Surfspot

A surfspot is a place where waves are especially suited to surfing. This often means an organized repeatable pattern to how waves at a surfspot break as well as a consistent size and shape.

The first important concept useful in understanding how surfspots work is that waves move slower in shallower water. This leads to a principle called refraction where the energy of a wave can either be spread out or focused depending on the contours and variations in depth of the ocean bottom. This is very similar to how lens can modify a beam of light. Whether it is underwater canyons like Blacks or cobblestone peninsulas like Lower Trestles, good surfspots can focus the energy of a wave by refraction. Also as Rincon repeatedly demonstrates, refraction can also change the direction of waves making a spot less sensitive to the direction of the swell.

Another important concept in the physics of waves is resonance. Resonance is simply the phenomenon by which objects that are roughly the same size as the wavelength of the wave strongly interact with it. Objects that are much smaller or larger than the wavelength do not SEE the wave. A wine glass can break from a musical note because the size of the glass is similar to the wavelength of the note and it resonates. For surfspots, the idea of being the “same size” is a little vague. A hand waving argument would say that all “coastal features” (including the shape of the coastline or the contour or depth of the ocean bottom) are able to interact with the wavelength (somewhere around 1000 ft) of the incoming swell.

On the other hand, a good surfspot is also versatile: it breaks on more than one wavelength. Lower trestles, for example, is as perfect of a wave as you can get for everything from knee high to double overhead. One way to explain this is that the structure and the coastal contours can adjust for different swell size and direction because these contours gradually vary. As the waves get bigger and the wavelength increases, the waves start to feel the ocean bottom further out.

As far as I see it, these are the most basic ideas required to think about surfspots. But there are many more including sediment transport, currents and more subtle features of the water interacting with the ocean bottom. Due to all of these factors that influence the characteristics of a surfspot, building artificial reefs that are surfable remains a great challenge. In this very new field, we have a lot left to learn.

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