Aside from being one of the coolest feelings in the world, good surfing skills let you make controlled landings when conditions aren’t perfectly flat. They also help you to catch rides on wind waves to pick up dramatic speed downwind.
Because sea kayaks are fast, you can start your ride on pretty gentle swells, before they become steep and start breaking.
To catch a wave, line up perpendicular to its face and, as it approaches, paddle aggressively forward in the direction the wave is moving.
Time your acceleration so that you reach maximum speed just when the wave reaches you and starts to pick up your stern. This will actually mean waiting until the wave is quite close before paddling forward. It should take only three to five strokes to get up to speed.
As you feel your stern being picked up, lean forward and continue with a few more powerful strokes until you’re sure that you’ve caught the wave.
Once surfing, you can stop paddling; gravity will keep you on the wave face. now’s the time to shift your weight back a bit to unweight your bow and use a stern pry stroke to control your direction.
A stern pry is the primary stroke for surfing because it’s the most powerful way to make small course corrections without slowing forward momentum.
To set up for the stern pry, plant your paddle firmly in the water behind your body. Submerge the whole blade for maximum power, and position the blade parallel to the kayak to minimize braking.
A strong pry requires aggressive torso rotation. Turn your whole upper body toward your ruddering blade. Your forward hand should be comfortably in front of your chest. Keeping your hands in front of your body in a power position protects your shoulders from injury. To steer, use the power of torso rotation to push away with the backside of your paddle blade.
Alternate between stern pries on either side of the boat. Plant your pry on the opposite side to the direction that your bow is beginning to deflect. If your bow starts to veer to the right, stern pry on the left, and vice versa. With time, you’ll get good at prying in anticipation of where the bow is going.
As the wave gets steeper and breaks, your bow will likely dive, or pearl, and dynamically deflect to the left or right. Don’t bother trying to fight this. Instead, quickly edge your boat toward the direction of the turn (into the wave) by shifting your weight onto the inside butt cheek and lifting the outer knee. If the wave is still green, you can carve right off of it. if it’s breaking, you’ll end up side surfing.
Side surfing involves sitting at the bot- tom of a breaking wave with your boat parallel to the break. To keep from being pushed over, shift your weight aggressively onto your butt cheek on the wave side of your kayak and brace against the foam pile with your paddle in a low or high brace position. Keep your arms tucked in close and your hands low to protect your shoulders from the force of the break. Side surfing can actually be a dependable and controlled way to land, although once you’re sideways in a breaking wave you’ll usually be locked that way until the wave’s power dissipates. That’s why it’s important to ensure that you have a safe and kayak-friendly run-out before hopping on any wave.
Five Steps to Surf
- Lean forward and paddle hard to catch the wave
- Lean back and steer with a stern pry
- Edge your boat aggressively into the turn
- Brace into the wave
- Carve off the back or ride out the side-surf
Alex Matthews is the author (with Ken Whiting) of the book Touring and Sea Kayaking—The Essential Skills and Safety and the instructional DVD The Ultimate Guide to Sea Kayaking, available at www.helipress.com.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
