“You scour the coastline. You're searching for the perfect geography, the best combination of headland and bay creating the longest breaks. You extrapolate the sea bed, analyse the currents and prevailing winds, account for the time of year, the time of day, the phase of the moon. After all that you're faced with a succession of waves, picking one to try and ride. Hard work and preparation pay off but you never have all the data and couldn't synthesise it if you did. After a ba...