Surfing in a Hurricane

[flyingphish]

Avid surfers look for the enhanced ground swell. These are events precipitated by a strong cold front coming down from the N. Atlantic or an "offshore" hurricane. Some areas have a persistent ground swell like the N. shore of Puerto Rico. Ah...Rincon. So if you couple a distant agitation with a persistent ground swell..you get heaven. Surfing the eye of a hurricane is ridiculous as it would be pure "chop"and I would not call that surfing...just insanity!

[Cookiely]

Thanks to all of you for the information on wave action inside a hurricane. I remembered the surfers name and here is a link to him riding a wave in a place they called JAWS. Its beautiful. His name is Laird Hamilton. When I was young, I used to watch all the surfing competitions. You don't see them much anymore.
http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/1597/ ... ilton.html

[bvigal]

Here is a little dire for the surfers how about riding out a cat5...Then surf its waves? That would be a prize, how about setting it at a million dollars.

LOL! But hey, Matt, they wouldn't really get much chance to ride a wave. Fully exposed on open water to a Cat 5, the force of the wind is so strong, they wouldn't be able to breathe. Suffocation would occur in about 4 minutes. Not to mention the driving rain ripping the skin from their body like little knives!

[CronkPSU]

Here is a little dire for the surfers how about riding out a cat5...Then surf its waves? That would be a prize, how about setting it at a million dollars.

LOL! But hey, Matt, they wouldn't really get much chance to ride a wave. Fully exposed on open water to a Cat 5, the force of the wind is so strong, they wouldn't be able to breathe. Suffocation would occur in about 4 minutes. Not to mention the driving rain ripping the skin from their body like little knives!

set it at 5 million, and give the darwin awards people a call

[Lindaloo]

This thread reminds me of "Point Break"

[vbhoutex]

True hurricane surf is INCREDIBLE to ride. I've done it a couple of times. NOT during a hurricane though. As stated the waves are chaos during a storm. Pre-storm and post storm are the best times. My best times were pre-storm, mainly because they often would only allow residents out on the island post storm(P'cola Beach).
The most incredible though was while Hurricane Celia was moving across the Southern GOM towards Texas. We went out to the beach and the swells were coming in at an average of around 15-20 feet(breaking several hundred feet out past the 2nd sandbar) with some monsters here and there in between. We spent about 4 hours out there and in that time, due to the conditions we each managed about 4 rides total, with a lot of busts. Our final ride I was the only one to come out of with a board intact. It was a monster wave, we all agreed was at least 25 feet. We each managed to catch it, but I was the only one that did not lose his board and/or have it broken in two by the break after losing it. I don't know how I was so lucky, but it was the most exhilirating and frightening surf ride I ever took and in fact was one of the last ones, but not because of the problems. When I was able to get in safely and rested a little, I found my board intact at least a quarter of a mile down the beach.