SUERFING USA NEWS

 

News about Surfing USA

Surf News

Headlines and Top Stories

What to do when you fall into water with your clothes on

Throughout our lives, we're exposed to many situations involving large bodies of water. They can be as vast as the ocean or as small as a home pool, well, or tank.

Italian surfer dies in tragic needlefish accident in Indonesia

In a heartbreaking and rare incident, Italian surfer and coach Giulia Manfrini, 36, lost her life after being impaled by a needlefish while surfing in Indonesia.

Swatch Nines is making surf-and-skate fun again

Over 30 surfers, skaters, and BMX riders participated in the inaugural Swatch Nines Surf in Waco, Texas.

How surfers can manage face hyperpigmentation

Surfers are among the social groups that spend more time under the sun. Whether they're just checking the waves, surfing, or chilling at the beach,  their sunlight exposure is above average.

Prince Harry goes surfing at the Surf Ranch wave pool

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has become the first British royal-blooded to ride the Surf Ranch wave pool in Lemoore, California.

'Shaped by Michael Diffenderfer': the story of a very unique 1970s surfboard

I showed up on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, in September 1987. To be exact, on September 3.

Surfing is a rich sport when it comes to terms, names, expressions, and technical words. Surfer slang and surfer lingo represent an authentic dictionary of surfing words.

  The surfing glossary of terms is a complete list of expressions used by surfers in the waves, at the beach, and outside in the real world. Some of these words have grown in popularity and became widely-used daily expressions.

 Surf speak is a vibrant reality, and can be truly entertaining. Many times, surfer slang represents the good and bad of the so-called surf culture. But the truth is that the surfing terminology keeps evolving and adding new jargon to its dictionary pages.
 
Discover the vocabulary of surfing and learn new words:CLICK HERE

Beach Boys Concert in Florida

Space leads the new surf forecasting revolution

A new technology promises a revolution in the wave forecasting methods and models. Measuring swell from space, in real-time, is the next big thing.

Winter Storm Hercules has proved, once again, that the power of the ocean can't be tamed. If we must predict extraordinary natural events, why don't we do it from space?
The European GNSS-R Environment Monitoring, an European scientific joint-venture led by Deimos Engenharia, is a technology using radio signals from satellite navigation systems to monitor sea state.

Attitude is Everything

Surfing is a surface water sport in which the wave rider, referred to as a "surfer", rides on the forward face of a moving wave which is usually carrying the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable for surfing are primarily found in the ocean, but can also be found in lakes or in rivers in the form of a standing wave or tidal bore. However, surfers can also utilize man-made waves such as those from boat wakes and the waves created in artificial wave pools.

The term "surfing" refers to the act of riding a wave, regardless of whether the wave is ridden with a board or without a board, and regardless of the stance used. For instance, the native peoples of the Pacific surfed waves on alaia, paipo, and other such crafts, and did so on their bellies, knees, and feet. However, the modern day definition of surfing most often refers to a surfer riding a wave standing up on a surfboard, and this is also referred to as stand-up surfing. One variety of stand-up surfing is paddleboarding. Another prominent form of surfing in the ocean today is bodyboarding, when a surfer rides a wave either on the belly, dropknee, or sometimes standing-up on a bodyboard. Other types of surfing include knee boarding, surfmatting (riding inflatable mats), foils. Bodysurfing, where the wave is surfed without a board, using the surfer's own body to catch and ride the wave, is very common and is considered by some to be the purest form of surfing.

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Origins and History of Surfing

For centuries surfing was a central part of ancient Polynesian culture. Surfing might have been first observed by Europeans at Tahiti in 1767 by Samuel Wallis and the crew members of the Dolphin who were the first Europeans to visit the island in June 1767. Another candidate is the botanist Joseph Banks being part of the first voyage of James Cook on the HMS Endeavour, who arrived on 10 April 1769 on Tahiti. Lieutenant James King was the first one who wrote about the art of surfing on Hawaii when completing the journals of Captain James Cook upon Cook's death in 1779.
When Mark Twain visited Hawaii in 1866 he wrote,

In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing.

References to surf riding on planks and single canoe hulls are also verified for pre-contact Samoa, where surfing was called fa'ase'e or se'egalu (see Augustin Krämer, The Samoa Islands) and Tonga far pre-dating the practice of surfing by Hawaiians and eastern Polynesians by over a thousand years.
George Freeth (November 8, 1883 – April 7, 1919) is often credited as being the "Father of Modern Surfing". He is also thought to have been the first modern surfer.
In 1907, the eclectic interests of land baron Henry Huntington brought the ancient art of surfing to the California coast. While on vacation, Huntington had seen Hawaiian boys surfing the island waves. Looking for a way to entice visitors to the area of Redondo Beach, where he had heavily invested in real estate, he hired a young Hawaiian riding surfboards. Freeth decided to revive the art of surfing, but had little success with the huge 16-foot hardwood boards that were popular at that time. When he cut them in half to make them more manageable, he unwittingly created the original “Longboard", which made him the talk of the islands. To the delight of visitors, Freeth exhibited his surfing prowess twice a day in front of the Hotel Redondo.

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