![]() A beginning surfer Not a term of endearment. “Kook” – “There are too many kooks out here”. You could also say “maxxed out”, “double (or triple) overhead”, “cranking”, “outta hand”, or how about just “big”. “Macking” – “Newport Beach was MACKING yesterday.” = huge waves. “Frothing” – “I checked the waves this morning, and it was so good I was frothing.” “Frothing” is the new “stoked” – when a surfer is excited. (Not usually desirable for beginning surfers) It means when a wave opens up and breaks hard, top-to-bottom, “gnarly”, allowing room for a surfer to maneuver through. “Tubular” – “Dude, nobody’s said ‘tubular’ since the 1980’s.” So yes, it’s not new, and more commonly now called “barreling” or “hollow” or “pitching”. A swell is usually coming from a particular direction, and is labeled a “south swell”, a “west swell”, or just “a big south”. It means a wave event, or a series of days when there will be waves. “Swell” – “There’s a good swell this weekend.” We confuse more people with this simple term. In Hawaii, the famous Banzai Pipeline (our namesake □ is a left. So, when seen from shore, a left peels across the beach towards your right. “Left” or “Right” – “Wow, that’s a nice left.” This term refers to the direction that a wave will peel (or is breaking), from the surfer’s perspective. Closeouts are the least desirable waves for surfing. “Closeout” – “The whole place was wally and closed-out.” A closeout is when the whole wave (or ‘wall’) breaks at once, leaving no place for a surfer to slide across the open/unbroken wave face. (Most large land masses – ie USA, Mexico, UK – will have onshore winds in the afternoon, as the land heats up) “Offshore” winds blow off the shore into the waves, holding them open for better ‘barrels’. “Onshore/Offshore” – “This morning there were ‘nuggets’, but it’s onshore now.” We’re talking about the WIND here Onshore means it’s blowing ‘onto the shore’, making the waves mushy and crumbly, not usually desirable. If you’re in the water and hear someone say ‘outside’, that means big waves are coming Move further out, … quickly. ![]() “Outside” or “Out the Back” – “Dude, the outside break is going off.” This means the farthest break from the beach, or “outside” of the breaking waves where the (supposedly) more experienced surfers are sitting. This is where you think you might be safe from the waves, but instead you get your clock cleaned by big waves because, in fact, It’s better to be sitting outside where the wave won’t break, and then laugh at your friends who didn’t know that. However, on bigger days, there is an area just inside called “the impact zone”. This is the area closer to the beach where smaller waves are breaking. You could also say, it’s “off the richter”, “cranking”, “macking” or “epic”. ![]() “Going off” – “Dude, Brookhurst is going OFF!” This means the waves are good. This should help you translate things your instructor says. Here’s a list of some of our newer favorites. Most of us know the old-school terms like ‘wipeout’ and ‘cowabunga’. Surfing carries a long tradition of slang terms. ![]()
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