How much rocker for Lake Michigan

hackeysaky · December 6, 2010, 10:35pm

thanks, but Unsalted is pretty old news. The sites I visit from time to time are pretty stale as well. It makes you think months go by without ridable surf up there, but then you see recent pics like those in this thread and it makes me think that a more current source of info and pics must be out there in cyberland. I’d love to be able to visit a site and see if the same high pressure systems and alberta clippers that bring us brisk offshore winds might have generated some decent swell on the lakes on their way through the area.

For example, I check in at gulfster.com to revisit my old haunts in the Gulf o’ Mex and they do a really good job of keeping things fresh and up to date.

cycloxslug · December 6, 2010, 10:58pm

Yup, it is pretty old, wasn’t sure you were aware of its existence. UPsurfboards posted some sweet shots last winter as I recall…perhaps he will regale us with more?

UPsurfboards · December 7, 2010, 12:52am

Hey guys…

a bit frustrated about Unsalted… there’s so much fun waves here (meaning waist to head and clean) its actually mind boggling. I feel like the guys that surfed in the fifties in California. the spots those guys went to surf at is like going to Oahu, seeing Canoes and saying Hawaii sucks and mushy…especially where I live local knowledge is everything… theres so many bays and points and reefs that magnify swells, or places to duck out from the wind.

and its not once in a while… maybe one week since end of july I didn’t surf 3 or 4 days that week. had a 20 day run of darn fun swell… but I surf two lakes and get exposure to swell from 360 degrees. this last week has been hilarious fun… the reef was crackin today. couple 4 to 6 foot sets came through. so say from August to january we get consistent waves… january through march is spotty for ice… and springtime can be really hit or miss due to temperature inversion where a thermal buffer occurs and warm spring winds don’t “dig” into the ice cold lake…

may can be good… june and july we usually get one swell every 10 days or so.

I don’t take a ton of pics… ride around solo except with the Girlfriend… the swell and winds are fickle… and a change of 15 or 20 degrees of wind can make a spot go from quartering offshore fun to onshore mush.

As to original poster… sorry I’m not of much help… I got one longboard and the rest are all sub 6 foot boards.

yesterday

today

was a bit late on the shutter, but this one really folded over… was like off the wall… but 17 degrees with 0 windchill.

and a few weeks back on my newest homemade rocket

mikeb2010 · December 7, 2010, 2:03am

I spent 15 years surfing SoCal and the last 3 on Lake Superior. When I moved back here I had to chill the F#@K out, it is not the same agro uber competition it is everywhere else, it’s more like the the late 1950’s. Everyone knows just about everyone, which is easy seeing as there are only about 60 hard core faces, and we all get along for the most part. Most of us drive 1-3 hours to get surf and most of the time it’s windy and cold…and there is no surf in the summer. Sometimes we go weeks with out surf. Did I mention that it is cold…real cold. It’s important to know that people have your back when surfing in a potentially deadly environment. Last year there were a couple of guys kayaking on Superior mid summer, they were not wearing any sort of wetsuits when they capsized. One guy got to shore with hipothermia and the other guy died…and that is mid summer.

Bob Tema has the most used site and forum:

http://superiorsurfclub.com/

Here is a link to that amazing day from last month:

http://www.phpbbplanet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2333&mforum=superiorsurf

Big Props the the Crew in T-Bay and those crazy canooks who sometimes sneak south of the boarder.

oldsurferwanabe · December 7, 2010, 3:57am

Thanks Huckster . . . that was very helpful . . . here is what I tried to do tonite:

rolf

mikeb2010 · December 7, 2010, 4:21am

Huck · December 7, 2010, 5:55am

Just my opinions, and I'm no expert! - that's definitely looking better. But I think the rocker still needs work. Looks like one big radius for the whole thing. It really should be "flatter" (but not straight) in the center, with a bit more "curl up" in front, and just a touch in back. The plan shape looks much better, but I think the nose is pulled in a bit much, I'd widen out the nose just a bit, give it more of that circular look in the nose.

The stringer still looks a bit off, too. Talking about the foil - the way the top and bottom relate. Look at this pic, maybe it'll help:

Mikeb2010 posted a good pic, too!

hackeysaky · December 7, 2010, 3:37pm

Fun looking waves in some of those pics (3 of my favs below). I think I am going to have to pen-in surfing the lakes on my Bucket List!

UPsurfboards · December 7, 2010, 5:34pm

I guess I"m a bit touchy about saying it gets flat for a whole season… because it doesn’t… but alot of places on the lakes have a small window of swell/wind direction… so they need pressure systems to track certain directions.

Minnesota (stoney point) is a great example… best bottoms and reef setups lakewise… but their needed NE is really fickle. usually happens less then two dozen times a year… and most guys live in Minneapolis so they make the drive for the beforehand forecasted days. here where I live, alot of times the best days are the ones that come out of nowhere. forecasted two foot thats hardly surfable, but it gained strength over the lake and on the other side its blowing 30 knots for 4 hours and I"m surfing head high “ground” swell at 8 second intervals and 4 knot offshores for 3 hours before it dies. could name you 2 or 3 dozen times thats happened this year. forecasters are good at letting me know when storms and winds will happen, but as for when and where these moments of peaked swell and offshore winds occur is the function of living in a place, and searching week in week out for years. building and encyclopedia of knowledge.

classic lake michigan waves have crap bathymetry… sedimentation creates alot of shoaling, and coupled with a relatively featureless coastline the wave are usually crap during a storm unless the wind switches or dies off. the jewel is classic Florida NW winds… where it blows all night from a cold front and south beach in Miami gets 4 foot clean swell… same thing on the lakes… quartering offshores are the funnest waves.

obviously the stigma of lakes being fickle or crappy isn’t going to go away anytime soon. probably best if it doesn’t. means I get to surf somewhere between a 100 to 130 days a year uncrowded darn fun waves. but if any swaylockians ever want make it out this way, give me a shout. till then I’ll keep surfing my junk waves. this thing is a riot!

from whats known IMHO this is the heaviest surf spot on the lakes… it only works a handful of days a year… have surfed it solo all but one time the last few years. when ur board breaks its a helluva swim against strong currents and freezing water… yesterday was really fun. only 3rd time its broke this fall/winter. honestly, its a bit over my head in terms of my ability. the cold coupled with strong winds and shifty takeoff spots = me getting smashed, or at best maybe sketching down the face and running to the shoulder. doesn’t work on less then 30 knot blows and pretty much maxes at 50… over that and the wind makes everything just effed uo.

on this one I just went on an inside one… get my feet in the wax as announcers say. point and shoot cameras over such a great distance have a hard time focusing. this is only shot of me surfing. sucks how small and mushy it is… but you can see how below lake level it sucks off the reef. and mind you this is shot off a 70 foot cliff or so from 300 yards.

At times this is one of the best breaks on the lakes… the first section at the top of the point is actually kindof “hollow” if you could call it that.

this just might be the most fun wave tho. so easy to surf.

UPsurfboards · December 7, 2010, 6:00pm

Its pretty neat this whole surfing lake superior thing. water so clean you can just drink it. spent many a time in southern california and oregon and alaska, hawaii and east coast… nothing, nothing ever gets me as jazzed, where I can’t sleep, get hair standing on end as when the wind starts howling at night and I know in the morning I’m gonna score.

here its like east coast fickleness so you enjoy what you get, oregon coast scenery, Alaska mentality (give shirt off the back) and Hawaiian mana (big families and cousins and friends everywhere)… not a bad combination.

Great uncles were commercial fisherman here on the lakes. youngest of that family worked on ore boats for many years. dad was surfer in Vietnam, and dove shipwrecks all over the lakes in the 60’s and has trolled sports fishing these waters for the last 50 years as well.

pretty neat to carry on that tradition of being in and on the same waters as them nearly a century later. but nowadays just for fun.

actually the one thats still alive gave me a big tip about possibly the best wave on all the lakes… have only hit it once this year, its hard to drive away from waves breaking 5 blocks from your house and risk it for that spot becuase of how remote it is, but even on that small day I’d say it was a top 5 day… but we got a taste for when the next storm rolls through. the best part is the road that you drive on is our cousins and they have a sauna super close to the spot.

sorry for boggin this thread down. I know most swaylockians get the true point of surfing: stoke! I figure you guys would understand. to have moved back from hawaii to the land of my ancestors, small playful mountains in my backyards, and fun waves to surf quite a few days a year I couldn’t be happier.

as stated before, come on up and visit in the fall before old man winter get grumpy and starts shutting us down and slide with some of the most stoked, full of aloha surfers on this planet.

kid rock video of a really beautiful surf spot. when it gets big its one of the best shorepound bodysurf spots on the lakes. a little version of sandys on oahu.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu3rsha1ZtI

beerfan · December 7, 2010, 7:05pm

Some bloody good looking waves on this thread.

Cheers

chrisp · December 7, 2010, 8:28pm

[quote="$1"]

Some bloody good looking waves on this thread.

Cheers

[/quote]

definitely!

you guys better watch out, or you'll get overrun by boat-tripping wanna-be pros...

=)

UPsurfboards · December 7, 2010, 11:25pm

heres a fun one before the sun went down this evening. the girlfriend has came a long way since last year. she actually like winter surf now, and she’s picking off the right ones. actually made the drop but I didn’t realize she made it and by the time I got it back into focus she kicked out the back. I’m not a photog. LOL

mikeb2010 · December 8, 2010, 3:26am

I’m not too worried about crowds because of how fickle the lakes are. Swells don’t last for days, a day maybe or just hours. I wouldn’t plan a trip around it, you probably get skunked.

mikeb2010 · December 8, 2010, 3:29am

UPsurfboards · December 8, 2010, 4:32am

come on a surf trip to the Yoop mike… give me a shout… this weekend is as good as any… Aloha

oldsurferwanabe · December 8, 2010, 6:14am

Mike and Huck:

I can't tell you how thankful I am for your help. My learning curve has been pretty steep and with a few of these messages back and forth I think I've made good progress. Tonite I used the Sakal board perspectives and played with some equations on Excel to come up with the following while keeping your comments in mind. Here they are . . . I hope they come through. Compared with the first posting, I must say these now actually look like surfboard profiles. Keep in mind that I've got 5" rocker in the nose (Sakal seems to be at least 5 1/2") and only 2" rocker in the back (Sakal is at least 3").

Mahalo and I am buying both of you virtual MaiTais!

rolf

jeffrey · December 8, 2010, 9:11am

Just read this thread through for the first time. Thanks! Got me stoked and thinking about an extended family visit on the lakes at some point…

mikeb2010 · December 8, 2010, 2:18pm

Hey there UP,

I am all about the U.P. I popped the cherry on that ten footer over at Shelter Bay on some fun 6 ft beach break. The UP isn’t looking half bad right now on the GLCFS. For some reason Marquette is never as big as I think it’s gonna be. Give me a shout if you are coming toward the north shore.

Mike

UPsurfboards · December 8, 2010, 3:31pm

Hey, do you drive a jeep? that board in your pic looks like one I saw this fall.