Urban Surf

Waves are among the most familiar features in the ocean. Ocean waves transport energy over vast distances, although the water itself does not move, except up and down. There are waves of all sizes and shapes rolling into the beach at any given time. If they’re not stopped by anything, waves can travel across entire ocean basins and so the waves at your beach might be from a storm half a world away. The most familiar ocean waves are caused by the wind. These are wind-driven waves.

1.      Shore Dump - A shore dump wave is a kind of wave where the waves shape up steeply before breaking powerfully in shallow water next to the shore. Shore dump waves are a common cause of broken limbs and back injuries.

2.      Spilling Waves - Best waves for body surfing.

3.      Surging Waves - Surfing waves never break. They are dangerous to young/infant swimmers as they can knock them off their feet and wash them out to deep water.

On the surfer zone, wave is their live. As the surfer, one think must be now of the waves is how the wave breaks. Surfer must be knowing the best waves for surf, it’s usefull for the surfer when they catch the wave, and drive their board on the wave. Now we will explain how the waves breaks.

Some of the waves energy is lost through contact with the sea floor. This process is called shoaling and results in an increasing wave height. The steeper the sea floor gradient the more pronounced the wave height increase. As the wave moves into increasingly shallow water the bottom of the wave decreases speed. There comes a point where the top of the wave overtakes it and starts to spill forward - the wave starts to break. We're surfing! In general a wave will start to break when it reaches a water depth of 1.3 times the wave height. On the surfer, there are 3 types for waves break.