Big Wave Measurements Leave Me Flaccid
Yesterday Hawaiian big-wave surfer, Garrett Macnamara, rode a huge wave at Nazare, Portugal. It was a monster, no doubt, but the size attributed to it - 90 feet – just didn't seem to add up. It reminded me of an old joke:
Why do women have trouble parking cars? Because men keep telling them that six inches is ten.
Crude, yep, but a good illustration of what's been happening in big wave surfing over the last decade. Each year bigger waves get ridden yet the criteria for measuring them gets changed along the way. The 100 foot goalpost just keeps getting lower and lower.
In January 1998, Ken Bradshaw rode Outside Log Cabins on Oahu's North Shore and jagged what was then considered the largest wave ever ridden (see image 1). In his book, North Shore Chronicles, surf journalist Bruce Jenkins said Bradshaw rode a wave that morning which "was in the mythical 40-foot realm, a cut above most of the waves ridden that day".
Bradshaw himself says he caught his biggest wave in the morning, but "I got another 30-plus wave in the afternoon." The wave sizes – 30 to 40 feet – were proportional to what was being paddled into at big Waimea and big Mavericks.
Sometime around the turn of the millennium big wave competitions took hold and wave sizes were covertly recalibrated. 50 foot became the new Code Black.
In 2001 Mike Parsons rode what was considered a 66 foot wave at Cortes Bank (see image 3). In 2008 he rode one that didn't appear any larger yet was measured at 70+ feet. That six inches was growing...
Now Garrett Macnamara has ridden a wave that the big wave valet attendants are calling 90 feet and the operation is almost complete (see image 4). Click through all the images from 1 to 4 and watch as they grow. From 40 foot to 90 foot. 6 inches to 10 inches. It's enough to make a regular big wave surfer feel inadequate.
Comments
Makes me think about surf reporting on this website: 2 ft means anything from knee high to several feet overhead depending on the reporter/region.
It also depends on how tall you are, Jonesurfer. What's head high? Three feet?
our mate Mark Visser knows wave heights the best. Just ask him, or his PR man
Is it just me but I struggle to tell the difference between a 40ft wave and a so-called 70ft wave?
That goose down in Vico recently calling it 50ft. It looked barely over 30ft.
I suspect it's all the marketing boys & girls getting their froth on for their individual Big Wave competitions, each trying to out do the other.
I guess the mythical 100ft wave is only a froth and spit away. Visser the skydiver, where are you?
Curious about the 100ft wave thing Stu. Is a rideable 100 footer possible within gemeral storm parameters and subsequent swell trains? Swell and bathymetry would have to be just so, no? Can a category 5 cyclone / Hurricane generate that size in a rideable form? Would need massive captured fetch or some other unusual scenario? Imagine it would be extremely rare if at all possible. I have heard of so called "rogue" waves exceeding 100 ft but a consistent swell at 100 ft?
i think in the case of image #1 its more "calling ten inches 6 inches" That wave looks to be more in the 50ft range to me. But, then again, how can we tell when we can't see the back of the wave? Mind you, in saying that Teahupoo's biggest waves this year would have only been 10ft by that system!
Stu, the last Eddie Aikau, which was just spectacular, showed up all the big wave measurement thing perfectly.
Here is the tip.
There's the scale, made incarnate by a legend known as Iggy, whereby approximately 2 foot wave face height translates to 1 foot, etc. 3 foot is just overhead (6 foot face) etc 6 foot wave double overhead.
But here is reality, at some point, around the 15'+ mark, the actual wave face height is the measurement. Waimea that day was 4-5 times overhead and they were calling it 25 foot. hhhmmm suddenly the desire to halve the wave face height is gone.
Don't know when it happens, but a 15 foot wave doesn't have a 30' face on it.
I have no idea why, that's just the way it is.
BTW, that first wave of Bradshaw's looks as big as the rest, if not bigger.
Marketing has now got hold of wave height calling, and you know what marketing does to reality.
Not that i back their judgement . ( The biggest is more than likely the Cortez Pics . 40-50 ft MAX ...)
The 2001 wave showed him mid face and it looked a bit fat , the second in 2008 you can't see the trough but it looks a lot heavier .
As for people claiming anything over 25 ft in Aust . Their dreamin ..... Maybe the Tassie Boys , at a protected southern point saw something close to topping that , and i know of one or two other sessions that looked close to 30' in WA.
And as for Vicco " Pelicans/towers " was barely 15 ft . I've seen bigger ( barreling waves ) closer to Melbourne .......
But regardless of being " Flaccid " at the thought of non- death defying conditions . Only those that have experienced surf in the 15 ft plus range should be taken seriously . And I'm not talking about anyone trying to claim fame or Money ........
I think you should embrace it Stu - We can call this wave, what 20ft? http://www.saltmotion.com/2011/06/06/50-years-ago-today.html
one more thing - if someone is riding a body board does that mean every wave is overhead?...
Umm, Biggest waves I ever surfed were probably between 12 and 18 foot on the old school scale and all I remember is thinking they looked like the proverbial block of flats. maybe we should adopt this measurement scale?
1 storey, 2 storey, 3 storey, skyscraper, ????
What does everyone else reckon?
I dunno, I reckon they're about right except I'm not sure about McNamara's wave, it's too obscured. I think both Parsons' waves are bigger than Bradshaw's, especially the second one. Look how much bigger Bradshaw looks in the picture, I realise he's a big bloke but Parsons is dwarfed by that wave - it's taken from further away) yet it fills the frame in much the same way.
^^ So Parsons waves are at least 50% bigger - another 20ft+ - than Bradshaw's wave? And Macnamara's is more than twice as big? Can't see that myself. Not even when I squint.
@Black Duck,
Yep, I've been curious about the uppermost limit of wind-created waves. Going on the 'traditional' surfers measurement (i.e the one used to measure Bradshaw's wave) I've seen nothing approaching 100 foot. If it were to happen it'd need unusual circumstances, as you say. Rogue waves are likely to reach that height, but they can't be predicted. I recently read Susan Casey's book, The Wave, hoping to gain more knowledge about large waves but by the end of it I was actually dumber. Don't bother with that one...
@Saltmotion,
Yep, that's 20 foot. Got the number for the Billabong XXL crew?
Fark, I've just had a look at the vidoe footage.
90 foot, not even at its most generous point, from trough to tip, just measuring wave face without the halving it and taking off a bit.
Wave face possibly 50 foot, possibly, making it a 25 foot wave, or based on my theory that you stop halving it at some point, it's getting close to 50. No way 90 foot. Earlier comments stand, Bradshaw's is still looking mighty good, the Cortes Banks ones are just unfathomable, usually because of the wave in front restricting the view point, but unlikely to be any bigger. Benski makes a reasonable point, but no way does Bradshaw's 40 foot wave get doubled and more by MacNamara's.
Fuck I don't know, huge wave, but let's call this wave height thing BS, and admit that there is a point where halving the wave face height ceases to operate.
I agree with you stu re McNamara's wave. I can't tell cos of the wave in front but also it's clearly not 40 foot on Bradshaw's. But yeah, I reckon Parsons' second one is probably 20 foot on Bradshaw's.
Anyway, shits and giggles eh, this weekend I'll probably go paddle into the cold crumbly 3 foot, 6 foot face, head high surf around here and by Monday it'll be solid 8 ft plus in my mind.
My prediction for 2012:
Someone will ride a 100ft wave. They really, really will. It'll say it in the headline and that headline will be read all around the world from Sydney to St Louis. The surfer will receive a huge sponsor bonus, leverage the fame for further non-endemic sponsors, and do the rounds of morning television.
Lesson learnt? It's not how big it is it's how big you say it is.
I measure the first wave as around 60ft ( Ken Bradshaw called it 40ft to be proportional to waimaea “surfer†measurements)
I measure the next 3 waves as between 70 and 90ft ( 12 to 15 times overhead)
The sizing’s appear to be in the right order. I measure the last wave as 15 times overhead ( 10 man-heights above him and 5 below him) = 90ft
The big wave contest guys are measuring from peak to trough. Note that you need to allow a few man-heights below the surfers position, because they generally don’t get all the way to the flats on such a wave.
These measurements are obviously not aligned with “surf-culture†measurements as used by Ken Bradshaw in photo 1. Such measurements are not actually measurements at all, rather proportional qualitative judgements of size based on culturally accepted norms in the surf culture ( i.e. a 4 ft wave is roughly head high, a 10 ft wave is 3-4 time overhead and so on). In this system the number is not actually a number rather a name which other surfers understand the meaning of by experience.
The confusion comes from the culture clash of surf and non-surf culture. Personally I agree with the big wave judges call and welcome a standardisation of wave measurements, such thata 6 ft wave actually measures 6ft from peak to trough!
Take for example my profile picture, If I am crouched down into a position where I measure 4ft from head to toe and the wave I am riding is easily 3 times my height, then the wave is 12ft. yeh? But you would never get away with calling this wave 12 ft amongst other surfers. A wave like this would generally be in the 6 ft range, why? just because.
Bonadoochi makes a good point about the heights surfers attributing waves not actually bearing any resemblance to actual height. However, I can't see how wave 4 is any bigger than 3. No way it's 90 ft.
Bradshaw's looks a lot smaller than the others to my eyes as well.
bonadoochi, most pro/experienced surfers would call that wave of yours 4 ft. Ridiculous.
Peabo / Bonadoochi ,
the profile picture your talking about is obviously a reef break . am I right ?
It's barreling Top to bottom or close enough , and no doubt the trough is more than likely below sea level ....
Now apart from parsons second wave in 2008 , and to a lesser extent Bradshaw , the others are only breaking in the top third of the wave . hence there is little suck out / drawn up ( bathymetric amplitude of or effect of said waves . )
Not that i'm down playing your hands free backside attack , but your 4 footer looks pretty sweet . ;-) !!
So as i see it , its not over 8 ft on a barrelling wave till you can stand in the pit and reach for the sky , and still not touch the roof ....
And as for seeing a constant swell over 40 ft ( open ocean ) , I'm very sceptical ..... So everyone should drop the 100 ft dream , and start doin' it for the right reasons ...... Exactly why you don't see or hear blokes like Jaimie Stirling or Mark Healey talkin size very often ...... if at all .....
Oh as an added bonus stop measuring waves that aren't paddled into , other wise I'm gonna start measuring the next avalanche i ride clear of on my snow board after being towed in by my mate on our Snowmobile .....
Paddle power .....
Back in the 90's when youth was on my side a couple of friends and I would spend two months each year in Hawaii surfing pretty much everything. Our biggest boards would be around the 10' mark, this was pre tow in of course. It is interesting to me, upon reflection the increments of size we would measure the different swells. 15 foot surf was a completely different beast to 18 foot surf. The jump then from 18 foot to 20 foot was equally huge. It's just 2 foot bigger right? Well, no, the ocean behaves completely differently at 20 foot than at 18 foot. This was about the biggest surf I ever rode and apart from some quite rare days once every three or four years the biggest outer reef waves there were available. 20 foot+ was attempted by mates one year after I had gone home but one surfer drowned that day and the rest got washed in. 25 foot was a really huge swell, those days definitely happened, but it's another league altogether and I have to agree with Bradshaw's opinions of 30 foot waves. 40 foot seemed unfathomable actually. Tow in's certainly changed everything but the swells haven't really changed as far as I can tell. A 100 foot wave? In my opinion, a fantasy, an exaggeration, improbable, except perhaps in the open ocean where riding one would be challenging to say the least.
Bonadoochi you are a legend. I love a man who is comfortable enough in his own skin to call a spade a spade. The 90ft call on Garrett's wave is pretty close. Calling a wave in the traditional fashion stems from the same human insecurities that make a man call 6 inches 10. A need to imprint an image he is larger than life. Can everyone please get over themselves and call waves in actual measurable increments. I get the whole surfing is an art thing, and perhaps that's also where this mythology has stemmed from. But surfing is more about nature, and that's where science needs us to call a wave as it is. The wave will still garner just as much awe and respect, despite what scale we use. One thing though Bonadoochi, I see your profile pic at around 9ft. And Stu, can u keep this topic rolling in future? It's one part of surfing that needs to progress.
9ft?
Shoredump, surely you know that 7ft, 9ft, 11ft don't exist in the wave height judging scale.
All respect to the guys that take on waves of this size. But no matter how many times and how many different pics and video I look at, and get the ruler out, even on the big screen TV, there is no way that wave is anywhere near 90'. Unless he is 3.5m tall.
shoredump ,
I think the more people get exposed to constant solid swell conditions , the more benign they are to react or have sensoryt overload in those conditions , hence some people tend to dis' others when they say that wave was 3.15M or whatever ......
It just soem people feeling they need respect to say that they are comfortable enough in those conditions rather than feeling they had to justify the importance and size of apparent swell or single wave .
As A.M.O said , the exponential effect of swells influence on currents and water movement isn't expressed on a computer screen and scaling with a ruler . And generally , most places that regularly receive the larger swells tend to handle those swells better as the natural gutters have been forged over very long periods . And just like those ocean floors the locals tend give little reaction to anything unless it starts maxing out their area ...
Now this all goes out the window if someone is trying to make a living out of sensationalising things .......
even though ive been indoctrinated to call a wave half its actual height i agree with bonnadoochi, peabo,shoredump, what is more obvious than calling a waves size the vertical distance from the flats in front of the wave to the lip? seems like a head high(6 ft face) wave can be any thing from 2 to 6 ft depending on who you talk to. i might have to go to wave undersizers anonymous to kick the habit though!
Calling a waves height does just that, it communicates the waves height to someone. Obviously, as surfers, we all know there's lots going on in the ocean during a surf session and this certainly increases with size. That's where other discriptive terms come into play. The waves speed, thickness, hollowness (or lack of) whether its rippy, peaky, sectioning, how the wind was, how shallow it was etc etc. My point is just call the wave height, the height of the wave. And Craig, your right some measurements like five and half foot, or nine, aren't necessary.
there is a spot in vicco where it holds 20ft possibly more, its rare but it happens, usually breaks about 15ft though, one of those cases where the people who know where it is dont need to be told and the people who dont probably will never find out
Guys ,
Don't forget that it can happen in the other direction . With your classic case of certain people oversizing certain conditions . So if your trying to guage what other places were like on certain days , you get a mixed message .
Photo's and the net seem to circumvent this , but the best places ( uncrowded ) tend not to have camera's and involve a alot of fuel , time and effort to reach .
It's not as though you can guage someone's ability / accuracy in a 30 sec. carpark convo. Understating conditions tends to make you blame yourself if you make the call and drive/walk, scale a cliff to spot x .
So if you invest in that and so an so said it was 6ft and it really is 2ft . Makes my blood boil ,
On the contrary understating and you go expecting mediocrity , and its pumping . so much better .....
Some regions its like playing cards , trying to read people and or gambling on an outcome ......
Coldwater ,
Hold your Tongue ......
Blasphemy ......
Torquay doesn't need the advertising , lol .
Grab a ruler Gentlemen, sit at the bottom of the wave and measure up.! Or grab a 100ft submarine, pop up and surf, and take a photo.
Ah!
The age-old conundrum. Can't tell you how many times I was spanked until I started calling waves by every imaginable measuring theory.
It should be simplified!
Those people that use a transit should be hired for every event and there should be a running bar-graph embedded in every photo/video. - A mandatory government seal must accompany said graph and individual countries could print disclaimers in a (*) footnote stating which college said transit operator graduated from and any affiliations he might have that 'could' bias his/her report.
That should do it!? - OR we should all precede our measurements - "The way I measure waves, is by using the toothpick in my Swiss Army Knife held at arms length."
This is definitely something the United Nations must rule on. America will pay for the study with the daily newly printed dollar.
Im confused, every body form everywhere seems to agree that waist to chest height is 2 to 3 feet. Chest to a couple of feet over head is 4 to five feet. Here is where it gets complicated. Depending where your from, most surfers are reluctent to call waves 6 feet due to the coolness of "undercall". When the surf is finally allowed to be called six feet it stays that way from double to tripple overhead dependinding on how cool you are! After a recent trip to Sumatra I surfed the biggest waves of my life, got back to the boat and my mate from torquay called it 3 to 5 feet. (It was easilly tripple over head with even bigger roags!) I said how can it only be 3 to five feet!! he said it was three to five feet hawiian! Dang another scale to consider!! I challenge you all to call a sesion 8 feet apparently it doesnt exist. I going to throw all my tape measures out as apparently they are crap if your a surfer!!
@hahnsolo
best yet!!! - still laughing
The rebel alliance starts here!
Hahn; working backwards from your story I deduce that you are roughly 2 foot tall! Good effort little dude!
and to stir the pot a little more, It is interesting to note that the same cultural norms that we are discussing generally only apply to the use of imperial measurements (feet), when someone uses metric it seem to be ok to call a double overhead wave 3-4m, rather than 6ft!
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This ... term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit. They have also been described as the "customary rules of behavior that coordinate our interactions with others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_(sociology)
so does that mean triple overhead is 18ft? did you call that surf in sumatra 18ft hahnsolo?imagine the sideways looks and scoffing going on when one bloke calls it 3 to 5 and another calls it 18ft, how embarrassing, fact is the face of the wave probably was 18ft but not many (undercallers or overcallers) would call it that, me included, for fear of being outcast from our social class, heaven forbid.
ps, i'm confused too, hands up who else is confused
pss, i love lamp
waves suck (out)
surfers suck (period)
ego sucks (join club)
call it any size you want (relates to your experience - sucks)
ego (all encompassing) sucks
square one?
We could settle this by taking a leaf from the book of other systems:
eg - rock climbing grades (easy=1, extreme=35) although climbing grades are also ridiculously complicated, with most countries and regions having different grade standards.
Or storm force grades (beaufort scale) which is an internationally recognised system for measuring the intensity of a marine storm, from 0=calm to 12=hurricane.
These scale take into account the various different factors that influence the grading and combine them into a commonly understood grade to simplify things.
The factors affecting surf "grade" could be:
wave height, thickness/period, hollowness, general water movement in the lineup, etc.
It is generally recognised that "6 foot" surf is a totally different ocean state to "8 foot" surf. The names take into acount the different factors.
When we give a descirption of the surf, we also use descriptive words like "solid", "barrelling", "soft" , "heaving", "wedging", "sucking", "dredging" and "rolling" to help communicate our assesment of the wave state.
The problem there is that all of those factors change on an hourly basis.
Rock climbing grades work because apart from weather factors (ice, rain etc), the fundamental basis for each pitch will never change.
And on the topic of a 100ft wave:
On February 8 2000, the research vessel RSS Discovery measured a series of waves in the Atlantic Ocean,150 miles west of scotland with a maximum height of 29.1m (95ft). - http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,408953,00.html
There is also some evidence for open ocean waves over 100ft - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
It would seem possible for a wave bigger than 100ft to be produced and possibly ridden. When it happens we can check the photos and argue about the "measurement"!
Scott Bass, on his Down The Line radio show, interviews XXL founder Bill Sharp about Garrett's '90ft' wave. Sharp diplomatically disagrees with Garrett's size call.
Listen to the show here: http://media.ccomrcdn.com/media/station_content/5629/DTL_11-20__13218097...
Interview starts at 23:00 minutes.
Garrett's wave has just been entered into the Guinness World Record book as 78ft, a bit under the 90t claim.
Still it has taken the record off Mike Parsons with his 70ft bomb at Cortes Bank.
Actually, Mike's wave at Cortes was measured as being 77ft (and was the previous world record).
Garrett's wave at Nazaré was therefore measured as being 30cm higher than Mike's.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/monster-waves-blamed-for-shipping-disaste...
Wasn't too sure where to put this in the swellnet lineup but an interesting article today in SMH about rogue waves and referring to Super Rogues where waves 11x the sea state.
Yeah read that article Mick - very interesting.