The Maximum Speed of Surfers

As the peel angle of a breaking wave becomes more acute, a surfer must travel faster in order to stay ahead of the break point. At the critical limit of surfing, the board can go no faster, and the wave 'closes out'. In order to study the maximum speed that can be sustained on different wa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of coastal research 2001-01, p.33-40
Main Author: Dally, William R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Average speed
Cameras
Coastal engineering
Estimate reliability
Peels
Scale modeling
Speed
Surfboards
Surfing
Trip length
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Summary:As the peel angle of a breaking wave becomes more acute, a surfer must travel faster in order to stay ahead of the break point. At the critical limit of surfing, the board can go no faster, and the wave 'closes out'. In order to study the maximum speed that can be sustained on different waves, sequences of surfing recorded on videotape are subjected to kinematic analyses. Selecting twenty-nine sequences in which the surfer is judged to be moving as fast as possible, board speed is computed by dividing a visually estimated travel distance by an elapsed time, determined by counting frames of video. Breaker height is also estimated visually, and breaker type noted. An empirical, yet physically justified formula for the board speed is developed based upon breaker height (R² = 0.91). The video-derived model is verified against the limited amount of data collected by other means that are available in the literature. Breaker type is not found to have a direct influence on board speed.
ISSN:0749-0208
1551-5036