Surfing's sound barrier smashed!
Aside from the all the fighter pilot downplaying bullshit that surfing has suffered when it comes to wave size calls since the beginning of time, let’s do the surfer science together.
We’ll start by throwing out the Hawaiian scale, the biggest offender, and get down to the reality of the size of the waves we are riding once and for all.
(I mean really, three-to-four-foot Sunset? Spare me),
Look at this photo of North Carolina’s Mason Barnes at Nazaré.
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I mean…Good God. Look at this photo.
Here is the new global formula:
Mason Barnes is 6’2” inches tall.
In his crouch on this wave he is 5’ 5” inches tall.
Surfers surf the faces of waves from crest to trough.
That is irrefutable. So that is what we will measure.
From crest to trough the face of this wave measures 23 units of Mason’s crouching height of 5’5” inches.
23 X 5’5” = 126.5 feet.
Therefore in a surfers reality, since we surf from crest to trough, since this is our actual measurable playing field, this wave is 126.5 feet tall.
And Mason is riding it successfully.
And even if we knock off a cool 25 feet for those loyal to the time-honored yet downright ridiculous approximations of the current wave height calls, this wave still comes in at over 101.5 feet.
And mind you, this unit of measurement is nothing new.
Doesn’t anyone remember the Billabong XXL?
Where the biggest wave went for a thousand bucks a foot?
This was the measurement system that was used. It is laughable that it was ignored immediately after the checks were divvied out.
Go…uh…figure?
Ok…so your loyal to the old code? I get it. It’s sad, but I get it.
But keep in mind the fact that when Kelly Slater, who is 5’8” in heels, nabs a stand up barrel at Pipeline, it’s not a six-foot wave. It’s a fifteen-foot wave.
And when you surf your local beachbreak, and you are six feet tall and while standing erect in the trough of the wave the top of the wave comes to your hairline…you are surfing a six-foot wave, not a two-foot mushburger.
So if we ever want our sport to be taken seriously…no…wait…if we ever want to take ourselves seriously, we are going to have to stop the lies.
And for those of you gritting your teeth at all this?
If you just aren’t up to taking the true measure of the actual size of the waves we surf?
Send your photos to me…I’ll do it.
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