Pono House

Several people asked me why Hawaiians measure waves in a manner that makes them SMALLER than elsewhere. I didn’t have a clue, so I did some research. People often say that Hawaiian measure is from the back of the wave, but that’s not really true. For one thing you can’t see the back of the wave from shore, and when lifeguards say “oh, that’s a three foot wave” describing a thick lip that just broke way the heck over your head, they don’t run outside on a jet ski and stick a measuring tape in the water–they eyeball it.

Three feet, Hawaiian. For reference that’s a guy standing on a standup paddleboard behind the crest of the last wave. click on the picture to get a better idea of his height. They’d call this at least six feet in California. You can see that in this picture the faces of the waves are much taller than the swells that generate them, even though the swells look fairly uniform. the face size depends on the energy in the swell, the backwash from the previous wave, the current, wind and wave spacing, and it included the trough in the front of the wave. 

What they are looking at is how high the crests are above the average sea level, and that’s pretty easy to judge. It’s much harder to say how big a face is, because the trough (the depression formed when water gets sucked up the breaking wave) varies according to local currents, how big the previous wave was, and reflected waves coming back from shore. It’s also hard to see the trough unless you’re way above the beach. In other words, Hawaiian measure is more consistent and accurate, which you would expect considering that just about everyone here surfs.

You should understand that there are no bragging rights associated with surfing in Hawaii. Strutting around saying “yeah, I surf” garners nothing but snickering, since any of the locals can probably say “so does my grammy, and she’s way better than you!” You can be really lousy, or really good and no one cares. Even being world class doesn’t matter. You have to be the top of the top, and a complete waterman like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama before anyone here gives a shit–and even then it just means people say hi when they see them getting breakfast at Anthony’s.

So saying “I surfed a ten foot wave” in Hawaii is basically not any big deal. It should come as no surprise that people now want Hawaiians, who pretty much invented having fun in the water, to measure the same inaccurate BS way that they do. But since the REAL reason Hawaiians have their own measure is that they don’t want a bunch of Haoles flocking to the waves, the Hawaiian measure isn’t likely to change.

Three foot wave at Ho’okipa–don’t bother.