Erik mentioned that his preferred conditions are 3.5ft with 5-6 seconds in the last episode.
It was quite a surprise for me as I was drooling over those 10 sec period Florida waves I see on Instagram while riding 6-7 sec in the mideterranian sea.
What’s your preferred height and period combination?
roughly 3ft @ 8 seconds.
Too long of a period and it’s hard to hop from wave to wave, too short of a period and there isn’t any energy.
I’ve never seen those kinds of conditions in CA. We have to find the breaks that are somehow shallow enough to break, but somehow slow enough to also back off and reform. There are very few of those it turns out.
Same for me, though I am usually 5ft 10s and so need to surf sheltered reforms etc.
I’ve never seen anywhere under 6s that still breaks, so it must be towed primarily? Chip ins under 7s don’t really work where I surf due to the beach setup
Everytime I think I know what’s my favorite we get something different and it has its own new opportunity. I agree with roughly 3ft @8 seconds being epic. We do get some crazy fun days that are ~5ft @ ~5seconds on the bouy. Those dont last for more than a few hours though due to close to coast wind swell.
Depends on the spot and direction, but my favorite spot it’s 3ft @ 15 seconds. Different side of the island 10ft @ 10 seconds is epic. \m/
I don’t know what it’s like in Florida but for us here on the south coast of the UK it’s all about swell direction. An east swell of about that size (3.5 at 6secs) is just about as perfect foiling conditions as you can get. Same numbers from the west and it’s flat. I think it has to do with the way the sand bars are angled from the predominantly west swell so they peak up and break better on east swell.
Doesn’t it totally depend on the bathimitry (shape of the bottom) and stuff like that? In my exprience 2 ft @10 seconds is completely different at different parts of the world. In Oaxaca, Mexico (Puerto Escondido etc) that will be head high. Where I live it will be 2 feet max.
Yes this is definitely true, though I think for the most part foilers are anyway looking for sheltered bays, slack angle shores and slowly running waves so I think it is possibly still an interesting comparison.
Surfing regular waves, and comparing 15s 6ft swell between Bali Padang Padang to UK for example is entirely invalid because of the bathymetry, where the latter has the very flat shelf that neutralises any real swell.
Because we are mostly talking <10s period, the comparison I think is probably somewhat valid. Good point though
We just got our first longer period long range swell filtering in from the atlantic storms. 1.5ft 13s going up to 16s.
The lulls between sets are not great for foiling! You have to get the first wave of the set otherwise you just pump out with nothing to surf. Or just foil as if you were surfing. Lulls of at least 2-3 minutes. Pretty frustrating after a summer of short period swell where you never need to really pump, just cruise between peaks
