How waves break

The Beach Break

Most people’s local break is a beach break; these are mostly made up from sand banks.

Where the waves break over a sandy bottom, usually within 80-100 meters from the shoreline

As the sea floor is sandy the waves break when they eventually hit a bottom shallow enough to expend their energy.

Very often along the beach some waves will break better than others, this of course depending on the shifting sand.

Winds and waves

Waves rely on wind for their creation; wind creates waves by transferring energy from the air to the water.

Once swell has been created, it travels across the sea until it expends energy on a shoreline.

Lots of wind that ends up creating a good solid swell will not always translate into good local winds.

It is then true to say that for us to get a good day of surfing with clean waves, you would need to get the winds in your area just right and blowing in the right direction.

It is important to understand the difference between on shore and off shore; this will give you an insight into how the waves will look once they hit your local break.

An onshore wind is NOT good, this will bring choppy, messy surfing conditions, an off shore wind will bring good clean waves which is good!

In between these general conditions you will also get a mix up of other surfing conditions, cross on shore is not as bad as on shore but still choppy depending on the wind strength.

A strong off shore will make the wave tricky to catch, while a swell which is met with no wind will produce glassy waves, this what all surfers long for and is the best type of surfing condition!