Another disturbance and another chance to go out and play. My second surf session with the Sterling Progression kayak:
Mahalo!
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The next day saw even better conditions — sunshine, slight offshore (clean-up) wind, 3’ plus glassy waves in the 10-11 second range. Gorgeous!
My surfing performance… Not so much. Huge room for improvement.
Mahalo!
sing
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Surfs pretty well backwards, huh?
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It’s pretty ridiculous… I really don’t know if it’s me or the boat that is backsurfing. Only thing I am sure of is that I am ruddering and bracing to stay upright.
The Progession is foremost a surfing longboat and the best I have ever experienced under my seat. 
sing
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yes indeed, it looks like it was designed to surf backwards
(some bow rudder, I cross-bow rudder to control)
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I was out Saturday, Sunday, and last night surfing a Nigel Foster Whisky 16. Saturday had the consistently bigger waves - 3’ pretty consistent with a little bigger sets mixed in, but it was windy with waves mixed in with swells, so tougher to try to make calculated moves. Last night was small smooth swells, more 2’ with occasional 3’ mixed in. I thought I would share something that I had success with last night, and it made me think of your being spun into back surfs.
So I typically try to edge my kayak and try to steer a bit to the left followed by a bit to the right and so on and so forth, and it slows the kayak and keeps it a bit higher up on the wave. All stuff I’m sure you play with as well. Then when a wave approaches breaking, gets steep, I either have to get it quite perpendicular to the wave for that moment so that I can continue forward and maintain steering control through the break, or I’ll broach, and possibly end up in a bongo slide, which I consider a momentary loss of control until I can regain meaningful steering control in some way. Then there’s always the option of turning and then peeling off of the wave just before it breaks, which I use frequently just prior to a break right before the shoreline, when there is really no further wave riding. I would just be left up on the sand.
So yesterday evening I was turning as I would if I was going to peel off of the wave out further where a wave was first breaking, without any intention of peeling off. I would watch for the wave to get steep, and try to agressively steer my bow up the wave so the bow would hit the breaking water first. And make sure I’ve released that steering force when the wave would hit the bow. When that push hits my bow first, it spins the bow down wave, and I could get it to spin 90 degrees, and sometimes beyond, so that there was no bongo ride, and the wave didn’t slip under me - not every time at least. So effectively, trying to manage a sea kayak top turn so that I end up bow first, forward surfing. It’s definitely an exercise in timing, but maybe you could play with it to see if you can turn some back surfs into forward surfs. Get the wave to make your bow spin downwave instead of your stern, and do it through a fun, albeit sloppy compared to a waveski, top turn. Just some thoughts. I’m not proposing this as some expert explaining how to do things “right”. I don’t know how it will work in your kayak. I just see a weeble - looking profile that will probably spin like a top. So if the stern gets pushed, the stern spins around. If the bow gets pushed… If I can get it to work for me some in the Whisky, you may be able to get that out of the Progression. It is a fun move.
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Yeah, definitely something to play around with. Looking like some waves for me this Friday.
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TGIF surf session:
It was great for about 40 minutes. Then “Ranger Rick” from Dept of Conservation and Recreation came by to kick me off the “public beach”, saying kayaks aren’t allowed. After the first incident, I checked DCR regs and found no such prohibition. But, i wasn’t going to get in to it because i would be on the losing side.
Guess i’ll have to stick to waveskiing at this break. We’ll see if Ranger Rick is ok with that.
It was good longboat surfing while it lasted.
Mahalo!
sing
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I am surprised by the speed at which you move; it seems that behind you, there is an engine that adds speed. I also used to kayak, which is quite difficult, especially with big waves and wind. I love water sports, so I decided to give wake surfing a try. I knew absolutely nothing about it, so I found on the internet how to start wake surfing, and this information was very helpful to me. Keeping your balance while wake surfing is more difficult than kayaking.
I met him recently on a river here in NH. The videos don’t do him justice, he’s an absolute machine on the water! Super nice guy too. If I can get half as good as him, I won’t have any problems on the water.
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Surfing is a rush and great fun. Are you wake surfing with a wake board, or with a kayak? Some kayak surfers get desperate enough, if ocean waves aren’t readily available, begin search ship channels to catch some wakes from passing ships. It’s a type of surfing with a bit of its own esoteric skills, Check this longboater out, he posted more than few videos of this type of surfing:
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Thanks for the prop. 
I was glad you came up because I would have gone flyfishing otherwise. So, that was the first time I’ve been in my WW playboat in a couple of years. I felt really rusty, if not totally absent, my newbie playboating skills. Glad we both got a chance to practice.
By the way, skills aren’t static. You gain them with practice and can lose them from the lack of use. I felt that with the playboat. The only things still on were my bracing and rolling because these are constant when I am out surfing.
It was great that both of us got a chance to practice. With that onside roll that you acquired on your own effort, you got a major building block on which other skills can be developed or refined. Just keep practicing and using it each time you go out… Year round!
Cowabunga!
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Appreciate the encouragement. Since my swim, I have been taking rolling classes every Tuesday. This last class I was able to work with the instructor more 1 on 1, he helped me figure out what I was doing wrong that had me struggling, and at the end of it I was coming up on the first try with ease. Tomorrow I’m meeting up with him to practice rolling in current at the park in Franklin. Next time I go up to Errol, I’ll be better prepared in the event I end up upside down again.
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Excellent! Tomorrow will be a perfect summer day to get “rolling in the deep!”
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Heading down to the beach in Narragansett for my family vacation. Been a couple of years since I tried surfing at the beech. My last attempt was painful - dumped downstream (down wave?, beachside?) of the boat and got run over by it in the shallows near the shore - ouch. The boat always seems spins sideways on the wave. I try to end up bracing into the wave on my onside, but it doesn’t always work out that way. 
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Coming off that surf way would be a great place to practice rolls in more turbulent water. Let us know how it goes.
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Will do. The water level is really low right now, but there’s still plenty for practice.
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Had the same experience.
Fog is my favorite condition for paddling.
I enjoy paddling in inclement stuff too. It gives a certain intimacy because the stuff envelops you and probably because it also minimizes the number of other folks out there. I was surfing one time in fog and the fog became a disorienting “pea soup” where I couldn’t see more than 30-40 feet away. Only reason I didn’t flip out was because I knew that the swells/waves were rolling towards the shoreline and safety. However, since that experience, I don’t leave shore in a longer SINK or SOT without a compass and/or GPS/fishfinder.
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