Bodyboarding 101: How to Wax your Bodyboard

When I showed up at my first FBA bodyboarding event I found, to my embarrassment, that I was the only one with a fully waxed board. Unlike a Surfboard it's not necessary to wax the entire surface of your bodyboard. Though each person tries to personalize their wax application the consensus leans toward minimalism, which is to say only as much as necessary.

The basic rule is wax anywhere on your board you find yourself slipping. At it's most basic this probably means waxing the top corner and side of your board where each hand grips, where each elbow sits and where your belly rests on the board when riding a wave.

If you paddle out using both arms and legs then you'll find that you're balancing yourself on your chest towards the upper part of the board. This is nearly impossible unless you've waxed where your chest touches the board.

Here's what this looks like personalized and stylized for me:

Hope that this saves some newbies from my blunder.

Stay Stoked,
DH

Please leave a Comment:

Waxing tips? How do you wax your board?

The Stoke of Overhead+ Windslop

Well there's nothing like several days of 15 to 20 knot NE to onshore mix to blow up some big disorganized overhead+ windswell. There are no sets and these aren't the clean long overhead lines featured in surf magazines. You're paddling out into large wind slop for a shot at the towering triangular peaks that shoot up as waves merge over just the right spot. They're unpredictable and you'll have to PLF to position to catch one, but if you're into big, quick, steep, drops down towering faces you might want to give this a shot.

This past Thursday Evening at the pier showed decent large windslop conditions. Though it prove less disorganized than I'd expected it was still rough and a serious side-shore current had set up; the current stayed strong even beyond the shore break it took constant paddling to keep from getting sucked into the pier. There's a great spot on the north side of the pier that tends to focus and peak up northeast windswell even under normal conditions and I could tell there was some potential there for some monster waves to form. Unfortunately every wave I caught from that spot put me inside fighting the worst part of the current.

I had been out about an hour -- fighting the current the whole time to keep from getting sucked into the pier -- and had caught a hand full of decent head-high rides when a wedgy 10ft wave loomed overhead. I chose to take it right at the peak which proved to be a mistake as it pitched me forward just as the bottom had flatten out and sent me for a big drop. I tossed my board and went under and didn't get worked over too bad.

I broke the surface to to find a long 6 foot line coming in. By this time I was exhausted and dangerously close to the pier and that was the most welcome site in the world. I pulled my board to me, caught the wave and let it carried me in all the way to shore. Silently I thanked God that I wasn't going to have to fight the current to get back in safely. I managed to walk 20 feet or so before calmly heaving up half my dinner.

A good day.

Stay Stoked,
DH

How I hate/love/hate my wetsuit

Oh how I relished my new wetsuit last fall as air and water temps dipped below 70F. Now with water temps climbing into the upper 60's I'm surprised to find I'm the first guy in the line up out in board shorts. After a winter of consistently 50-55 water temps, 68 doesn't feel near as cold as it did last fall and I've been desperate to be free of the heavy, constraining, strangling feel of my wetsuit. The thought of putting it on again makes me feel claustrophobic. I can barely imagine that there are people who live in climates that demand a wetsuit year round. Maybe it's my imagination but I paddle faster and ride more freely without it on.

So as of now I hate my wetsuit... until next winter when it's the only thing that allows me to feed my surf addiction without suffering hypothermia... then I'll love it again.

Stay Stoked,
DH

Bodyboarders Boycott Snickers

71mag.com, a new bodyboarding magazine, broke the story online that Snickers is running an ad with a pro surfer saying "When I'm hungry I boogie board" as part of their "You're not yourself when you're hungry" ad campaign. A quick google showed that Surfer Today later covered the story and identified the surfer as Mick Fanning and said that the IBA is calling for a ban of Snickers.

I don't know what clueless copywriter decided it was a good idea to single out specific groups of people to identify as inferior and demean with their ads but as as long as they're going that way here are a few suggestions:

• Women Executives as House Wives (Home Makers?)
• Navy Seals as Marines
• Republicans as Democrats
• Doctors as Nurses
• Evolutionists as Preachers

The over all goal here is to establish one group as lesser or inferior and to make the point when you're hungry you not just "not you", you're less than you and the equivalent of this other, lesser group. It doesn't matter that these groups aren't actually inferior, as long as you make it seem like they are you can make certain that they understand that you don't want their business.

Thank you Snickers for making it clear that you don't want our money.

Bodyboarder? Hungry? Boycott Snickers and eat an apple instead.

Oddly the Ryobi campaign on SurfingStoke (must see) doesn't bother me at all... in fact I love it. I guess it's because it doesn't single out bodyboarders, but kind of says "Surfers are against everybody... we can help". And of course everybody redirects their animosity right back at the surfers and says "Bring it on" while imagining what they could do to a short board with Ryobi tools. It's a fine line but Ryobi pulls it off while Snickers takes it too far.

What are your thoughts?

Florida Bodyboarding Association Contest, May 1st, Flagler Beach

If you're with in driving distance of Flagler Beach, Florida make sure you make it for the upcoming FBA event May 1st.

The flyer says it all.

Stay Stoked,
DH

Review: WaveSkater Pro Bodyboard 45

As you know I'm in the market for a new bodyboard and was considering the WaveSkater Pro 48 among my options as I was looking for something with more float than my current 45 inch board. Fortunately I found out that my local bodyboard shop had a few WaveSkater Pro 45's up for rental so I had a chance to try before I buy. Though the owner of the surf shop doesn't bodyboard himself he said that they were great rental boards as they seemed nearly indestructible.

A New Kind of Board

When I looked over the board for the first time in person what struck me was how shaped everything was: the scooped out center, the grip channel around the edge, the twin 'hulled' bottom; this type of molded construction definitely opens up a lot of options for shaping. Also notable is that the widest point of the board has been pushed back to the center of the board and with the majority of the board volume in the back rather than the front, a design which others have suggested provides greater maneuverability given that turning on bodyboards pivots around the hips... I was hopeful this was going to turn out to be a great board.

In the water the first thing that I notice was that WaveSkater 45 definitely had a lot more float than my current 45 inch board, even without moving to the 48 in model. I had hoped that more float would mean an easier time paddling out but was disappointed to find that wasn't the case. I guess I just need to train harder.

It took me about a half hour to figure out how to ride this board; it really is a different beast. Hand on nose and elbow locked into the channel around the rim was obvious. What was less obvious was that to compensate for the pushed back midpoint I need to grip the edge with my outside arm much further back than I was used to in order to balance my weight over the mid point. Once I got that down I caught quite a few rides.

A Disappointing Experience

Unfortunately riding the board was a disappointment, perhaps because my expectations were so high. First off it felt slow, though I told myself that that could be chalked up to inexperience positioning myself or possibly even to the type of waves it was designed to ride (waves in Jacksonville are far from ideal, though I went out on my old board that afternoon and caught some fun rides on similar waves, no problem). As expected I did notice that turning was fluid and was pleased to find that maneuvering didn't seem to reduce speed much but sadly that didn't translate into a more enjoyable ride.

Despite all of the potential I saw in this board, there was one thing that sucked away all the joy of riding the waves and that was how horribly stiff the board was. Riding the WaveSkater Pro literally felt like riding a slab of steel (albeit a very  floaty piece of steel). As I mentioned I rode my old board that afternoon to make sure I wasn't imagining it and by comparison it felt so responsive it was like I was gliding as part of the wave; in contrast the WaveSkater was so stiff and unpleasant that I if it had been my first board I'm not sure I would have stuck with bodyboarding.

Not Recommended For Beginners, Possibly for Others

It's possible that amateurs and pros looking for maneuverability for tricks might find it useful to experiment with the WaveSkater. Unfortunately it's durability and cheep price make it ideal as a rental board, meaning it will find it's way into the hands of new bodyboarders and tourists, people that I feel it is least suited for. If you're interested in buying this board I definitely recommend renting one first and giving it a try before purchasing it.

A Final Note

To the WaveSkater manufacturer... I like a lot about this board and love that you're pushing the status quo in design and manufacturing but you've got to go with less stiff, more responsive materials; indestructibility isn't everything.

Stay Stoked,
DH