Winching the Ocean

Im goin on vacation in Panama City this summer and ive got access to a winch so i was thinking of bringing it with me to use on the beach. Has anyone done this before? Will it work if i just set it up on the beach and walk way down the beach and then once i get up will i be able to cut out far enough to enjoy it? Ive seen it done in the ocean and it looks like a blast but ive only seen it done when someone anchors it out in the water off a pier. I wont have access to a pier so wondering if it would be worth it to try from the beach.

Some of my friends winching in Mexico

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=14284 391

I did it, its super fun. Shorebreaks work the best. We were able to start in a spot where the waves broke pretty small, swim past the break, then get pulled from there into the actual break. It worked great and is super fun. You can definitely blast off some waves if you time it right.

i did once just because i thought it looked fun. i used three 3 foot stakes to stake it into the sand, and it stayed in place.
ive seen video of guys jumping off waves and it looked alot of fun to me.
i hated every second of it, its supper hard to time the waves to get up, and ya you can cut out a ways and jump off the waves, but its so choppy its hard to get a good edge, i caught a few edges while cutting out, flipped over the front of the board while trying to get up due to timing the waves wrong, it was all bad. ill never do it again. it was a waste of a day to me. out of 15 or 20 pulls, i only made it the 1000 feet i walked out twice. all the others where crashes.

after being tired from waking the line out 1000 feet through the sand, then trying to get up is even harder. it was so exhausting. i did it about 3 months ago, and im still finding sand coming out of my bindings, and my vest is full of sand as well. and i cant seem to get it out, (even though it works its way out onto the floor of the boat everytime i pick it up)

i was so cut up from it and had road rash in all sorts of places.
plus cleaning all the sand out of the tav, the motor the frame... not a fun task.

so yes you can do it. but i wouldnt recommend it. it was brutal to me, i hated every moment of it. i might have just had a bad expierience though. but it was enough for me to never bring my winch out again to the beach..

edit- the video posted has some really mellow waves. the beach i was at, which is where i like to skim board at, has 5 to 6 foot waves on an average day, and as posted above swimming out, wasnt really an option you get pounded.. if you can find a really mellow beach to do it at, you might have a good time.

(Message edited by lfrider92 on February 08, 2010)

I've done this a couple times over at Cocoa Beach (across the street from the air force base) and have had o.k. results. We just put the winch in the sand at about a 45 degree angle to the shore line, buried it a little, then stand on it and it hasn't gone anywhere. We walk the handle down the beach then strap in so that when a wave comes in you're in a couple inches of water. Once we are strapped in we give the thumbs up and when the next wave comes the operator gives it gas. Basically we skim board for a few seconds at the beginning of each run (we are on slingshot's with no fins) until you're deep enough where you can cut (only takes to a count of 1 or 2 mississippi). We usually try to make a big "arc" out of our path (cutting out for the first half of the ride then coming back in the second half). We've been able to get solid air a few times (180's, 360's) but it's kind of a crap shoot as to what the waves are gonna be like during your run since it has been choppy both days. Falling and trying to get the board off can suck. If it was a nice clean consistent wave it would be a lot more fun(maybe let go of the rope and surf for a while??) . It's not something I'm dying to do every day but I do plan to do it more in the future since its free. Sorry no pics or vid.

Thanks for all the input. I have been debating whether or not it would be worth lugging the winch all the way to Florida and then all the way down to the beach for a few decent runs. Now I am leaning more toward it probably not being worth it. I'll prob just take that week off.

No winch needed!
http://www.bansheebungee.com/

I swam out in 5 to 6 foot waves no problem.
Here's some clips from the day I went.

If you notice, we hit it both ways. Going from one way, the waves were very small strapping in(going left of screen to right). Going from the other way we had to deal with 5 to 6 foot waves breaking on us.

I posted this once before in another thread.
Beach wakeboarding...redneck style.



We started out standing in a few inches of water and just leaned back! You only need a few inches of water to start.