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Source: San Diego Surfing School Some Surfing Terms If a surfer can get on a big wave and make his way into that barrel when it forms, he’s “pitted.” As you can imagine, a surfer who’s just been pitted will be really “stoked!” Here’s a picture to illustrate the whole thing. This is the surfer’s ultimate goal: the “barrel” or “tube” or “pit.” As it gets closer to the shore, the lip will curve further and further ahead of the face, creating a cylinder of moving water. The thrills will be closer to the middle of the wave. If the wave is large enough, the wave’s crest will rush ahead, curling over its face to create a “lip.” On the left and right, the wave as a whole won’t be quite so tall: These are the “shoulders.” The surfer won’t want to hang out there, though. The surfer uses the rising water as a sort of moving ramp, and that provides the force to propel her surfboard forward. The water here rises as it flows to the shore. Ahead of that, where the water is starting to rise, is its “face” or “wall.” Imagine you are on the shore and a wave is coming right at you. That compresses the swell, which grows in height until it becomes a wave that a surfer can ride. The wave will get to be more prominent as it moves closer to shore. The swell may seem small: just a couple of inches up or down, but they gain momentum as they move and the wind continues to blow. As the wind blows across the surface, water rises and falls and begins to move. Ocean waves begin as swells out in the ocean. The Anatomy of a Big Wave & Getting “Pitted” But I can at least give you a head start on learning the lingo if you are at all interested in this exciting sport. You can’t learn surfing by reading about it you’ll need a friend who’s an experienced surfer or an instructor to show you how. In the “pit” you are practically surrounded by the wave as you use the most of its power to push you forward. It means you are riding close to the heart of a big wave, where the water curls over and starts to look like a tunnel of rushing water. Getting “pitted” is the ultimate rush in surfing.
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If you have ever been around surfers, or just seen them in Youtube videos, you’ve probably heard them talking excitedly about getting “pitted.” But if you don’t know surfer lingo, you may be wondering what they are talking about.
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