A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

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

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Novelty form of the sport utilizing water-displacement waves generated by large ships—tankers and container ships for the most part. The waves fan out from the ship's bow and break over nearby shipping channel shoals and sandbars. "If we lived in Southern California, we probably wouldn't be seeking out weird things like this," Texas tanker surfer Peter Davis said. "We'd be happy to just go to the beach and go surfing." But this alternative form of the sport, Davis added, does have it's own special allure.

Tanker surfing (then called "freighter surfing") began in the mid-1960s, when Michigan's Tobe Couture and friends rode freighter-generated waves in Lake St. Clair, not far from Detroit, in a shipping link between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Freighter's moving north up the channel, Couture later recalled, were preferred. "Some captains would even maintain speed well into the channel, sinking the ship lower in the water, to give the surfers a better ride." Dozens of Michigan teens got hooked on the new form of surfing before the sandbars washed away in the early '70s.

A small number of surfers in Galveston, Texas, had by then picked up on the sport, and the area remains the tanker surfing capital. Wave quality is determined by the water depth along a given channel shoreline (low tide is optimal); the size, weight, speed, and direction of the ship (bigger, heavier, faster, incoming are best); and the width and shape of the channel (narrower is better). The tankers themselves are generally 250-feet long, weigh 95,000 tons, and travel between 9 and 12 mph. Tankers waves are mostly waist-high, but can on occasion go slightly overhead. The power is the wave is much reduced from the typical ocean wave, which is why tanker surfing as a rule is longboard-only activity. Rides can last for 15 minutes, and extend for over three miles.

Tanker surfing was introduced to the world at large in Dana Brown's 2003 movie 

, which showed the Galveston gang zipping around channel-traversing tankers in a motorboat, then jumping out and catching waves. Brown loved what he saw. "What they're doing out there," he later said, "in a way is just as radical as the big wave guys in Hawaii. The whole thing seems very Texan . . . the ingenuity."

tanker surfing

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