Surfing in Interesting Climes: Cold
W inter surfing made eas-- uh, tolerable.
My methodology of winter surfing, including gear, technique, and attitude.
Surf
Skate
History
Home
Revised for Winter-Spring '07
You might meet some friends strolling on the boardwalk
Photos by J. Scott Klossner
Photo log of a surf session on January 20, 2002
Other photo credits noted
Before I go into my techniques, philosophies, and list of gear that I use for winter surfing, I will begin with a quick list of winter surfing tips. This is for people who might be browsing this page and may get bored before they read all the way to the bottom. These are some important tips, any one of which may prevent hypothermia and spare you a bad injury or scare from winter surfing. In any case, they will make you a lot more comfortable. These tips will be explained in detail in the article.
Quick guide: winter surf tips
Changeover clothes and gear
- #1, and most important. Avoid cotton. Use only synthetics. This means everything, including underwear.
- Bring two pairs each of gloves and socks. Put the socks on after taking off your booties, but before taking off your wetsuit. Pull the wetsuit off over the socks. Then change the socks when fully dressed and dry. Same goes for gloves.
- Use a large towel plus small foot blanket.
Surfing gear
- Wetsuit must be snug.
- Use a face mask.
- Use lobster claw gloves.
- Use a bigger board to stay higher in the water. That means, shortboarders, get a funboard. Longboarders, go up a foot.
Surf days and weather
- Favor dawn and eve patrol less. Hit the late morning to afternoon.
- Chase smaller days.
- Favor more low pressure, less high pressure.
Winter surfing tips: detailed guide
We shot these pics during the winter of 01-02, which was much warmer than the winter of 00-01. An unusually warm winter is a good time for some of you surfers who usually quit after Thanksgiving to give winter surfing a shot. When winter becomes unusually cold in other years, you'll be prepared.
The philosophy I bring to winter surfing is to be perfectly comfortable and get in some surfing while most of the gang is gone. I've experimented with different techniques and gear, always with the idea in mind of having an enjoyable surf session in tough conditions. I find that this goal can be accomplished with a little organization and a committment to sticking to a routine. This routine must be more rigid than summer surfing, where you just grab some trunks and wax and wing it.
What you, the reader, might get out of this
I mean these pages to serve as tips to other surfers, or other people who do outdoor sports in the winter. It's not meant as a journal of extreme travel, meant to impress and thrill you. If you're looking for that, there is a whole body of literature devoted to freezing and dying outdoorsmen. I highly recommend the books by climbers Rheinhold Messner and Joe Simpson. For many techniques and accounts read Shackleton's book Endurance.
A blanket helps in the snow
By looking at the winter surfing pictures on this site you can see that I have, however, endured some cold or even frigid conditions, so it may seem extreme. You may also notice that I look comfortable in these pictures and there may be signs that I am enjoying myself. I want you to have similar experiences. What you don't see in the pictures is all the preparation I put in to doing this, and the attention to detail that I pay to putting on and taking off gear. Having the right gear and having back up gear as well is the key to safety. I hope to convey to you in this article the extra things that I do to make winter surfing not only possible, but quite easy and enjoyable.
Winter surfing Philosophy 101
There are some surfers who charge the same conditions they would in the fall, looking for barrels and mackers. Perhaps they can construct their own websites when their hands have thawed. That's not how I approach winter surfing. I change a lot of things for winter surf, not just the thickness of my wetsuit.
The way I feel about winter surfing relates to my approach to sports in general. I believe sports are like an art, something you do day in and day out, not seasonally, if possible. Like art, it has to do with working out problems and practicing your craft as you remain alert for inspiration. If it's off season you don't wait or pretend it's good conditions, you adjust your technique to fit. That makes sports more like work in a way, but I find I get more out of it if I just plug away in a routine manner, taking good times and bad. The search for the perfect wave is a different surfing philosophy, one that I think is overemphasized. My approach is more about adapting than seeking.
Organization is the key to winter surfing comfort
Winter surfing should be exercise, not an exercise in self abuse. The winter is a good time to try to take a different attitude toward surfing. It doesn't have to be anything specific, but it helps to take a different tack. I can provide some guidelines, but the choice is up to the individual.
The reason for this change in attitude is that winter surfing is such a compromise that if you treat it like summer surfing you're going to have a miserable time and you won't perform well. You first have to realize that you are going to be constrained by a lot of factors; the short day, the extra gear, the weather, the water temperature, and on and on. It's important to adjust your goals, or throw all goals out the window, and just go winter surfing for the challenge and beauty it brings.
What sort of maneuvers to do in the cold
At times, I use the winter to practice some maneuvers that might come in handy when conditions are better. It's the perfect time to develop your surfing skills without a bunch of hotdogs dominating your favorite spot and crowding every wave. Since winter surf may be less than perfect, a maneuver that is very compact is a good thing to work on. For example, instead of nose riding, which requires a good quality wall, I might work on a quick cross step up and back, not worrying as much about making the section.
Instead of trying to get a long ride, I might try to really stick a sequence of three turns; the bottom turn, cutback, and rebound. This combination can be practiced on a small closeout section. I practice twisting out of one turn right into the next. The twisting movement of linking turns is great for keeping warm.
Some times, thinking about maneuvers is pointless. It's too cold, the wax is slick, I'm just hanging on with my feet. At this frustrating time I will practice mental clarity, blocking out as much thought as possible and enjoying the moment. I listen to the noises of the water, which usually are all you hear, except for few birds, as all human beings are absent. I pick one pitch in the sound of the water or wind and lock in on it. Or I listen to my breathing. With a winter hood, the sound of breathing can be very loud in my ears, merging with the sounds of the ocean. Winter surfing is lonely, and very spiritual. It's really not about surfing tricks and moves.
How to pick a day
Start with smaller
I don't view surf in the same way in the winter. I don't see overhead surf and barrels as necessarily a plus when the water is 38 degrees. Some surfers go for this stuff in winter, and their faces usually look purple and they look pretty worked when they get out. I look for a wave under head high, unless it's at a point or some place I can avoid the impact zone. Taking breakers on the head as you're paddling out, or duck diving through ten lines of whitewater, are things you can leave for hurricane season next fall.
Give low pressure a chance
The day low pressure is approaching becomes much more appealing during the winter. The reason is temperature. In the warm season I might avoid this day because for those of us on the south-facing beaches of Long Island, the wind will surely not be offshore. In the winter it's more attractive because this day will be warmer than in subsequent days, when the cold front passes and high pressure sets in.
Conditions I might find tolerable as a low approaches would be light onshore or side shore winds, and some swell that's not real clean, but not too hacked up.
On the other side of the low pressure system, after the cold front passes leading to high pressure, I probably again would avoid the time which would be most desirable in regular season surfing. I would not take on the session right after the cold front when the wind shifts to offshore and there's still plenty of swell left. This time will face you with maximum wind chill. The waves will also jack up more and smack down harder, leading to ice cream headaches.
If the timing is perfect, the cold front will pass in the evening, and by the time day comes around, the wind will have let up a bit and the leftovers will be perfect for winter. Otherwise I would take the leftovers the next day, missing good surf but getting less brutal and still rideable longboard conditions.
Adjusting gloves. Details, details.
You can take more cold, size, and high pressure conditions if the wave is very makeable. If you can get to the shoulder and cut back, you can surf much of your session without getting in the water. At the beach breaks where I often surf, the waves are not very makeable. Smaller waves are called for.
What time of day?
While dawn patrol is still ok, a late afternoon session is the one you want to pass on. As the sun sets, whatever pathetic heat there is will radiate off the beach and it'll be freezing when you get out. Unless you can run to a friend's house, forget it.
I like late morning or early afternoon. Then I can change when the sun is at its peak.
Should you just go or wait?
Wait. Wait for the right day. Wait until the tide you prefer comes in the middle of the day, about 1:00PM, and it will be the warmest part of the day.
Try to get decent wind, decent waves, a reasonable tide, and compromise all of them for a tolerable air temperature.
The discipline to ignore good waves
The whole obscession with getting the right tide, the right swell, the right wind, I pretty much recommend letting that mentality go for now. Save that attitude for warm season. It's really another kind of discipline, forcing yourself to forego what you have come to accept as good waves or good surfing weather. It opens your mind a bit to let that fixation on "good surf" pass.
Leashing up, psyched to hit it
Nobody's around to watch your terrific winter frontside air anyway. It doesn't matter. You should be enjoying being outside while everyone else is cowering in their homes. Ironically, they'll be the ones to catch cold. You don't catch colds from catching cold waves, you catch 'em from being cooped up with people.
I wonder what the birds think of all this
