Surfing speed in big and small waves

I have often been asked how it is that we have recorded speeds of over 35 mph and up to 37mph on relativey small ( e.g.. head high) low period beachbreak , when tow in surfers on waves up to ten times bigger only achieve speeds in the mid 40'sIt seems strange at first as a 60 foot wave has ( all else being equal ) about 100 times the power of a 6 foot wave. Surely a surfer on a 60 foot wave should be able to go 3700mph if a surfer on a 6 foot wave can do 37mph?The answer of course is that they can't. A surfer on a 60 foot wave only travels about 1.5 times a s fast as a surferat peak speed on a 6 foot wave ( approximately that is ) .Why is this ?One reason is that drag increases by the square as speed increases ( approximately anyway ) so increses in power do not get a proportionally high increase in speed. This only partially explains the small increase in speed with large increases in powerA second reason is that waves of low power allow a more efficient energy transfer into horizontal motion than high powered waves. With high powered waves the glide path has to be more vertical in order to overcome the lifting power of the wave, thus a lot of the lifting power of the wave is wasted. The reason for this is that the rider only has a fixed amount of acceleration due to gravity available . . . the acceleration and force due to gravity do not increase proportionally as the power of the wave does. . . if it did the rider would go a lot faster on bigger waves than they do.