How to Read Waves with Surf Legend Laird Hamilton (Video)

Surfers, supposedly, can read waves.

It’s a phrase so commonly tossed around, and one that specifically baffles the non-surfing crowd. Like, surfers possess this practically supernatural power and connection to the ocean where they can read the swells coming in, like one would read a book.

Oh, please…c’mon.

Perhaps “reading” waves is more allegorical; what surfers can do is, after much practice in the ocean, as opposed to non-surfers, acquire wave knowledge. They spend so much time looking at waves that they can see them, and predict what they’ll do next.

And surfing legend Laird Hamilton, who recently appeared on The Shawn Ryan Show and talked about a near-death river rafting experience, spoke to that:

“Say one day was the biggest day of the year. During that day, there could be a three or four or five wave set in a group that comes in. And then there’s a biggest wave within those waves – there’s one that’s predominantly bigger than the others.

“So, those groups of waves, depending on the swell, could be every 10 minutes or 20 minutes. Could be every hour. All those different variables are reflective on the storm’s production, and the way the storm is producing waves.

“Waves move vertically through the water. The water stays still, but the energy passes through it, which makes the wave. Conversely, a tidal wave travels horizontally. That’s why tidal waves go 300 miles per hour, and waves travel at about 30 [mph].

“A good surfer is someone who understands waves. They can look at waves, they know what they’re gonna do. The learned becomes intuition; when you have that much experience, it goes into the unconscious, which is the intuition.

“We’re wave readers.”

What Laird says goes. You surf; you can read waves.

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