Definition of surf and how to measure waves

[Brian Kennedy]

Can you please tell me the definition of surf and also can you measure the height and length of a wave and how so?
Thank you
Brian

[kieran]

Surf Def
The waves of the sea as they break upon a shore or reef.

I dont think there are any ways of measuring breaking waves, thats down to the indvidual. speak to a noob and its probably 6ft, a hardened surfer would say its a weak 3ft.

Waves out to sea can be measured by buoys and satelites
The buoys measure height and period by just being in the sea and feeling the waves.
Satellites (Sp?) ping the sea kind of like on a submarine or boats echo sounder and can get the same data

[leolivi]

About the definition of surf, you could look up on a dictionary, or an encyclopaedya, but the truth is, like most things, that there is nohing that could realy define surf in few words, and if you go around asking what surf is you will find lots od diferent answers.

I would say that surf is defined and redefined everytime someone gets a board and catches waves...

[kieran]

i got that definition from dictionary.com

[def]

if u say the surfs 3 foot, wat it really means is the lip of the wave raises 3 foot from the sea level from the BACK of the wave. kooks and newbs usually measure the face and say its bigger.


thistradtion started as the local hawaians used to measure the back and say it was actually smaller than everyone thought, cos everyone used to measure the face. cus everyone thought it was smaller, no non-locals would go down so the hawains would have the surf to themselves. its still kinda the same today. ask a person like myself whos been surfin 6 years and ill say 2 foot, others who have been surfing 6 months would say it was like 6 foot.

[surf patrol]

The definition of wave height is actually the vertical distance between trough and crest for wind waves and swells in units of meters or feet.
From a surfers perspective it is entirely from the individuals point of view as everyone has already stated. I find that the best way to state the size of the waves is to describe the lip of the breaking wave to how far up your body it is when you are standing at the bottom of the wave when you are upright. eg waist high, sholder high, double overhead etc.

The bottom line is that if you ask a surfer how big the surf is and they say 4 foot it could be anywhere between waist high and well overhead.

length of a wave

If you mean the length of the wave - eg distance a surfer can ride for (and not wavelength) then this is measured by the distance the wave breaks parallel to the beach until the wave is completely whitewater.