A surfboat is an oar-driven boat designed to enter the ocean from the beach in heavy surf or severe waves. It is often used in lifesaving

Lifesaving

Lifesaving is the act involving rescue, resuscitation and first aid. It often refers to water safety and aquatic rescue however it could include ice rescue, flood and river rescue, swimming pool rescue and other emergency medical services. Lifesaving also refers to sport where lifesavers compete...

 or rescue missions where the most expedient access to victims is directly from the beach.

Construction

The boat building

Boat building

Boat building, one of the oldest branches of engineering, is concerned with constructing the hulls of boats and, for sailboats, the masts, spars and rigging.-Parts:* Bow - the front and generally sharp end of the hull...

 traditions of several countries produced the same basic design when faced with the same problem, that of passing through turbulent whitewater and breaking waves and returning to shore. A broad stern presented to steep and breaking waves when approaching shore can result in broaching (turning sideways to the swell) and swamping or capsizing of the boat. Therefore, surf boats have a pointed stern

Stern

The stern is the rear or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section...

 and usually a fairly marked sheer.

The best-known exception to this double-ended nature of surf boats, is the coble

Coble

The coble is a type of open traditional fishing boat which developed on the North East coast of England. The southern-most examples occur around Hull The coble is a type of open traditional fishing boat which developed on the North East coast of England. The southern-most examples occur around Hull...

 of north-eastern England. Here, the broaching problem was resolved by beaching stern first. The run (the after part of the bottom) was broad, flat and straight so that once the boat had beached, it remained upright. However, beaching the boat was a special skill which involved unshipping the rudder at the right moment. Because they do not fit the usual double-ended pattern, cobles are not normally called surf boats.

Until the 1950s, the most widely-known surfboats were those of Accra

Accra

Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...

, Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

. Until a port was built, commercial cargoes were landed through the surf by very skillful boatmen with strong arms and equally strong nerve.

In Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying from the nearest land, South Africa, and from South America...

 and Pitcairn Island the surf boats are known as longboat

Longboat

In the days of sailing ships, a vessel would carry several ship's boats for various uses. One would be a longboat, an open boat to be rowed by eight or ten oarsmen, two per thwart...

s.

Use

Surf boat rowing is very popular in Australia and New Zealand and to a lesser extent South Africa. Usually associated with Surf Life Saving clubs, surf boat crews are trained in life saving skills as well as boat handling technique. Powered vessels such as inflatable skiff

Skiff

The term skiff is used for a number of essentially unrelated styles of small boat. The word is related to ship and has a complicated etymology: "skiff" comes from the Middle English skif, which derives from the Old French esquif, which in turn derives from the Old Italian schifo, which is itself of...

s and Jet Ski

Jet ski

Jet Ski is the brand name of a personal watercraft manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The name is sometimes mistakenly used by those unfamiliar with the personal watercraft industry to refer to any type of personal watercraft; however, the name is a valid trademark registered with the...

personal watercraft have replaced surf boats as the primary tools for real world rescue efforts, but surfboat training and competition remain popular as recreational activities among both professional rescuers and amateur athletes.

Surfboat rowing is where the infamous 'wedgie' of bathers comes from to allow the rower to slide up and down the fixed seat. Unlike stillwater rowing where the seat is on rollers, a surfboat has a fixed seat to allow it to work in the surf.

The Australian form of the sport attracts wide media coverage and is often featured on mainstream sporting shows in the summer months. Surf boats are 4 oared vessels with pointed bow and sterns. The boat is steered by a fifth crewperson called the sweep who stands in the stern and uses an oar as a rudder to help control the direction of the boat. During competition surf crews race head to head, starting on the beach and rowing out through the surf, into open water and around a designated set of turning buoys (often referred to as cans). On rounding the final can, the crews then race back to the beach. As the boat nears the beach the crew attempts to catch a cresting wave and surf all the way in to shore, raising the oars from the water while the sweep steers the boat to keep it upright and on the face of the wave. Surf boat races are conducted on a weekly basis throughout the Australian summer. Hundreds of boat crews take part.

The 2011 Australian U19 Surfboat champions were the South Curl Curl Dutch Rudders of the Northern Beaches, Sydney, NSW
The 2011 Australian Open Men champions were Mona Vale Black, based on the Northern Beaches, Sydney, NSW
The 2011 Australian U23 champs were Kurrawa, the Open Women were Mooloolaba.