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Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

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Surf's up(stream)

Posted: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:59 AM by Will Femia

These guys are pretty clever for figuring a way to turn some white water river churn into a surfable stationary wave. I'm still trying to figure out the structure of what lies beneath. From my very limited and pretty clumsy white water canoeing experience, the bumps are where the rocks are (I know this because we hit just about every rock the Delaware River put in front of us). So when these guys fall off their boards, are they hitting the rock that's creating that turbulence?

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My take is that it's some sort of a spillway and they're surfing the bottom.  Pretty cool.

Don K, Sioux City, IA (Sent Wednesday, August 20, 2008 12:35 PM)

Will,
It is probably the outflow from a dam, they usually have a concrete slough that comes out the bottom of the dam for outflow. Usually at the end of the concrete slough there is that wave effect as the water drops into the soil and then turns back upwards.

Alex, Lenexa, KS (Sent Wednesday, August 20, 2008 3:11 PM)

we surf behind ski/wakeboard boats.  get a big enouph wake to curl the wave and you can surf about 4 feet behind the boat with no rope.

Freeway (Sent Wednesday, August 20, 2008 3:55 PM)

yes, you are right, the water pattern matches the underlying rock pattern.

though the water pattern depends partly on the river's water level, which is highest when snows melt.

and there are more rocks downstream to hit too.

and not forgetting that many rivers, including the Delaware, Passaic, and Miami, long ago had many more natural rock barriers and waterfalls, and some rock barriers made by indians as wiers to catch fish, mostly long ago removed.

http://www.scenicbuckscounty.com/MorrisvilleTides/FallsOfTheDelaware.html

http://www.lutins.org/weir/

x (Sent Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:24 PM)

The structure that is causing the wave is upriver from them. THe water is falling down over this item, and this  is the first wave in the ripple pattern that follows downstream.  This could be a rock, but I'm guessing it's more likely some sort of man-made piece that disrupts the water flow. I'm guessing that the water is fairly deep where they're falling.

Evan, southern Oregon (Sent Thursday, August 21, 2008 5:46 AM)

It's probally a channel, or a trench, in the river.

Larry (Sent Thursday, August 21, 2008 9:23 AM)

Nope, not hitting anything. The water is piling up just after a drop off, creating the larger wave. The smaller white water wave behind it is just what is piling up after spilling over the large wave. Looks like water coming off of a small spill way.

anon (Sent Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:58 PM)

Will, this looks like one of those "stationary" surf machines they have at waterparks and on cruise ships. I wouldn't be surprised to see a small dam or spillway to teh right, just out of frame.

Brian, Philadelphia, PA (Sent Thursday, August 21, 2008 2:36 PM)

Waves like that can be caused by several things, rocks being one of them. That’s called an obstruction; other things that can cause waves are, constriction, Laminar flows and change in elevation(of the river bottom). And by all kinds of combinations of these.

The one in the video appears to be caused by a change in elevation and some Laminar flows.

I’ve been a whitewater river guide for almost 30 years and have seen a lot of attempts to surf waves, some very successful and some not.

Alderberry Q. Thistlepuck (Sent Thursday, August 21, 2008 5:30 PM)

No, they'll move downstream of the rocks.

Ocean waves move while the water stays still (fairly, until the wave breaks).  River water moves while the waves stay still.  Relative speed of the board vs. the water is similar, but the physics of balance and motion take a bit of learning, when switching from one to the other.

JB Redmond, WA (Sent Thursday, August 21, 2008 6:31 PM)

Skilled kayakers and canoist have been doing this for years. Just a delicate balance between gravity, drag, and water flow (ala JB Redmond)It is perplexing to watch though.

WFC Tulsa, OK (Sent Friday, August 22, 2008 3:12 PM)

This spot is in the English Gardens in Munich Germany.  The Eisbach River was diverted to flow into the park and this was the happy result.  The river flows out of a tunnel under the city. Surfers must be careful, as the rock is only about 40cm below the surface.

Mike, Chicago, IL (Sent Monday, August 25, 2008 4:08 PM)



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