when physicists talk of amplitude they mean half the wave height!
sounds acurate.
I get amped when I go surf.
also refers to me walking from the car to the water…am ped.
oh lord please
dont let me be mis under stood.
heightened rhymes with frightened.
…ambrose…
Quote:
its just the swell height as opposed to the wave face height
cuz the same swell can break with 3 ft face or 6 ft faces
depending bottom contours and defraction
I think it’s just plain stupid to use swell height unless the wave period is very consistent. Around here 6 feet of windswell might not even break or produce 3 feet of junk surf, while 2feet@24sec (the one time I remember) produced surf well overhead, closing out alot of the spots.
regards,
Håvard
well i wouldnt go as far as to say its stupid
but there you go!
My brother was a surf boat driver in the Coast Guard, and he regularly punched through waves large enough to capsize their 50 foot surf rescue boat. (the boats right themselves after the roll-over).
I agree with him when he says, “We measured waves by the faces, cause that’s what we were dealing with. A 20 foot face was a 20 foot wave.”
Calling a 20 foot wave 8 or 10 is just a macho thing in my opinion.
Doug
Bill Thraillkill told me about this . . .
the reason for the HI scale
was before the internet, before serious weather forecasting . . . you had to check out the surf directly. Guys in Town would call the lifeguards in Country for the surf report.
Since the lifeguards were surfers and knew most of the surfers they’d fudge the report by saying it was lower than it really was to keep Townies in town. Thus the reason for the HI scale.