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Comment by QuadrupleA | Hacker News Reader

As a surfer at crowded breaks, I've often thought it would be cool to build a little drone submarine early warning system - it would navigate itself out a half mile or so offshore, just under the surface. Then, when a big set comes, I would get a little buzz from a smart watch or ankle band, and casually paddle out past the crowds and get my pick of the good stuff :)

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"Casually paddle out past the crowds" ... C'mon, you know surfers are herd animals! Any hint that of someone paddling further out is likely to trigger a stampede.

So you're saying what I really need is a decoy surfer that I can send further out so I get the nearer spots to myself?

True :) I would have to time it just right.

I used to think about similar things, then I just moved continents. Now I surf breaks where more than one other person is a busy day :)

Can I ask where? I'm in San Clemente (near Trestles) and I've found one break I love that's consistently uncrowded.

Sweet. I surfed Trestles once a long, LONG time ago :)

I've just come back to Australia. I paddled out at 8am yesterday on a great reef break, the only other surfer joined me after 45 minutes alone. Alone besides the dolphins, that is :)

Anywhere in the world, with maybe two exceptions, has surf that is less crowded than the OC!

Can these be identified optically from the air over a wide area? If no, then maybe with a broad lidar sweep looking at returns as wave heights?

I think the image processing required would be a lot more difficult than a little floater that measures its current depth over time.

Not knowing anything about surfing, why can't you casually paddle out anyway, and get your pick of the good stuff when it comes. Do you not know it's good until it's further in?

You can, but there is variability and it's not entirely predictable. So you can be sitting alone out the back waiting for that odd big wave to come along while other smaller waves pass you by and are caught by surfers closer to shore. But you could be waiting 20 minutes between waves, or you could be out there for more than an hour waiting for that bigger wave never comes.

Not a surfer, but isn't the unpredictability part of the joy? I'm an avid amateur photographer and a huge part of the enjoyment comes from the fact that you don't know what you're going to see or when.

It is part of it. But consistent perfect waves is even more joyful.

Kelly’s Surf Ranch has shown that this probably isn’t true after all.

I'd argue to opposite - surfing in the ocean is free, but people pay ridiculous amounts of money to surf at the ranch.

Because you’re probably waiting with the crowd near where the smaller waves are breaking so you can catch those. Some people do just wait further out for the bigger waves, but they miss out on all the smaller waves breaking closer to the beach in the meantime. If you had more warning you could go out before anyone else sees the larger set coming in. Other people will usually see it in time to get there, but you’ll be first in line.

That said, I don’t think it would be worth it. You usually don’t want to take the first wave in a big set anyways, because if you miss it then you can get stuck in the impact zone for the whole set.

Big sets like the one he’s talking about don’t come by very often. If you sat outside waiting, you’d miss 20 minutes of catching smaller waves.

And if you just watch for bigger waves from where you can catch the normal ones, then you’ll have a dozen other guys to fight for it when it comes, since that’s what everybody else is doing.

I wonder when projects like this one, featuring semi-autonomous drones, will become commoditised enough to be feasible. There are lots of cool use cases for agents that wait for an event to happen, or monitor an area, or track something, with the ability to make some rule-based decisions automatically.

Could you share some of your ideas?

https://urbit.org/blog/iot

A small drone surface boat would be more effective for detecting large swells than a submarine. A neutrally buoyant sub won't feel much difference as a swell passes by. With a surface boat you could use the same sensors as an on NOAA buoy.

A sub would also need a floating antenna on the surface to receive GNSS signals for station keeping, and to transmit alerts. Those signals are blocked by water.

Yeah I'd love to have an "incoming set" warning system... Sub might work, drone might work, boat might work, but I think what you really want is a personal bouy anchored to the seafloor a bit like the NOAA ones, but way closer to shore. Can anyone here comment on the practical, safety and / or legal aspects of doing that?

I’ve often thought about something like this. I think pro surfers could use this to “cheat” (really depends on the rules) in competitions, but would be really nice to have for the casual surfer.

Same problem here. LMK when you get your kickstarter up, I'll be first money in!

Setting up a Kickstarter for this kind of defeats the utility of the device.

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