BODYSURFING 101-To handboard or not to handboard??

Only way to know what works for YOU is to try it personally!
Handboard as opposed to bare hands, you make more waves, you can climb to the top to hit concave walls, and you go down the line farther with each wave.
Countering that, if you don't remember to grab wrists, sometimes big pushtrus can wretch your shoulders, and big wipeouts can leave you worried about elbows and shoulders of handboard side. Just toss, they have leashes too.
With handboard, you lose out on natural freestyle stroke, so paddling speed is not quite as fast....countered by slightly easier wave catching, as you can really weight the single concave handboards and "pull" yourself into larger waves easily.

I am big on using handboards that are small. I don't like having to do underwater takeoffs when it is big and handboards make it fun for dropping in on steep sections and still holding in with good speed. If a handboard is too big than it makes it hard for me to rotate from my back to my stomach without it getting in the way.

This is the best handboard I have ever used that i made from an broken fin i used to use for backpacking on the Napali. has a little flex in it and not a lot of bouyancy just a good planing surface and you can make a hell of a pull with it to get in.

great way to break your wrist. any one see the bodysurfingcontest with mike stewart on Nbc on sunday? it was at pipe and there were no hands boards, the conditions weren't great tho.

LOVE bodysurfing but handboard? .... maybe in small waves, where they'd probably be most effective anyway. Big stuff though, not for me. Almost had one of those things rip my arm off at Pipe.

You know i DO get a lot a flack from the boys using a handboard sometimes. and there is the argument on the simplicity of bodysurfing and its independance from equipment needs. Honestly I would not call myself a "bodysurfer" if I were dependant on a handboard or kickboard but using them is just so fun right now.

The arm getting ripped off is a big deal with the bulkier hand boards. I used to have one of those old hand guns they used to make in So CAL with the slit cut in the middle for your hand and i hated it because of the size and boyancy.

The board i showed a pic of is so light and so small that it actually doesn't yank anymore than if i didn't wear it at all (and i like BIG sandys and OTW). Even the ride with it feels more along the lines of using webbed gloves than an actual hand board.

using that handboard backwards doesn' t work so well. I like having the wide part in the front because i get such a hard pull to get in. plus having such a wide point over your wrist makes it hard to incorporate using your hands for slowing yourself down

sorry for such a long post but i love this topic. Nice lined up south commin in for biginning of March if anyone wants to do some share and compare with handboards at sandys for some thumpers

few more little shorebreak shots, not the best day, small with some mid face steps making for some great diggers.

all i want in life is to get barreled. shorebreak is like instant satisfaction from inside the green room

Damn Skeletor, that really makes me jones for Sandy's. I made a hand board out of a snapped off surfboard tip a while ago. Sounds like most of you guys would consider it dangerous and too big but I love the thing. It has fins on it so I can really hold a line. I actually like the bigness because I can just take one or two huge scooping paddles to get into waves and I can really get up on top of it. As far as buoyancy, I wouldn't mind having a little more... treading water in wind chop can get pretty tiring.It's well padded and your fingers go through a slot so your palm is on top and you grip the bottom. It is not attached so you can switch hands or let go if it was to twist. At work now, post pics later.

speaking of bodysurfing anyone see the contest that was on TV on sunday it was started with Mike Stewart who is amazing and has only lost two bodysurfing cmps in the past 15-6 years that he has entered which is over 15

Here's another photo of some handboards that sold on ebay a while back. Looks like luan plywood. I thought the dove tail was an interesting touch.

On a somewhat related topic...here's my latest path of experimentation. I call them cubit boards. Larger than most handboards and smaller than most paipos. The four cubit boards pictured are all about one Royal Egyptian Cubit in length, or about 20 1/2 inches. The jury is still out on how they ride. The nice thing about little boards is that it's not expensive to play around with a lot of different shapes and processes.

Patrick-

Thanks for sharing that link! Very interesting to read that forum's discussion about dolphins, and human "subsurfing", riding waves underwater.

"Noa", a DeeperBlue.net forum member asked..

"is there anybody else out there doing this. I really think that there must be, it's imposible that no one else has thought of this and tried it. If you are out there i want to know, i want to communicate, this is too fun to not share"

That question has been answered and documented..

Over 8 years in the making, the incredible experience of surfing with wild dolphins.. from a dolphin's point of view. A 35mm film by George Greenough.

http://www.dolphinglide.com/

howdy! I remember seeing a surf flick in the late 70s when I was a kid and there was a part where a guy was riding inside the wave like that, it was tropical water so you could see him, I was amazed as was my brother, so we gave it a whirl. Ive been doing it ever since. Most of the waves I get to body surf now are close out beachbreak, and my favorate thing to do is takeoff from in the wave,(just dive in the base of the wave as it stands up)get momentum, and the wave will eject you out the face , you can actually catch air! Letting out a loud yell adds to the fun, speciallly when you hit the water!!!

Awsome posts from everyone.

After seeing 'Laird' a few years back i tried bodysurfing in the wave like laird and Greenough have been doing with some success but I have to say i do not make it look half as good. pretty fun to do when the waves arn't barrelling to good too, and definately a different style.

Dale do you have any photos of the camera housing that greenough designed? It would be interesting to see exactly what his ideas are as a picture is worth a thousand words.

LeeD that side of G R gets insane! as does R mouth! Spring time is about that time for choked up sandbars and closeouts! Better hope almighty whitey doesn't come around llokin dfor lunch. two years ago i was visiting my parents, went up to the rivermouth and watched perfect peeeeeeeling barels commin through on the inside were seals playing in the shorebreak and catching salmon as big as my thigh as they tried to go upstream! I opted for something else

In one of the nofriends movies (bodyboarding) They filmed ross mcbride bodysurfing teahupo in the manner described it was really cool i geuss they wave is to step to bodysurf the face

those handboards look almost identical to the hand guns that i was talking about in an earlier post that they make out of southern california. I am not sure if the size and bouyancy is the same though.

The one that i tried was extremely bouyant and you could literally lift your whole upper body out of the wave with it. Didn't work so good in shorebreak hwere it would suck out hard because of the size and awkwardness, but on mushy days at makapu or beach park where it would be a slow mushball before hitting the closeout section it was great. had speed over flat spots like i was on a bodyboard. Really fun, but didn't feel like bodysurfing, felt like something else in between.

Use a Mono fin for a few monthes and you'll have the most ripped six pack ever!

Quote:
I like the idea of those sandal boards Poobah. Are those yours or do you just have pics. Are they flexible? That is the problem i have with a lot of handboards is that i want it stiff enough to get a strong pull, but i like a lot of flex while body surfing. Makes it so you don't have to be sooo concious of diggin in the sides or pushing too hard on your hands.

Skeletor,
I got the photo of the sandal handboards off the web. As I recall the guy said they were purchased in Hawaii in the eighties. I'd like to know who made them and how many.

Silly Paul,
you stumped me with the term jandal, and I bet most Yanks wouldn't know either. A Google search yielded:

"All the evidence points towards New Zealand, where Maurice Yock invented the jandal in 1957. There isn't any evidence of Australians producing anything thong-like before Dunlop in the '60s."

Perhaps since they had it first, it might have been New Zealanders that first put their spongy jandals to the face of a wave.

when did uggs become women clothing i have had a pair first my dads old holey ones for two years then a nice new Austrialan made pair and all the stupid girls in my school have em and i have to were normal shoes cuz my sister is to embarassed when i were them

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my hand board. For this style of hand hold you have to pad out the front for a tight fit or else water sprays up from the hole. The pad also saves the knuckles. This thing is big enough to grab a rail and ride two handed. Painted it red to look like those kick boards. The fins work for holding you in. Only problem is you can't run people over with the fins.

Edit: The pictures didn't work so I deleted them so nobody else will waste time trying to see them.

whats up KOKO I can't read the pic files. What is the format? Can you repost in Bitmap or JPEG. Mahalos

If you just use the paint program in your accesories file it works fine. click on sketch/skew in the image menu at the top. I usually have to shrink mine to about 30%. thanks for changing the pics, can't wait to see what you are using.

Great question and I have given it some thought. If I was holding on to a handboard I would be very inclined to get on my knees and ride on it. Heck ...I might just be wacked enough to try to stand on it.

A bunch of purveyors of shape on this forum may not want to hear this, but here is lesson 1 for BODYSURFING 101.

Bodysurfing is just what it is....the only accessory item that should be going for the ride are your fins because the Good Lord didn't shape most of us with flukes for the necessary propulsion to catch waves. Trunks are optional...and sorry ladies.....for guys the skeg is standard equipment but we are more than happy to share it with you!

Whoa bad ass KOKO. That looks like a hand gun on steroids. any vee or concave in the bottom? with those side keels it almost looks like a bonzer! Chip would get a kick out of that, a bonzer hand gun. can you give me some dimentions.

And mad dog, god didn't give us built in engines either but everyone seems to be taken up by tow surfing. Hand boards are just a variation of bodysurfing. We all got styles and abilities and preferences. I know what you mean though it does take away from simplicity of bodysurfing as one of the few things with little or no equipment.

Bodysurfing naked rules! Takes the title of dick dragger away from the bodyboarders:)

Good man nels tellin the truth. 3-6ft south swell ooh yeah goin for a surf and then to sandys if anyone is there an sees someone going on a completely unmakeable mind bender only to do flips over the falls...it is probubly me

Might be a completely stupid question, but being a bit of a newbie to bodysurfing, thought i might as well ask.

Anyone tried bodysurfing with those swim-training paddles on? Plastic hand-sized sheets of acrylic that strap to each hand... they'd increase paddling speed, while i imagine slightly improving planing, but you wouldnt get any arm wrenching on a closeout... any thoughts?

In aswer to Poobah and Kevin,

Greg Deats is most likely using a pair of swim training paddles in the photo that Dale posted.  When I was growing up, Greg was one of the best bodysurfers at the Wedge.  Both Greg and another guy, Mel, would use hand planes.  They were a couple of the only Wedge Crew guys who would regularly use them (I think a lot of the guys thought it was "cheating"). 

For those not familiar with the training paddles, the rectangular acrylic ones that are slightly larger in area than your hands are the ones to use.  They have straps made of surgical tubing for your middle finger and around your wrist.  That's how the planes stay in place.  I have a pair at home, I'll try to post a picture of them tonight.

I don't always use the planes when I bodysurf, but depending upon the conditions or my mood, I'll take them out.  They add quite a bit of speed, allowing you to make waves you might not otherwise make.  The planes give you a good edge to help hold you into a steep face and a nice solid surface to slide on while riding the flatter faces.  They're also small enough and flexible enough that you can comfortably swim with them on.  I like using the actual swim training paddles because I like the flex.  Some of the crew guys like Mel use custom-made acrylic planes that are a bit stiffer but the same shape and size as the swimming paddles.

I've never experienced the shoulder-wrenching pain from catching an edge, etc. but if you do catch an edge you'll wipeout.  Swimming with the paddles does put a little more strain on your shoulders because you're grabbing more water with each pull so be careful not to over-do it if you're not a strong swimmer.

Some of the other things we used to use bodysuring include kickboards, sandals, restaurant trays, a pizza tray, chopped off old swim fins and the handboards called hand guns.  All are fun but the training paddles have always been my favorite since they allow you to bodysurf exactly like you would without the planes on... just at a higher speed.