Dylan took some time out from the pumping Namibia swell to share some local insight for our latest Rusty Surfboards South Africa Blog: What are your favourite models to use at your local spot? Reef breaks - I love surfing the Enough Said model at most of our reef breaks High-performance waves - The Model 8 is probably my favorite board, which I surf the least, but it works very well in critical, high-performance waves. Beach breaks - The Dozer and the Heckler are my all-round groveler boards, depending on how I’m feeling, I usually go for the Heckler as a fun board, and the dozer for most of the beach breaks as it has a bit of extra width to push you through the flat sections. Large and punchy - In terms of Skeleton Bay, I found that both the Slayer and Enough Said work excellently out there. Depending on the size and the tide, the Slayer definitely excels when it gets larger and punchier, and the Enough Said for anything less than that. Which areas do you mainly surf? I spend a lot of time surfing left-hand reef breaks, such as Thicklip and anything that is barrelling. There is plenty of beach breaks up the coast to select from. When Skeleton Bay is on, you’ll always find me out there. What are the must-haves when surfing there? e.g. fins, boards During summer the weather can be very pleasant with warm waters up to 24 degrees celsius, making a normal 3:2 wetsuit perfect. However, we lack swell, so a good groveler is always your best option. Winter conditions can get very harsh with cold waters and even colder outside conditions, so a 4:3 or 5:4 wetsuit will suffice (as long as you have a hoodie you should be fine). Along with winter comes our strong ground swells, and Skeleton Bay. Make sure you’ve got yourself a high-performance board, as most of the better spots start to wake up during this time. Waves barely exceed 8ft, so I stick to a standard 6’0 step-up board but usually, end up surfing my standard 5’10 out at most places. In terms of fins, make sure you have at least one pair of speed generating fins - they always seem to prevail in our waves. Describe the conditions Winters are cold and gnarly, usually always accompanied by thick mist and strong onshore winds that pick up in the afternoon - make sure you hit the surf early. In saying that, we also get our best surf during this time, so you can prepare to surf anything from point breaks to beach breaks, to endless peeling barrels. Summers tend to be our quiet surf season, as we don’t get many large swells. You’re usually restricted to surfing small, fun beach breaks in perfect conditions. This is usually a good time to explore some hidden gems. Any tips? Always respect the locals. I’ve seen it time and time again that many surfers who come to Namibia for Skeleton Bay tend to treat the locals pretty bad. This is quite sad as most of them are very friendly and, will almost always show you around and give you insight as to where the waves are. @_dylanlackey You can now browse and enjoy surfboards for sale in South Africa via our online surf shop and have your new stick delivered to your door! Please feel free to contact us via the Whatsapp widget on the left-hand side of the site if you have any questions or email us via the address below. Interested in viewing Dylan's quiver recommendations? Check out these Rusty Surfboards on our online surf shop:
