🛹 Surfing & Bodyboarding Trivia Questions & Answers
Waves, breaks, contests and the surfers who chase them. Below are 30 free surfing & bodyboarding trivia questions with answers — part of Action Sports trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Action Sports quiz — no signup needed to start.
30 Surfing & Bodyboarding trivia questions
Q1. What do surfers call riding inside the hollow curl of a wave?
Answer: Barrel
💡 Getting 'barreled' or 'tubed' is considered the ultimate thrill in surfing.
Q2. What's the surfing term for pushing your board underwater to dive under a wave?
Answer: Duck dive
💡 A clean duck dive lets a surfer punch through breaking waves while paddling out.
Q3. Who invented the foam bodyboard, first sold in Hawaii in 1971 for 37 dollars?
Answer: Tom Morey
💡 He priced it at $37 to match his age at the time.
Q4. Bethany Hamilton inspired millions by returning to surfing after losing an arm to what?
Answer: A shark
💡 She was back on her board just 26 days after the 2003 attack off Kauai.
Q5. A surfboard leash is a cord that tethers the board to the surfer's what?
Answer: Ankle
💡 Also called a leg-rope, it stops a lost board washing all the way to shore.
Q6. What is the title of Bethany Hamilton's best-selling memoir about her surfing comeback?
Answer: Soul Surfer
💡 The 2004 book was later adapted into a Hollywood film.
Q7. Which surfing body renamed itself the World Surf League in 2015?
Answer: ASP
💡 The Association of Surfing Professionals became the WSL to feel simpler for new fans.
Q8. How many world titles has Kelly Slater won, an all-time surfing record?
Answer: 11
💡 Slater won titles 17 years apart, first at age 20 and again at 39.
Q9. Which beach hosted surfing's Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games?
Answer: Tsurigasaki Beach
💡 Brazil's Italo Ferreira and USA's Carissa Moore became surfing's first Olympic champions there.
Q10. Which Pacific island hosted the surfing events at the Paris 2024 Olympics?
Answer: Tahiti
💡 The surfing venue sat nearly 10,000 miles from Paris, the farthest an Olympic event has ever been.
Q11. Which famous barreling wave breaks on Oahu's North Shore in Hawaii?
Answer: Pipeline
💡 Pipeline's shallow reef makes for some of the most photographed barrels on the planet.
Q12. What nickname is often given to Duke Kahanamoku for popularizing surfing?
Answer: Father of modern surfing
💡 Kahanamoku was also an Olympic swimming champion for Team USA in the 1910s and 1920s.
Q13. How many world surfing titles did Australia's Layne Beachley win, a women's record for years?
Answer: Seven
💡 She won six of them in a row, a streak no surfer has matched.
Q14. Kelly Slater holds records as surfing's youngest and also its what world champion?
Answer: Oldest
💡 He won his first title in 1992 at 20 and his last in 2011 at 39.
Q15. Gabriel Medina made history in 2014 as the first world surfing champion from where?
Answer: Brazil
💡 He sealed the title at the Pipe Masters on Oahu's North Shore.
Q16. Which bodyboarding style has the rider put one knee on the board and one foot forward?
Answer: Drop knee
💡 It's nicknamed the 'Jack Stance' after Hawaiian pioneer Jack Lindholm.
Q17. Big-wave riders are towed into waves too large to paddle for by which watercraft?
Answer: jet ski
💡 Laird Hamilton's crew pioneered tow-in surfing at Maui's Jaws in the 1990s.
Q18. Which US surfer won the first-ever Olympic women's surfing gold in 2021?
Answer: Carissa Moore
💡 Moore, a Hawaii native, beat South Africa's Bianca Buitendag for the historic gold.
Q19. As of 2020, what was the official record wave height surfed at Nazaré, in feet?
Answer: 86 feet
💡 That Guinness-certified ride, by Sebastian Steudtner, happened in October 2020.
Q20. Which big-wave surfer set the 2020 Guinness record wave at Nazaré?
Answer: Steudtner
💡 Sebastian Steudtner's 86-foot wave broke the previous Nazaré record by six feet.
Q21. What move do surfers do to change direction sharply off the wave's top?
Answer: Cutback
💡 A cutback redirects the surfer back toward the breaking part of the wave for more speed.
Q22. Roughly how long is a typical bodyboard, in inches?
Answer: 40 inches
💡 That's around half the length of a typical shortboard used for stand-up surfing.
Q23. Who overtook Layne Beachley by winning an eighth women's world surfing title in 2022?
Answer: Stephanie Gilmore
💡 She clinched number eight at Honolua Bay in Maui.
Q24. Australian shaper Simon Anderson transformed surfboards in 1981 by adding a third what?
Answer: Fin
💡 His three-fin 'Thruster' swept the sport after wins at Bells and Pipeline.
Q25. Which Tahitian reef break, one of surfing's heaviest waves, hosted the Paris 2024 events?
Answer: Teahupoo
💡 Its power comes from deep water rising abruptly onto a shallow coral reef.
Q26. The big-wave contest known as 'The Eddie' is held at which bay on Oahu?
Answer: Waimea Bay
💡 It only runs when open-ocean swells top 20 feet, so it's held rarely.
Q27. Nazaré's giant waves are generated by Europe's largest underwater what?
Answer: Canyon
💡 The canyon funnels swell energy straight at the beach, amplifying the waves.
Q28. In the bodyboarding move called El Rollo, the rider and board complete what off the lip?
Answer: A roll
💡 The name is Spanish for 'the roll,' coined on a whim in the late 1980s.
Q29. As of 2026, roughly how many events make up a full WSL Championship Tour season?
Answer: 12
💡 A surfer's best nine of twelve results decide the world title.
Q30. About how many miles separated Paris from its 2024 Olympic surf venue?
Answer: Nearly 10,000
💡 Teahupo'o, Tahiti became the farthest an Olympic event has ever been held from its host city.
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