Boards are now designed to suit every purpose, from learning on the gentle swells of south sore beaches to riding the big waves at the Banzai Pipeline. One common variation is the paipo board, or body board. Surfers flock to Hawaii for the waves. With no continental shelf to slow down the swell, the velocity of a wave moving toward the beach is considerably greater in Hawaii than on the mainland. When these fast-moving swells come out of deep water and hit the shallow coral reefs, the result is an explosive wave, filled with unleashed power.
Surfers describe both the parts of the waves and the waves themselves.
When speaking of the lip, they're referring to the leading edge of the breaking part of a wave. The curl is the lip of the wave when it's falling in a arc. A peeling wave breaks with the curl moving across it diagonally. The ideal shape the surfer looks for is a hollow, peeling wave. This type of wave breaks with the lip pitching out, hitting the flat water in front of the wave, and peeling left or right in a somewhat consistent manner.