I think that illustrates your point around timing too, wait until the wave has made the initial punch before kicking over, as it gives you a nice little exit section there. And yes tail is important, you ideally want 4x4 low-range feeling to dig through the mush. Key I think is to attack it at sufficient angle, the bigger/hollwer the wave is, the more angle you need.
For what it’s worth, here is the example of failing to deal with broken waves head-on. I think that wave was bigger than I really knew what to do with.
Broken waves when pumping out to sea, how do you deal with it? I know to accelerate and try to get as much speed, but I wonder if that is appropriate? I also feel like I’m overdoing the climb to get over it, and end up stalling by trying to gain too much height over them.