In order to stay motivated without waves, local Florida boys and professional watermen, Kieran and Fisher Grant, sometimes need to get inventive with their training especially when the waves are flat. Recently they spent an afternoon behind a brand new Nautique G23 surf boat with professional wakeboarder Jeff McKee. "It was epic! It helped our surfing because we can practice airs and just keep going, said Fisher. We don't train like this often, but it's a blast and makes training a lot more fun."
"Being in the ocean and surfing from an early age we picked up the basics of wakesurfing in no time. Our knowledge of reading waves really helped, but it was still a learning curve surfing behind a boat. In the ocean, no wave is the same, so it's trickier to practice a trick repetitively. You are also spending most of your time paddling and positioning yourself for a wave. Behind the boat, the wake is always there, consistent. It's like skating a half-pipe. It is so cool because you can practice the same trick over and over again until you perfect it.
We first dabbled with surfing our paddleboards on boat wakes when we would be training near a marina or harbor and we saw the size of the wake some of these yachts were producing as they idled by. It was only a matter of time until we gave it a try. With the buoyancy and glide of our race boards, we rode some wakes for miles at a time. It was a blast because we could recreate the same feeling of riding a wave, when the ocean was flat!
Surfing in the ocean is very different from wakesurfing. There are a lot of elements you needs to be aware of: winds, tides, currents, other surfers, etc. So before you go out of your local spot, take a minute and observe what's going on so you don't put yourself in harm's way. But most of all, have fun and challenge yourself!"
By Lori Griffith