What is a slab? Like many things in life, some of us aren’t always able to define it in our own words but we certainly know it when we see it.
The most basic factor of slab creation is that of a place where waves quickly travel from deep water to a shallow reef. While most of us find waves that gradually roll into shore, the slab distinctly drops out from top to bottom or rockets up when it breaks, inspiring words like “ledges” or “shelves” or “mutants” to describe them. They mostly just don’t look easy to surf, watching people airdrop into the flats, get sucked over the falls, and hit phantom chops on a wave face more often than not.
For all these reasons, the thought of creating a man-made “slab” is an intriguing one. Wave pools are changing surfing forever, giving athletes more opportunities to refine their skill set. Wavegarden’s Cove slab wave is apparently the newest evolution of that phenomenon.
“I would never really take Sierra, or any girls of that age, out on a wave (in the ocean) that’s doing that (slabbing) because generally it’s on a pretty shallow reef and they would get pretty smoked,” Josh Kerr says about a slab training session for daughter Sierra and friend Bettylou Sakaru Johnson. “For them, to have the experience of late drops and throaty, double-up style barrels… that really builds their confidence and builds my confidence in them, to watch them do it, like ‘wow, they’re capable of it.'”
It’s certainly no Shippies, but by definition, this probably qualifies as a slab. Do you agree or disagree?
