Hurricane Larry swell continued to improve on Friday and Saturday. I never left Hull and just settled for the small rollers that came through. There were several overhead waves to be had on the sets, but conditions were generally soft and required bigger boards with more foam. I attempted to use a shortboard on Friday morning anticipating better waves, but honestly I should have stuck to the longboards and fish for this entire swell.
I ended up only getting two different surfboards in the water on Friday and Saturday. The watch was still messing up with the GPS as well, but I gotta go with what it says. I am trying to get in shape for Costa Rica next week, and I need to compare session stats.
6'5 Lost Puddle Jumper HP , 2 sessions, 88 minutes, 15 waves, 964 yards
9'0 Vec Performance Longboard , 1 session, 119 minutes, 22 Waves, 1690 yards
Early Larry- Wed + Thu = 4 sessions, 282 minutes, 40 Waves, 2174 yards
Later Larry- Fri + Sat = 3 sessions, 207 minutes, 37 Waves, 2654 yards
Long Larry- 164 yards, Vec Performance Longboard
Fast Larry- 15.5 MPH, Vec Performance Longboard
Top Larry- Saturday 7:28am was the best session Larry had to offer. It had the best combination of swell, tide, and wind conditions for Nantasket Beach. The session was 1 hour 59 minutes, 22 waves, 1690 total yards. Nine waves were 95 yards or longer, with three waves going for more than 143 yards, topping out at 164 yards. Top speed was achieved in this final session, on my final Larry wave, a 55 yard inside wall, at 15.5 mph.
I honestly tried really hard to get something going on Friday morning with an actual high performance shortboard, but to no avail. I even went through the hassle of setting up the SoloShot, but was mostly disappointed in the results. I tried to record my session on the Vec Performance Longboard, but the SoloShot went from fully charged to dead sixty seconds after firing it up. It's a love hate relationship with that thing. All the other pictures are taken by Jamie Lein, using her cell phone. I posted the shortboard video clip below the photo gallery, it's the only session I managed to record on video. I'm almost forty-nine years old and I live on the east coast. So go ahead and judge me you shredders. And send me that awesome video of you killing it, on a shortboard, at your crappy east coast home break! :P
But Hurricane Larry provided quite a bit of relief for the Right Coasters, which translated to four days of rideable surf on my east-facing beach in Massachusetts. Since the 4th of July swell, I'd only caught ten waves over a period of sixty+ days. Now that Larry has passed, I'm adding more than seventy waves to my 2021 count. So I'm back on track to score five hundred+ before year's end, and because I'm now retired, should be able to go over a thousand. But all said and done, Larry performed well in the New England area, and while a lot of the long-period swell was small and walled-up on my beach, there were plenty of rides to be had.
I hope you got some waves wherever you are.
Next week, I'm headed back to Costa Rica... stay tuned for some more posts :)