Details on Turning Turtle

[bluesnowcone]

one of my worst turtle rolls, was a few months ago when i did one so bad, it took my board, and i new people where behind me, so i didnt let go, and it fliped me in the air, and i laded facing the beach up right, it was pretty cool

[Otter]

Turtling is OK, but I prefer to dismount my board, grab it firmly at the tail, lift the tail so the nose goes under water and push it through the wave. Keep your arms outstreched so that you don't allow the board to break your noodle. Face the board directly into the wave, and allow the wave to break over the nose, it reduces the amount of force you get hit with, and the board acts like a knife, cutting a way through the wave which you just follow along. Of course, I'm a pretty fair sized guy, 6'4", 230lbs, and I've used this technique on some fairly large waves 18'-24' faces, works fine. Not sure how it might work for a little guy. Nice thing about this technique is that it gives you an opportunity to get thoroughly wet, get an idea of the power of the wave, see what's coming in after it, and to wait for a "lull" in the waves to paddle your butt off to get to the outside. It may take a bit longer, but it works!

[beaversandducks]

nice... I'll try that one myself as I'm of similar size and have just procured an 11ft board which I love but find it just a touch more of a handfull getting out off the beach. Its just so much heavier and bouyant! than my other board.

[rich r]

Pushing your board through the wave from the back sounds quite dangerous to me.

If you don't do it just right, or the wave is moving faster than you expect, it'll lift the board. Physics tells me that you also don't have a lot of control, with the fulcrum point being where your hands touch the tail, your wrists being one of the weaker joints in your body, and all that board sitting out there to be twisted and pushed around.

The additional part is what do you do when/if you do get through the wave? You have to scramble to re-mount and paddle, or you have to try and punch through another set wave, all the time being bounced around by the whitewash.

The point about going turtle is that you; keep control of your board, keep a firm grip on it, use your weight and forward motion to carry you through the breaking wave and whitewash, and most important, when you turtle-back, you are basically able to resume paddling as if you were in mid-stroke and with some remaining forward motion.

[WooD]

Turtling is OK, but I prefer to dismount my board, grab it firmly at the tail, lift the tail so the nose goes under water and push it through the wave. Keep your arms outstreched so that you don't allow the board to break your noodle. Face the board directly into the wave, and allow the wave to break over the nose, it reduces the amount of force you get hit with, and the board acts like a knife, cutting a way through the wave which you just follow along. Of course, I'm a pretty fair sized guy, 6'4", 230lbs, and I've used this technique on some fairly large waves 18'-24' faces, works fine. Not sure how it might work for a little guy. Nice thing about this technique is that it gives you an opportunity to get thoroughly wet, get an idea of the power of the wave, see what's coming in after it, and to wait for a "lull" in the waves to paddle your butt off to get to the outside. It may take a bit longer, but it works!

You must have an incredibly strong board! Allowing a 18'-24' wave to break over the nose of your board?

You also must have super human strength to be able to hang on to just the tail of your board in a wave that size.

I'd love to see you do this some time.

[Otter]

G's guys, it's not that hard. The wave breaks on top of the board, the nose of the board is facing downward, toward the bottom. The weight of the wave pushes the nose down, not UP. It's like a knife, it cuts through, your board is designed to have minimal drag isn't it? It's not like there's a sail on the top that will grab water and make the board do things you don't want it to do. As far as the board getting caught by the wave, if you use my technique improperly, sure it can happen. The idea is to hit the wave straight on, so that you knife through it. You lock your elbows, the board goes through very easilly, plus it breaks up the power of the wave just enough so that you don't get as trashed.

I don't have anything against tutling, I do it on occassion, but when the waves get bigger, I prefer to dismount, and use my technique. Sorry if you don't understand, perhaps I've explained it poorly. But I swear, it works. I've been surfing since 1967 in all kinds of conditions and I fail to understand why there is a feeling of animosity in a couple of the posts... go figure.

If you don't think it will work for you, don't try it.

Another thing, I don't allow the wave to break on TOP of my board, the wave is broken already before I use this technique. The last place I'm gonna get caught is in the impact zone when a big wave is spitting a lip with tons of water in it. Sheesh! No board can withstand that. No I do not have super human stregth, and if your understanding of physics must be better than your reading abilities, because I never stated that it recquired great stregth, just that a smaller person may not be able to withstand the onrush. I think it depends on the skill level of the individual rather than their size, so I admit that it was probably wrong to distinguish about a persons size in this regard.

Besides, how many times have you seen some poor sucker turtle and not pull the nose of his board under the onrushing wave? Doesn't that just pull the board away from the poor clod? Have you ever had the feeling that your arms were being ripped out of your shoulder sockets trying to hold on to the board?

All in all, if you're afraid my technique might hurt you, don't use it. It's not for the inexperienced I can assure you.

Another thing, the fulcrum is where the boards weight is centered on the water. By lifting the tail, you're moving the fulcrum closer to the middle of the board, not the tail. After all, isn't the fulcrum the pivot point that the board is sitting on?

G's I'm getting exasperated... Nuf said.

[isaluteyou]

That was educating

Like otter says though if a technique relies overly on brute strenght its no good. It should be almost all skill and very little strenght involved.

[WooD]

Another thing, I don't allow the wave to break on TOP of my board, the wave is broken already before I use this technique. The last place I'm gonna get caught is in the impact zone when a big wave is spitting a lip with tons of water in it. Sheesh! No board can withstand that. .

I never said you said you let the wave break on TOP of your board. I just quoted what you did say.........Face the board directly into the wave, and allow the wave to break over the nose,

[Otter]

OK, cool.

[WooD]

I wasn't trying to ba an @ss or give you a hard time. I just couldn't imagine how it wood work. For the record I'd never paddle out in surf that big to try or find out.

[Otter]

It may sound difficult or dangerous, but it's actually very simple and easy to do. The board slips through the wave very easilly, keep your head down and streamline your body as much as you can. The wave passes over the board, which breaks some of the tension of the wave, it passes over you and it's cake. I've had it happen while turtling that the wave gets under the nose of the board, and it nearly wrenched my arms out of my shoulders, course, that was many years ago, but I've never forgotten it.
I was merely trying to give a tip to some folks who may not have been aware of it, I've never seen any one else use my technique, so it's obviously not common on the west coast.
As far as scrambling to get back on the board and paddling out, just wait for a break in the set waves, it's easier and you're not going to kill yourself trying to get out.
Hope to ride with you someday Wood, you seem like a pretty stoke kind of guy.