Surfing

Surfing is riding on waves of water. The ways to enjoy surfing are many. Surf boarding is the oldest and most traditional way. With surf boarding you are standing on top of the board. But if you sit down you are wave surfing. A closely related sport is kayak surfing where you are surfing sitting down inside a kayak. With wave surfing and kayak surfing you can use a paddle to help you into the waves. If you lay down on your stomach on the surf board, you are body surfing.

These types of surfing are primarily done on the ocean coast. The best waves are generated on the ocean coasts, and the storms that generate them are usually a few days away. It is possible to do surfing on lakes although the quality of the waves are much less, and the storms that generate the waves are much nearer. For lake surfing, the Great Lakesare the place to be, although any lake with big waves could do the trick. Big waves require a long reach, the further the wind can blow across the lake the better.

But big waves are a luxury. Not everybody lives near the ocean or a big lake. The power of the wind can be used to enhance surfing. With windsurfing your surf board has a sail. The additional power created by the sail gives a ride extra speed and allows entry into faster waves. Windsurfing provides more flexibility than traditional surf boarding. A wind surfer use many positions in addition to standing up, like sitting down. More exciting than windsurfing is a relatively new sport kite surfing. With kite surfing you are strapped into a board like a snowboarder and use a power kite to propel you forward. Kite surfing is a mixture of four different sports -- windsurfing, wakeboarding, paragliding and kite flying, making it a versatile exciting sport.

A low cost form of surfing is skimboarding. Skimboarding is done near the shore in shallow water. Skimboarding is an excellent activity for traditional surf boarders who do not currently have good wave conditions.

Rivers can be harnessed for surfing too. River surfing requires a surf board that is tied to trees on the river's banks. A river surfer rides a single standing permanent wave on the river and does all sorts of tricks.

For the rich, a surfboard can be powered. A powered surfboard allows access to very fast waves such as boat wakes. Powered surfboarding is an alternative to surfing and jet skis.

Surf Boarding

A sub sport of surf boarding are tow-in surfing aka extreme surfing. A surfer in towed into a big wave via a PWC (Personal water craft). The surfer drops the toe and surfs the wave. The waves caught in this form of extreme surfing are over 15 feet high. The highest wave ever surfed was 55 feet high (in Hawaii).

http://www.vorticity.org/alt.surfing/faqs/alt.surfing.faq.html Surfing FAQ
http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/exhibits/rice/captions/wave.html Ocean wave heights
http://www.coffeetimes.com/surf.htm History of Surfing
http://www.lakesurf.com/ Great Lakes surfing website
http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/trobinso/physicspages/po2000/jenks/contents.htm Physics of Waves
http://www.hepl.harvard.edu/~physics15c/Textbook/physics_of_waves.html Physics of Waves book
http://www.extreme70mmfilm.com/surfing.html IMAX Film, Extreme Sports (including extreme surfing)
http://www.towsurfer.com/index.asp Tow-in extreme surfing
http://www.alohafriends.com/justask.html Hawaii facts

Powered Surfboard (aka Jet Board)
If you have the money, about $6000 US or so, you can have a powered surfboard. The most modern boards are described in the December 2001 issue of Popular Science, this form of surfing is the most expensive. As a rider of one of these powered surfboards, you hang onto a special rope tied to the front of the board. This rope has the controls for speed. You can reach speeds up to 60 km/h. The earliest powered surfboards appeared around 1968 or even sooner and were limited to a speed of about 15 km/h. Much tamer. That was a good thing since the controls were located at your feet. These older style boards are cheaper if you can find them.

A powered surfboard is like surfing. However, with power you can catch big waves that are moving too fast to paddle into. Where powered surfboard thrive are in a different nitch as regular surfboard. Which is good because a powered surfboard is noisy and polluting. Many surfers who also power surf find that regular surfing is more interesting because the regular surfboards are lighter and more manueurable.

Powered surfboards are like a jetski but you can not sit down. Thus it more dangerous and exciting than jetskis. It's cost is comparible to jetskis, in some cases cheaper. Powered surfboards are easier to lug around (about 165 pounds) and fit easier into vechicles. Powered surfboards are classed in the same category as (motorized) personal watercraft and subject to the same regulations. Thus development of these things have been slowed. Even putting a small engine on a surfboard will put a lot of restrictions on where they can be used and require licencing and safety equipment.

The three conditions where powered surfboard excel are: flat glassy water (for smooth carving), boat wakes (surfing the waves, carving the waves and jumping) and small ocean swells in semi-glass conditions away from the beach (for carving and jumping).

http://www.powerski.com
http://www.powerboarding.com/classicjetboards.htm
http://www.powerboarding.com/poweredsurfboards.htm

Kite Surfing (aka kite boarding and flysurfing)
Kite surfing is a combination of windsurfing, wakeboarding, paragliding and kiteflying making it a sport with a lot of variety and challenge. Kite surfing uses a power kite and something like a snowboard. Kite surfing likely started sometime in the late 1980s, soon after power kiting itself was invented. Kite surfing requires less wind than windsurfing. Kite surfers are capable of jumps 20 meters high and 60 meters long. Kite surfing is easier to learn than windsurfing and snowboarding but instruction is recommended to make the progression of power kiting on the beach to power kiting on the water on a board.

XXX Kite surfing can be done with hydrofoil craft resulting in a different experience. http://home.worldonline.nl/~hbsmits/hydrsurf.htm

The world speed record for kite surfing is 70 km/h (38 knots, 44 mph)

http://www.kiteboard.com.au/faq.shtml Kite surfing FAQ
http://www.kitesurfing.org/ British kitesurfing site
http://www.kitesurfing.com/ Hawaii kitesurfing site
http://www.alacati.com/dynamic/links.asp Kite surfing and wind surfing links
http://www.boater101.com/features/extreme.aspx Extreme water sports descriptions

Surf Kayak (aka Wave Skiing and Surf Skiing)
Surf Kayak is a modified kayak specially designed to surf waves. Instead of standing up as in regular surfing you are sitting down. This makes learning the sport must easier. The use of paddles is helpful.

Wave skiing is different -- sitting down on a board, surf kayak is in a craft.

http://www.humboldt1.com/~woldski/kayak/History.html History

Waveskiing
Waveskiing is also the same as surf kayak, except you surf on a board instead of a modified kayak. You wear a seat belt on the board to keep you on it. Waveskiing is growing in popularity over kayak surfing because it is less limiting.
http://www.fun-freedom.com/waveski-a.htm Description
Waveskiing (aka Surf Kayak) http://www.desql.com/waveski/

Windsurfing
Windsurfing started in the mid 1960s. Aside from regular windsurfing there are two variations. One is tandem windsurfing -- a board with two sail so that two people can use the same board. The other variation is speed sails. These sails are stable in higher wind speed than regular windsurfing sails, and also function over a wider range of speeds. Speed records are just under 80 km/h. http://www.loftsails.com/archive.htm. (Note: speedsailing is landsailing on a skateboard like device http://www.hssc.fsnet.co.uk/hssc/windsurfing_speedsailing.htm. World record 85.25 km/h http://www.namibian.com.na/2001/October/sport/0118AC4243.html

http://www.uni.torun.pl/%7Eskoter/jaws/articles/nws_sm.htm Wind scale for windsurfers
http://www.uni.torun.pl/%7Eskoter/jaws/jaws_articles.htm Journal of Applied Windsurfing http://www.windsurfingmag.com/ Magazine
http://fortboise.org/windsurfing/spinout.faq.html FAQ on spinout
http://jollyroger.com/windsurf/tbc/links.html Links for windsurfing
http://www.cal-sailing.org/library/windsurf/index.html#_1_26 Handbook for windsurfing

Riversurfing

River surfing is surfing on a standing wave on a surf board that is achored to the river banks. This can be a dangerous due to the strong current, the rocks and the possibility of being tumbled around inside the standing wave.

River surfing is not to be confused with (white water) river boarding, which is going down rapids on a board which unfortunately sometimes called river surfing. A third kind of river surfing is surfing riving waves (usually with a surf kayak). On a river you have the added thrill of being carried with the current in addition to the waves..
http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=8urmpp%244pa%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522river%2Bsurfing%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D8urmpp%25244pa%25241%2540nnrp1.deja.com%26rnum%3D1
http://www.646industries.com/mt/beyond_b/archives/000005.html
http://www.boardshop.co.uk/forum/thread.jsp?forum=5&thread=971 Forum

Surf Live Saving

Skimboarding/Skidboarding
Skimboarding is boarding in shallow water. The object is to throw a skimboard in front of you, jump onto the board and try to stay on as long as possible. The best skimboarding is done is flat, shallow water (ususally about a few centimeters deep) with a smooth bottom. Rocks in the water are dangerous. Skimboarding is an activity that surfers can engage in when the waves are not ideal, but it is also ideal for people that live near large shallow lakes in areas where regular surfing nearly impossible.

Skimboards come in two basic shapes. You can have a circular board (which is likely to be called a skidboard) or a board shaped like a surf board but shorter. If you make you own board, the sport is cheap to get into, and a circular board is easiest to make.

http://www.extremedreams.co.uk/skimboard/index.htm
http://www.skidboard.co.uk/ (Semi broken)
http://www.skimonline.com/