twinkling toes

I tell myself my hooked toes are an evolutionary advantage to aid my control while hanging five or ten but really i'm just deformed!

With the forecast looking promising, hopefully today's wind allows just a temporary rest between the fun waves of the last week and what lies in store for next.

I've had plenty of hull related stoke recently, culminating in probably my best session on the slippery wee thing on Tuesday. I know i've said before but the feeling of smooth drivey projection off the bottom and the knife through butter high line trim are just awesome. It's also kind of fun lending it to friends who are good surfers and watching it confuse them. Trying to surf hulls off the back foot just doesn't work (eh Ben?)

There's a Isaac organised surf jumble in St Merryn tomorrow, in the village hall i think. He'd love it if lots of you stopped by. I wish I could!

who was mr smith anyway?

 answers on a postcard please............

One of the most stylish lip tricks around & high on the list of stuff i wish i could do!

fun things in small packages

First off, if you are near Bristol today, Andy Haworth is showing (and selling) his "for charridy mate" surf film "Devon Lanes and Longboards" at the surf show. Not sure what time but it's today at the Anson Rooms, check the link for details, check the post below for a little about the film.

 Obviously it's not cool to froth about tiny surf (is it Ramon :-), nor is it currently cool to ride an SUP but i have to admit to enjoying both on occasion. The last couple of days the waves have been barely rideable at the stage of tide i've been free and probably with just a longboard i might not have bothered but the trusty, fantastic plastic popout takayama sup has yielded some much needed fun for a couple of hours. At least it's helped wash some of that volcanic ash off & the travel stress it caused us.

I hope anyone else that got stuck is on their way back soon.

The pics are with our new little waterproof pentax optio digital compact. I'm still struggling a little with the settings but it's been a fun experiment so far.

Devon Lanes and longboards

There's a new British longboard movie out as you read this, made by father of Ben, Andy Haworth. It's a loving look at the longboard scene in our corner of the world and well worth getting a copy, especially as all profits are being donated to cancer charities.

There's more rumination about the film and Andy himself over on drift here. For more on the film or to order a copy go here

jus lookin

They say procrastination is the thief of time (i've always loved that phrase) and they are probably right. Most of us always look at the surf when we get to the beach (despite often having spent a fair amount of time checking a variety of webcams beforehand) but i think sometimes you can look too long. Especially  if it is small or cold or massive or onshore, too much time looking can just allow that element of doubt to creep in, is it rideable? is it too big a paddle? am i feeling a bit tired? Usually you are actually better off just changing and going in anyway, if you're like me you will rarely regret it. Take this pair for example, watching a succession of (admittedly occasional) very loggable sets come through before going home again.
The next few days were flat. Moral of the story, make the most of what you've got and never drive away from clean waves without getting wet first!

twinkling fingers

This is a slight cheat as it isn't my photo, it's taken on a diana by my friend Jim (star of the old blog banner!) but it is a picture of me indulging in one of my other obsessions, keeping the winter blues away with some proper blues (a bit of john mayall if i remember correctly). I really like the picture and, as you know, love a bit of self promotion :-)

summer is coming.....

along with millions of kooks no doubt!

unseasonal

Another holga self portrait. I'm off to france to slide down some mountains again this week. Kind of seems weird to be going to a snowy place now spring is in the air and summer logging seems just round the corner.

p-land

Like many other locals, i've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this spot over the years, lately i find myself ending up here more and more. It's the site of my first proper surf beating after an ill judged decision to paddle out during my first year surfing and it's one of those spots where it often seems to look better from the carpark than it is or better 50 yards down the beach until you paddle there and decide it looks better where you just came from. I, like many others, have had some frustrating trips here.

I'm not sure if i'm just better at sitting in the right spot now but over the last two years i've had some epic waves here and it definately has it's charms. It can be a good noseriding wave when it's small, a fun wave on a shortboard when it's bigger and a godsend when the wind swings southerley. It's definately underated. Interestingly, unlike the other local spots, it doesn't really have it's own locals, it's more of a melting pot of refugees from the other breaks when the wind dictates, which is kind of refreshing.

you want fries with that?....

Jack Brull, of salt stained photography and a major inspiration to me, is curating the New York fish fry blog and just used a couple of my pictures i sent him, which i'm taking as a compliment. This one is one of the first photos i took with an eye to it being more than just a snapshot. Gulfstream fish in front of a funky shed in the garden of a holiday cottage in the dunes behind Sennen cove we rented a few years in a row.

For a whole plethora of fishy related photos or info on the event, check out the fish fry blog here

It's happening on May 15-16th at Lincoln Ave Jetty, Long Beach NY, just in case you're in the neighbourhood!

Happy Easter everyone, hope the Easter bunny brought you something!

sated strollers.....

Another crew heading home (hopefully) stoked after their dawnie. These chaps had a very fine zeph bing indy noserider and a coop to aid in their morning stokemining. Left me thinking there's still a little room in my shed :-)

In Other News, I am excited to report that i'm featured in this months Devon Life magazine as a surfer who has a "proper" job. I'd love to say it's nothing to do with the fact that my friend writes for them but i'd probably be misleading you!

suction, self promotion and the art of noseriding...

Issue 11 of corduroy lines is out now, click here to check it out. I wrote them a piece on the art of noseriding but (as i type this) the mag version has half the text missing (but not in an edited way) and the article makes less sense as a result. I'm sure it's an oversight on their behalf but the full text is below just in case......

The Art Of Noseriding


Magazines like this one are filled with pictures of surfers nonchalantly perched on the tips of their longboards. Yet to many intermediate surfers, standing on the front 18 inches of their boards can seem a daunting, almost impossible prospect.

In truth, noseriding isn't THAT difficult and is within the grasp of most people once you understand how it works. Like many things in surfing, it's difficult to teach people how to noseride, there's a lot of feel and experience involved and this isn't intended as an exhaustive "how to", more a list of tips from someone already in the know.

- Learn to cross step

This isn't a specific noseriding tip, more a general longboarding one. Learning to cross step fluently is a major step to good longboarding. Not only does it look better but it is more functional too, allowing you to move up and down the board quickly and make use of the noseriding sections of the wave as they appear and disappear. If your water time is limited, learning to cross step on a long skateboard or an indo board can help a massive amount
You will notice that some surfers take two steps to the nose while some take four. This is dictated by the length of your legs and the length of your board, to begin with just go with whichever feels "right" to you.

-Pick your waves

Small clean waves are the ideal learning conditions. Although it's possible to hang five in almost any conditions, the bigger and messier the waves get, the more difficult it is. `Ideally  you want a lined up wave that has a long tapering shoulder- there's a reason the worlds two best noseriding waves (Noosa & Malibu) are sandbottomed points.

- YOUR Longboard WILL noseride

Sure some shapes make it easier to stay up there for longer but any board over 9 feet will let you noseride if you get the board in the right place on the wave.

- Practice, practice, practice

Don't be afraid to fall off, just make sure you understand enough to only try and go to the nose when the time is right. Try and analyse your waves and note the differences between the waves where it worked and it didn't so you can concentrate on replicating the successes.

- Positioning

This is the biggest part of getting your toes on the nose!
In simple terms, when you stand on the nose, your weight is counterbalanced by two things

1) The upwards force exerted by the water rushing up the face of the wave and across the underside of the nose of the board. Wider noses and nose concave increase the amount of lift available

2) The counterweighting force of the wave breaking over the tail of the board. Look at some pictures of people noseriding and you will see that at least the back third of the board is sunk inside the wave. Having soft "50-50" rails and a convex "bellied" bottom in the tail encourage the water to do this. Tail kick also helps here as well as acting to slow the board down and hold it in the wave.

For a really solid noseride, no. 2 is the most important thing. You will see pictures of people perched on the tip where the suction is so great that the whole front third of the board is lifted out of the water. These things only happen if you position yourself in the fastest part of the wave, about two thirds up the face and as close to the breaking part of the wave as possible. The further away from this position you are, the more likely you are to nosedive or stall out of the back of the wave. Straight off your take off you can get in the right spot by fading towards the peak as you paddle in before standing and swinging back the right way. Once riding you can either stall the board and wait for the wave to steepen in front of you or cut back far enough so that the wave is already steep ahead of you as you bottom turn again. Obviously in a sectiony beach break style wave, the wave might steepen ahead of you naturally.
Once the wave is steep ahead of you, dont hesitate, go straight to the nose, the moment can be gone in a split second. Too many people wait too long and let the board trim too far in front of the pocket before they start to move. The board outruns the section and then nosedives as they reach the nose.
It helps to think of starting to walk forward as the board begins to climb the face after you bottom turn so that you arrive on the nose as the board reaches trim, rather than trying to move forward once at the top of the wave with the board already starting to head down the face. Weighting your inside rail helps too. In fact when on your backhand it often helps to have your heel quite a long way across the stringer towards the inside rail.
Unfortunately, knowing exactly when is the right time is one of those "feel" things that takes experience to fully master but trying to heighten your awareness of what is happening on each wave you ride as mentioned earlier speeds up this process.

- Stretch those toes

Don't worry too much about where your back foot is to begin with, just make sure your front toes are properly dangling over the tip. Anything else is just forward trim.

- Don't be greedy

Once you're up there, it's easy to freeze then fall as the wave breaks or stall out of the wave. Often the section will only support you for a short time. Once you sense the board start to slow down or drop down the face, step back, cut back and set up again.

- Watch some videos

There are lots of good logging films and plenty of clips on you tube. When you watch them, analyse what the surfers and waves are doing. Watch waves that show the surfer setting up the noseride. Pause the action just before they go to the nose and look at where they are and what the wave is doing around them. Try and visualise how the wave looks at that moment from the surfers point of view.

Once you become adept at hanging five you'll notice that there are some times where the board feels much more stable and "locked in" compared to others. This might only be for a split second, especially in beach break style waves. These are the moments when the time is right to move the back foot up to hang ten or kick it out into the wave face or hang heels or lift it up and hold it while you stand on one leg! Only feel and experience can help you judge the moments it will work but you can practice the balance needed for the moves over an over again on a long skateboard. Then when you're in the water, you're only learning how to get set up properly not trying to improve your balance as well. This is something i found really useful when learning to hang heels.

- Most of all, have fun with your surfing, after all thats why we all started in the first place isn't it?

I should also mention that Tom Wegener had an article in an issue of pacific longboarder about 8 years ago that greatly contributed to my understanding and influenced what you see here. I think it's still available to read on tomwegener.com

Pic is from Woolacombe a couple of August's ago, shame it isn't this warm all year round!