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Abellira, Reno

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academia and surfing

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advertising and surfing

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aerial

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Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

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Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

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Allen, Chuck

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aloha shirt

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Anderson, Simon

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angle

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Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

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Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

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Barbados

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Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

British surf break created by an incoming tidal surge funneling up the lengthy (220 miles) and picturesque River Severn, about 100 miles west of London. "Ducking under branches and riding through bushes," British champion surfer Rod Sumpter said of his first experience on the Bore in 1968, "rode under the railway bridge where a row of spectators were watching this crazy surfer take on the world's most unusual wave."

The Severn Estuary, which empties into the Bristol Channel, has the third largest tidal range in the world—about 49 feet—behind only the Bay of Fundy and Ungava Bay, both in Canada. The bore rolls upriver one hour before high tide, twice a day, approximately 130 days a year, with the biggest and best waves—usually waist-high, but sometimes up to six feet—arriving just after the full and new moons around the spring equinox. Wave height is determined mostly by the tide differential, which goes as high as 50 feet (the greater the differential, the bigger the wave), and to a lesser degree by local winds and the level of freshwater runoff. The best part of the wave is along the river banks, as opposed to midstream. Switchbacks near Gloucester, particularly the bend at Stonebench, create the hottest Severn surfing waves. Wave speed averages about 11 miles per hour. On big bore days, hazards include uprooted trees, collapsing sections of riverbank, and the odd dead farm animal.

Two-mile Severn Bore rides are fairly common, and 40-minute rides have been recorded. In 2006, Steve King, a local railway engineer, set a world record for the longest wave surfed on a river bore, riding 7.6 miles up the Severn. ("Unlike surfing in the sea," King said afterward "you can ride along looking at the cows in the fields. There's nothing better.")

The break was first surfed in 1955 by John "Mad Jack" Churchill, a World War Two vet renowned for carrying a Scottish broadsword into battle. He learned to surf after the war, and in 1955, at age 49, rode the Bore on a surfboard he made himself.

In later years, as surfing became more popular in Great Britain, the Bore saw a corresponding rise in takers. As of 2014, hundreds of surfers, on all types of craft—mostly longboards and kayaks, but also shortboards and SUPS—can be found floating in the Severn waiting for the Bore to rumble in.

The Severn Bore has been featured in a small number of surf movies and videos, including 

Severn Bore

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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The Sunday Joint

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos