Interesting question! curious to here others thoughts too!
From my experience, I find it varies highly between breaks (and even how that break works at different swell direction/size/tide)- some waves jack up quick, break fast, or barrel, and my timing of paddling and positioning feels like needs to be just right (thinking like Keremas, Bali) in order to glide in, while others, even when bigger may have a slower crumbling wave that feels like you have a bigger window of time and positioning to play with and still make it, even if big (thinking El Suzal in El Salvador).
Worth also baring in mind, the more powerful and bigger the wave, the harder it is to paddle to match that power to catch it, and the more that gravity (aka steepness!) becomes your friend, esp on a short board! If a wave gets steep very quickly rather than gradually, I find I feel like my window of positioning and paddle timing is tighter to get to glide.
There’s definately a mental element for sure too (been there myself many times too 🙂!)- sometimes it looks too steep and unmakable, but you can glide into that steep face and catch it. The crux here is you may want a short enough board, or one with enough rocker (or both!) to fit the wave or there’s higher nose dive risk. Some waves really aren’t friendly to bigger boards!
My suggestion would be to body surf or body board to get a feel for what that wave is actually doing with lower stakes 🙂
Replied on A kook here new to the community 😃 A ...
20 May 14:17
Oh no way! I didn’t ride K59, or many breaks there, as I was only there for 4 days passing through, but my stormriders surf guide describes K59 “allowing experts a racetrack and intermediate a fun wall to shoulder on the wide sets”. Not an easy sounding description! 😂
El Salvador was amazing - seems they have loads of great waves- hope you have a great time!