Ms Reid, a three-times world champion, said team manager Phil Williams had been her eyes in the water for the first time.
“I know what I like, so I told him what kind of wave and what directions I wanted, then he’d give me verbal cues like ‘this wave’s going to do this, do you want it?'”
She said she was “super-pleased” to have come second against Aleli Medina from Puerto Rico who she said was “one of the best surfers in the world”.
“I’ve been surfing better that I’ve ever surfed and all I wanted to do was showcase what I could do as a blind female surfer from Cornwall,” Ms Reid added.
Team England were ranked seventh overall in the world championships in which 24 countries were represented by about 135 athletes.