Surfriding What really happened in Holland Oct 15th, 2011. RIP Kevin Bruins!

[WILKEY]

Seriously..... Who the f wants
To ride in that shiitt, 4 seconds? Sounds like you guys have issues to ride that crap!!

 

[B3IS]

I have paddled into big surf many times in the pacific ocean. I have ridden in big surf on my ski a bunch of times also......................I want NOTHING to do with that big storm wind driven mixed up junk out there. Those are not waves....That is a recipe for things to go wrong at any time. Always looking for big clean glassy shoulders. Sketchy We see alot of debris on the river that just becomes something to circle around jump over or sub under.




Still feeling the pain of a terrible loss to someboady that clearly made the lives of the people around him better.

 

[N3vrSat1sfied]

Seriously..... Who the f wants
To ride in that shiitt, 4 seconds? Sounds like you guys have issues to ride that crap!!

I agree it was crap. That Saturday was suppose to be my first trip to freshwater surf, so I went on Kevin's word. I wont ride that again though, specially after the clean surf down south I am use to. Everyone I talk to says the surf that gets rode on the great lakes is the surf that the ocean riders would stay at home for (pretty much agree now). I guess you gotta take what you can get, but I will for sure watch the reports better and draw the line in the future.

Maybe at some point I can show the video of us going out so you can see how rough it was, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[Proformance1]

That morning on Lake Erie when we were discussing going out at around Noon, I stopped at the boat launch to check launch conditions. Drew and I had discussed the Sat morning ride the night before. While I was at the launch a rail road tie was ejected out of the surf onto the ramp. I knew it was not a good day with all the debris. Im just glad no one got into trouble as a rescue without a sit down that day would have been difficult at best and the rock cliff to the right was about a mile long before a beach break from the storm surge. Very, very difficult conditions that day, and we had 4 riders. I think i rode for about 6 minutes total, sucked up some sticks, seaweed, etc and fell off. Luckilly I was able to get back on before the next wave and went directly in. I was done unless I had to go back out to help the others still riding. It was too intense to even do our normal head tap signal. Luckily we were all within visual reference of the launch, so they could see me on the beach cat if they looked for me. We call that survival riding in our group and tell all that if something goes wrong all we are grabbing is you and your ski is going to be left if something happens. All have to agree before launching.

 

[OCD Solutions]

I cringe at anything under 5 seconds. Not near enough time to recover between waves and you can loose your shape in a hurry with no chance at a recovery.

 

[N3vrSat1sfied]

I cringe at anything under 5 seconds. Not near enough time to recover between waves and you can loose your shape in a hurry with no chance at a recovery.

I dont think we ever went out in anything less then 6sec when i was riding with y'all. there were days at 6' at like 12sec!

 

[OCD Solutions]

Truthfully, its more like 7 seconds and thats with anything over 2 ft. Over 6 ft and it better be 10 secs plus for me to even bother drive the 2-3 hours to ride. I love riding clean surf though and have far better things to do with my time than get beat to crap in chopped up surf.

 

[Frosty]

I cringe at anything under 5 seconds. Not near enough time to recover between waves and you can loose your shape in a hurry with no chance at a recovery.

LOL - me too, but we rarely get clean waves and rarely get more than a few seconds between them. Even on decent 4 - 6 foot waves the intervals are tight and there's typically a lot of chop between them... so the only place to find semi clean waves are close the the marina brakewall where (in our case) nice SW winds force the waves to wrap around point of the jetty and spread out a bit. Typically shallow water and close to rocks. if you don't know the area - beware. we have a spot that goes from 30' - 6' right outside the marina... waves peak out nice there... but if you hit it too late and nose in from too high you will hit a very hard shale bottom.

 

[cybermob2]

you can argue the ocean surf vs great lakes surf all day, but it doesn't change anything.

kevin was surely lovin' it... i've been with him so many times that i know for sure the minute we leave the ramp it will be a challenge just to keep up on the way out to the channel. kevin turned into a little kid on days like saturday... he wasn't looking for glassy head highs and knew full well it would be knarly. that was the excitement for him.

i don't think anyone that regularly rode with kevin would argue with me. if kevin were around for another day like that he'd go out again, no doubt.

 

[Tmart]

you can argue the ocean surf vs great lakes surf all day, but it doesn't change anything.

kevin was surely lovin' it... i've been with him so many times that i know for sure the minute we leave the ramp it will be a challenge just to keep up on the way out to the channel. kevin turned into a little kid on days like saturday... he wasn't looking for glassy head highs and knew full well it would be knarly. that was the excitement for him.

i don't think anyone that regularly rode with kevin would argue with me. if kevin were around for another day like that he'd go out again, no doubt.

I get an adrenaline rush too and cant control it. We went to Daytona a few weeks ago when a borderline tropical storm came through and we rode in around 15 ft waves with 3 or 4 sec between, which thinking back could have been awful. Plus it was raining like crazy and you couldnt see anything. We all have to let safety override adrenaline.

 

[DrewProductions]

We know exactly what you mean Cyber. Someone mentioned that they didnt know the Great lakes could be like that, thats the only reason the conversation headed in that direction. I know what your saying about Kevin, theres nothing better and more exciting than dropping into some gnarly surf, im sure freshwater and ocean guys would both agree.

 

[Idok]

I get an adrenaline rush too and cant control it. We went to Daytona a few weeks ago when a borderline tropical storm came through and we rode in around 15 ft waves with 3 or 4 sec between, which thinking back could have been awful. Plus it was raining like crazy and you couldnt see anything. We all have to let safety override adrenaline.

you get over that after a few times........

 

[teamkarb]

I have rode daytona and virgina beach. But would take the waves that saturday morning anytime. Thats just me and I grew up riding lake michigan. Maybe its a little sick of me but theres an added rush and I love it...............All the money in the world says kevin loved the same rush, thats why we were both out there living/loving riding lake michigan!!

 

[NVJAY775]

Our local (small) lake doesn't get that big, but on a high wind day it gets pretty descent waves. But they are close and random, choppy etc. But sooooo much fun to ride. We watch the weather for high wind days and thunder storms in the summer and hopefully can make a trip out and get our stoke on.

At first the park rangers didn't want us out in it, but now they come to our camp first to help find and bring in lost boats, or get boats off the rocks, help at the launch etc....

 

[N3vrSat1sfied]

As its been a year since we lost Kevin, thought we should bump this thread in honor of him. Also to remind everybody that our sport is dangerous and things happen very quickly. It's important that we don't forget this. Ride smart and safe!

RIP Kevin

 

[cattledog]

time sure flys, one thing great about the x is that we know all a lot of the people on here from freerides and such, it was great that we could help out kevins family and thanks to the wavejunkies who really helped a lot

 

[blaster800]

He's not forgotten and missed by so many .............. thought about him many times ........................

 

[tipafew]

I think about him every time I go out the channel. I love riding those spots I used to ride with him, but I will always look at and respect those waves differently.

 

[N3vrSat1sfied]

RIP Kevin, 2 years ago we lost a great rider in our community. I think it is important to bump this thread up in Honor of him, and that we DO NOT forget how anything can happen on the water, and how dangerous our sport can be.

 

[MADMAT]

Kevin was a high high energy person! Our 4 to 6++ footers with 5 seconds in between makes for non stop full tank of gas high energy shredding and rolling and stabbing.....as long as your ski and body holds up you will never be waiting for or looking for waves! You just shred until your body quits or your ski quits! It was perfect for Kevin...and me!