when pulling into a closeout, what are the chances of getting hit with your board. strong? weak? nobody knows?
logically it seems like it would happen, but i see people do it all of the time and they dont come up bruised.
i want to know.
How big of a closeout? I’ve done it up to about a foot overhead, and it worked as long as I could bury myself in the wave and come out the back. But if you get caught and it pitches you back over the falls, cover your head stay down for awhile. Been hit in the head twice, and in the coconuts once. (It hurts just thinking about it. Not the head…the other one). Doug
Eventually everyone gets hit by their board. Some surfing behaviors increase that likelihood, such as you described. I suppose the answer to your question is, CHANCE.
I pull into closeouts all the time. Don’t get clean barrels very often, so I take every barrel opportunity I can get. I very rarely get hit, but I always try to punch through the back.
learn to pull out shaun thompson style. i have been hit in the nuts(flash back pain) a few times and in the head once by my own board, the one time in the head was a 50lb longboard. none of these were in the barrel. then again, close outs included i have only been in the barrel of a surfboard a total of maybe, 7 times, i normally bodyboard when it’s hollow.
I think it all depends on what the rider does as it closes out.
I nose ride into closeouts (head high and below) all the time.
As it closes out I duct under the lip and punch out the back, board gets left in the barrel usually.
The key to any seperation from your board (ie. falling) is to get away from your board and cover up. Falling in any activity is an art.
"Why do we fall, Bruce?
To teach ourselves how to get back up."
Saw Batman Beyond last night. Best superhero movie I’ve ever seen, and I see 'em all…
I am pretty well known by my friends for pulling into hopeless closeouts on big days. I live in the South Bay and surf Torrance and Manhattan Beach a lot. anything over 4 foot and it’s usually closing out. I took my lead from a Hawaiian surfer who said, “For me it’s all about being in the tube. If I make it out, great, if not, no problem. I just stay in as long as I can.” I’ve been pulling in for 30 years. Then one day I was talking to an old timer who was giving me tips on how to surf into old age (I’m now 44). One of the things he told me was, “I’ve seen you going for close outs. I’d straighten out if I were you.” I laughed. On the very next wave I went into a crash tube and all of a sudden, wham, I was on my board. I thought I’d gotten a bad charlie horse. Yeah,bad. A grade A contusion my docttor said. I was out for 5 weeks. I’ve also torn ligaments in my knees twice, once on a double up, once when the lip landed flat and squashed me. So, I figure the odds of being injured are about 500 to 1. But when you get injured it sucks. Still, I’d say, “GO!”
Depends on where you surf, when you surf, and what you regard as big. 4ft close out, you can just power thru… You, the board, and anything that gets in your way. Turn you board in the pit towards the beach, and presto your out. Take that same attitude to Sunset on a 6-8+ day and you better have a good set of lungs. I’m talking about bouncing along the bottom off that reef that looks like someone layed concrete sidewalk all piled up on the inside. And we won’t even go into the world around Mokuleia beach park when it’s on. Not so worried about my board, I’m more worried about the bottom lacerating me to shreds.
Scar’d from San Diego
-Jay
Howzit 4est, That's called an Island pull out and they've been around for as long as I can remember, then there's the Standing Island pull out.Aloha,Kokua
Ah yes, the Standing Island Pullout! A thing of beauty. Seldom seen anymore. Thanks for the memories!!
Come surf Backdoor/OTW, you get plenny practice with nice closeouts!!
Some of you are laughing now, I know it.
It’s put me in the hospital, but sometimes I still do. If you can stay centered on your board until the barrel collapses, you usually just pop up. If you fall too early…
standing island pullouts and good ol grab a rail island pullouts
not to be confused with a leash on JUMP OFF
A dynamic redirection of magnum board speed momentum mass
truely an elevated technique executed to perfection
a delight to the senses all.
the functional equivalent of a dripless paddle out
hit in the coconuts?victim of hydroseal?
perhaps walnuts.or are these close outs radioactive
or the coconut on the shoulders?
please deliiver mee from the fallout area of the plethoras of pulling into it guys forever validating themselves with the hey watch this dive off…
the hotest move is the most successful one,
what is success? make the wave an dont falloff and loose the stick…
…aloha fron waipouli…
…ambrose…
I have 14 stitches and a lovely scar on my chin from my lip to the end from pulling into closeout barrels. my mates had two comments, if i had a matching one on the other side id look liike a ventriloquists dummy and good thing it was a thruster and not a twinny or id have lost both ears. Also took a chunk outta my back at G land doing the same thing its pretty freaky when you see coral heads sticking out of the wave as you pull in!
Surfing injuries are ‘when’ not ‘if’ (I still pull in to close outs)
i pull into closeouts all of the time, mostly on traditional style (real) longboards. my favorite technique for getting worked is:
1- dop midway down the face
2- take two little steps to the nose
3-drop all the way down while sort of keeping the nose facing the close out, parallel to the beach.
4- noseride into the thunder. when your on the nose the board doesn’t really hit you because you fall away from it when pulling in.
this method is only for the kamakazi though.
When I was younger, I whatched my brother pulling into a 4’ beach break close out. He was riding a 6’4’’ swallow tail and, when he noticed it was a fast close out wave, he launched the board ahead and left his body behind the board. Poor guy…The result was a knee injury with several stiches as ornament. Sice then, I learned that, once catched in this situation, it’s better to complete a suicide drop than eject during the fall.
I wasn’t thinking about Hawaii when I wrote my reply. On my first trip to the Islands I went out at a place called Tunnels on the North Shore of Kauai. A pretty big set came through and I was thinking about something I’d heard- that if you don’t go when a good one comes they won’t let you have any more after that. It looked kind of walled but the smaller ones did too but they were makeable. So I put my head down to go. It was double over head (four foot Hawaiian) and as soon as I made the drop it walled. No, I didn’t go for the closeout. I straightened and gingerly went on my back. I paddled back out and a real kanaka looking local says, “Hey man, you gotta be careful out here. You could get hurt.” So my “Just Go” philosophy does not apply to Hawaii.
Howzit llilbel, Tunnels is basically in my front yard, what you did could have put you on what we call the Killing Floor which is the big flat part of the reef thats full of tube coral and not where you want to be. You probably noticed the reef upcropping further down the line, which is known as the Lion Jaw. when Tunnels gets big enough it goes all the way to the Jaw and that's when things get really dangerous. Should have been there when we surfed it with no cords which was always a thrill.Aloha,Kokua
You’re a lucky dog! That bay has to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I stayed there about ten days, sleeping on the beach. There was a local guy named Duane (dwayne?) that lived there, sold paka to tourists and made stew for anyone and everyone who happened to be around in the evening. True Aloha. I remember the reef too. Every wave pretty much ended on dry reef and it was just a question of how far you wanted to ride. I also remember it being so glassy and the water so clear that sometimes you couldn’t tell where to make your bottom turn. I surfed it pretty conservatively. Oh, and I may have had a leash (which I don’t use here at home…hate em, read my profile) but I was there on a single fin.