straighten out

A yielding maneuver in which the surfer, faced with a fast-breaking and unmakable section, veers off perpendicular to the wave—or "straightens out" the angle he'd been holding across the wave face—and rides toward shore just ahead of the whitewater. A surfer usually straightens out only when he can't exit the wave by kicking out over the crest. The maneuver can also be forced, when an- other surfe...