One thing we've prioritized in our surfboards for a long time is the ability to catch waves early.
My own experience surfing—and watching a lot of really good surfers over the years—continually reaffirms how much of surfing is determined before you ever get to your feet.
Great surfers don't just surf waves well. They tend to catch waves consistently and efficiently, and get to their feet early.
Catching a wave early gives you time to get to your feet, look down the line, and time to decide where you want to go and how you want to draw your line.
Andy Nieblas is one of my favorite examples of this.
I've watched Andy catch waves at San Onofre so early that he'll literally run to the nose and start noseriding toward shore while he's waiting for the wave to finish forming.
Once the wave actually stands up and begins to break, he'll retreat to the tail, bottom turn, and surf it like any other wave.
By that point, he's already had half a wave's worth of surfing while many of us would still be prone and paddling.
That's obviously a testament to Andy's ability, but it's also a pretty good demonstration of what happens when a surfer and surfboard are able to get into waves exceptionally early. That is true whether he's riding a 9'8 Walks on Water, or in this case a small 5'0" Sea Kitten:
The opposite is pretty easy to spot too.
When you don't have enough board underneath you for the conditions, you're forced to catch waves later in the breaking process. Instead of getting to your feet with time and options, you're immediately trying to catch up to the wave.
Your margin for error gets smaller.
You can see this really clearly with beginners. They'll paddle for a wave, get into it late, take another second or two to get to their feet, and by the time they're standing the wave has already passed them by. They're left riding straight in on the whitewater.
But the same thing happens to perfectly competent surfers when they're riding too little board for the waves they're surfing.
For the average surfer on the average day, being able to catch waves earlier usually means more waves, longer rides, and more options once you're on your feet.
It can even help you catch better waves.
If you know you're going to get into a wave easily, you can be a little more selective about which waves you paddle for. You're not scrambling after every opportunity and hoping one eventually lets you in.
This is one reason we've never been particularly interested in making surfboards smaller simply for the sake of making them smaller.
We want enough foam underneath you to paddle confidently. We tend to favor efficient rocker that helps the board glide and plane across the water. And then we use the outline, rails, bottom contours, and fin setup to give each board the characteristics we're looking for once you're actually riding the wave.
Because catching the wave early doesn't mean the board's job is finished.
It still needs to turn, noseride, fade, trim, get barreled, go fast—or do whatever else that particular surfboard was designed to do.
But first you have to catch the wave.
Preferably early. And often.
