How Fast is Your Board?

[Beasho]

Surfers talk about how fast their L41's or Pintails can go vs. Squash and Zippy Fish designs.

Having recently bought a TRACEUP Surf GPS tracker there is NOW an objective way to report how fast that board or wave really was.

What I have discovered is that a slow wave is ~ 12 mph.  Small beach breaks can get up to 15 or 17 mph.  20 mph on a beach break wave is pretty fast. 

When waves get serious, e.g. bigger than 10 feet, the speeds get up to 26 or 27 mph. 

Really big waves, with long period open ocean swell can push you beyond 30 mph.

How fast are you going? 

Here is a small Beach Break 3 - 4 feet riding my 12 foot Gun just Cruising MAX 14.3 MPH

[Beasho]

Here is a slightly faster day further down the beach at a zippy break.

Waves 4 - 7 feet.  10 ft Board.  MAX 21 MPH

[Beasho]

Mavericks wave.  12 foot gun (same from 1st video) MAX 30.1 MPH

This was a surprise.  It felt much faster.  I am the invisible collection of 4 pixels making the wake.

PS: This was a special day.  I think everyone was stuck in Puerto Escondido.  I paddled out to check it out.  100% alone.  Wow!

Conditions were clean so I just . . . caught a wave.  Then I got clipped by an outside set.  Still 100% alone.  My leash stretched 50+ feet but fortunately it did not break, and I ended up all in 1 piece.  Then a guy named Benny paddled out from Nicaragua.  I caught 3 more waves and he caught one before I paddled in for a conference call. 

[Beasho]

My fastest wave to date.  MAX 32.7 mph.

This was NOT at Mavericks but a macking, angry 18 footer that had my full attention and then tried to drown me.  It followed up with 3 subsequent beatings by mutant step brothers.

10 foot board (same as on beach break above).  I knew the ride was fast, the TRACE confirmed it.

[supthecreek]

Cool Beasho..... good stuff, this should be an interesting thread!

My board did 85 last week..... but was slower when I got to the break.
Not sure if I care how fast I am.... but I am interested to see the figures!

[jumpfrom13k]

My friend has a Ripcurl GPS watch and he says that the speed really depends on the type of the wave not the board.

You might "feel" faster using certain boards due to the bottom shape/fin set up/ect but the real speed of the board is determined by the wave.

I don't have any fancy GPS stuff, so I'll take his word for it.

[surfercook]

Beasho the Speed Bandit! That thing is cool! Speed checked by radar! This is your warning! 

[OUTSIDEWAVE]

That looks very cool where did you find it and is it hard to set up? 

[OUTSIDEWAVE]

what would be very interesting to do is to take say three boards out  1 at a time  on the same day in the same session  surf them see what you get in the same place.  Did the wave speed vary   form one set to another?   is there a bug difference in speed from the fasted biggest  wave in a set to smaller waves> Then try  switching the boards same waves different sets slightly differ times and tides..  what happens?  and as final  test use one board.  change the fin set up  see what happens.  I gotta get me one these!!!

[yugi]

How would the Trace work on a downwind? Would it recognize glides and give speeds?

[Beasho]

The device can be found here: http://www.traceup.com/

Although I needed one quickly for the SUP paddle speed project so I found one at the local surf shop.

How would the Trace work on a downwind? Would it recognize glides and give speeds?

The first post shows the results from a mellow 3 - 4 foot beach break.  The SLOWEST MAX speed recorded that day, Dec 27th, was 7.9 mph.  What this means is that the app gets triggered to show a wave when speed exceeds 8 mph.   Since your glides are faster than this it SHOULD trigger a wave count.  You could then see how far you were riding the swell waves, which would be very cool.  I am not sure if it bugs out when you depart and return to different locations.

My longest ride to date has been 458 yards

[surfercook]

The synced GoPro editing feature is SWEET! Stats overlay too! Looks like it would work w/beach pov from a SOLOSHOT too. But I don't know why the dude in the unedited video is not shuttering his cam on/off in between rides, especially on a shortboard. I trigger on/off on longboard AND sup and it ain't no easy feat (which I'm pretty sure you're aware of).
Your demo vid made me lol! You were ampin'! I'd like to see a full edit w/some of your big wave surfing!
I def don't need another tech gadget but this thing has my attention! $199 seems worth it...I think?

http://www.traceup.com/videos

[PonoBill]

I think most people just let it run and edit afterwards. I sure don't want to miss a wave screwing with my camera. The theoretical benefit of Trace is that you don't have to edit afterwards, it does it for you. It's very close to working properly, I think all it needs is some software dev.

[surfercook]

I think most people just let it run and edit afterwards. I sure don't want to miss a wave screwing with my camera.

It def takes a certain skill set to trigger proper. On sup it's more of a set it and forget it but I always shutter off after a ride. Then shutter back on once returned to lineup. On longboard it's a bit easier and it helps to trigger in the rhythm/cadence of your paddling. On my 6'6" fish prone board it's REALLY easy to do.

[GOTWAVZ]

I got 24.1 MPH with my ripcurl gps watch in 2 foot overhead in HB beach break, though that was fast but not compared with the Mavericks speed bandit BEASHoooooooo!!!