Sounds good! I love the small clean summer days where the waves break for a long time. I think those are the trade wind ground swells. It does break like a dribbly California point break but not as long of course, as you said. Especially when the winds are SW, waves break so good for this type of board. I have one other type of board, which is a Geoff McCoy interchange thruster Nugget. But when you have somewhere to go, a future, down the line, the hull board does shine as you mentioned. I'll be waiting for the very small to small to medium small, to medium, to large NE long period swells and I know the banks and reefs to go to. My second to last sesh on the Smoothie was at RC's. I would literally take off at the palm trees, go left straight off the bat or after a few seconds of the fade to wait to bottom turn, I'm goofy footed, and wail down the line just taking the highest lines almost lip float riding the wave sometimes do a few cut backs and bottom turns and end up by the condos and board walk stairs thingy, get out and walk back to the palms, paddle out and go left again on head high lines. i would ride and walk and paddle out over and over again. I could see the coast line moving by slowly on my rides. So fun.
hey there SS - I really like your descriptions of hull surfing - & it sounds like you’ve got yourself a sweet little spot to ride 'em too
I love following the hull threads & I thought I’d throw in my 2¢ - I hear what you’re saying about skateboard tricks. For me, skateboarding was always an imitation of surfing - just find a smooth hill and slide and turn all the way down. So for me the hull experience is actually way closer to a skateboard feel, the weighting and un-weighting. Also, the idea that you have to read the terrain, look down the line and try to figure out how to work with the board to get to where you want to go, all the time banking rail to rail to manage the speed, to me that is a real skateboard feel!
ha, ha, wonder if I’m making sense or just babbling?!
anyway, Happy Turkey day to all
Awesome VonWessels! Thanks! I get what you are saying. Like a classic skateboard, going down a hill, or a slalom board or longboard. When I wrote about skate board feel I was thinking the modern board that has tight trucks and is used for bowls, half pipes, or street. It is totally true about looking down the line at the terrain and reacting to where you want to put the board. I remember one wave that session that was so long and fast (for Florida) about head high and I was riding high and all of a sudden a lip came out of a section ahead of me that was a tad lower than my board was, so I had to get very low and throw my arms towards the beach over the side and back of my head to stay over my board, and I was essentially doing a floater but I didn't freefall because I caught up to where the lip was forming and was on the face again though still high up. It was all reaction because I was flying so fast and my friend was paddling up the face far away at one point on that and I was close to him all of a sudden. It was like looking at down hill terrain as you put it but down the line terrain. The only part of it that doesn't feel skate boardy is if the skateboard were short enough to tick tack and lift up the front wheels and turn. The Hull feels more like a slalom board were you tunr using both trucks on the ground. Where as I can take a short skateboard tha tick tacks and lift up the front wheels and do cutbacks and all that like on a thruster. But the Hull turns more like a longboard skateboard. Another aspect that is not skatey is that it goes through the water on the rail, like into the water, whereas the skateboard wheels are always on the surface of the road. The hull's rails often times digs into the water and locks in like if the rail were engaged into railroad tracks. All of this stuff is so cool because it is so subjective and diverse. I just came back from a good session on it and it seems the bottom turn is becoming more of an ankle thing. Actually all the turns are becoming ankle things to me. It's more like a feeling I am getting used to, where I keep my back straight, and pretty upright and even arched sometimes, although I many times start the turn out leaning over, then with my knees slightly bent and feet and legs close together, I just slightly bank with my ankles. The same for cut backs and such. It's all in the wrists of the legs I guess it is seeming, but I have so much to experience and learn. It was okay today but not a long period ground swell, although it was off shore winds and clean and longer lines than the past few days, at NSB inlet, it was good. I'm greatful. By the sound of it, you skate to imitate surfing, as I also do. So in that way, it seems like skateboarding to me when you turn and carve and get speed going down. I have the board to do it on but the other day I skidded on an A-corn and ate it kinda hard on a long radius cutback.
Happy Thanks Giving to you VonWessels and to all you guys too! Gobble Gobble!
Turkey left overs are so good for making sandwiches with mayo on them, for days!
I hear that - acorns fricken’ suck
you know, I was remembering back - we used to set up our skateboards with super high riser pads, loosen the trucks, and then only “carve” or gyrate with the board - you had to keep all four wheels on the ground (couldn’t tick tack, that was against the rules!), and you would create forward momentum, as long as you were on pretty flat ground - that was fun, and tiring!
Yea. All the squirels here love the acorns but I find them to be quite bitter. hehe. That's what my skateboard does too. What's funny is that when you mention that, when I was at RC's after the surf session, my friend and his son and son's buddy where in the parking lot and we tail gated for a while. I always have my skateboard in my vehicle and it was the smoothest black asphalt yet grippy and we did it old school, even the kids because my board is a Z-Flex Jay Adams model with the narrow slalom trucks, these really high riser pads along with some thin gummy shock absorbing riser pads (so the wheels don't touch the deck) some sector nine wheels that are big and made for long boards. I got everything on that board at that friends old surf skate shop that he owned except for the trucks and the bearings. And we were getting speed off of it by just doing that slalom side to side motion and getting speed and so my friend and I told them to stay forward on the board to get more speed and not skid out. It was as fun as the surf session actually. But that is cool how you guys made rules not to lift the front wheels. It's like when Curren says in the movie "Searching For Tom Curren" that, "Surfboards and skateboards were a lot funner like in 1975..." Here were I live there are some good hills. Some of them dangerous actually, and a few years back, I was charging them and man what a rush to got too fast to even run off the board, but after I broke my arm saketboarding a bowl in 2006, doble compound fracture, saw both my bones pop out of my arm, the whitest glistening white I ever saw, I am more mellow with the skate board. If where I lived here had no acorns was better newer paved it would be a carve boarders delight. Fun but tiring! SOunds like some fun training for Smoothie surfing.
By the way. My friend's site is a surf report called www.havocreport.com The little bond kid you see on there skateboarding with the helmet is his kid's friend that was surfing and skating with us that day.
Later!
When you do them in Coil I will definitely want to go to the “darkest side” 