Waves
How to read the shape
Once swell reaches a sandbar, the question changes from whether there is energy to whether the wave has a makeable shoulder. Reading the peak, shoulder and closeout line helps you choose better waves.
Parts of a wave
Before reading rights, lefts or A-frames, separate the wave into its basic parts. The face or shoulder is the open wall you ride. The lip is the top edge throwing forward. Under the lip is the curl or pocket, where the wave is steepest and most powerful. Once that lip lands, it becomes whitewater in the impact zone.
Rights and lefts
A right breaks so the open face runs to the surfer's right. The important clue is the long angled shoulder: one section is breaking, but the rest of the face is still open. A left is the same shape mirrored in the other direction.
A-frames open both ways
An A-frame starts from a central peak and opens left and right. Both shoulders should look like long, sloping versions of the same open face in the right-breaking example. If the peak throws foam but there is no continuous face running away on either side, it is not a useful A-frame.
Closeouts
From the beach, a closeout looks like one continuous horizontal breaking line with no peeling angle. The face may stand up, but the lip folds over across the line at once, so there is no open shoulder to run toward.
Closeouts are common when a straight section of sandbar makes the whole crest feel the bottom at nearly the same time. Instead of one part of the wave breaking first and peeling down the line, the lip pitches forward across the face together.
Closeout versus open face
A makeable wave looks uneven: one section breaks first, then the foam runs along an angled shoulder. A closeout looks straighter because the lip is closing across the line instead of peeling down it. That angle is the difference between having somewhere to go and getting swallowed by whitewater.