Rory Parker examines the consequences… 

Matt Rott’s got an interesting interview with Greg Long up on Magic Seaweed right now. Focuses on Long’s decision to play water safety during the recent Cloudbreak bomb day rather than surf. Very interesting stuff.

Beyond the subject matter, I think it’s damn neat that Rott paddled out himself that day. I don’t think I would have. I like big waves, but there’s a limit. I know a thing or two about holding my breath, if the surf can keep you submerged long enough to turn out the lights shit’s just too damn real.

Today I paddled out into small slop. Bobbed around the lineup like a potato for around an hour without catching a wave, took off on a chest high double up to go in. Tried to do an ollie into the flats. “Look at me I’m Mason Ho!”

Timed the landing to perfectly hit some oncoming backwash, cased my entire oafish frame into the deck of my board. Shit hurt. Buckled my nose. Sebastian Zietz was just inside pushing some little girl into waves. But he doesn’t know who I am, and I wasn’t about to introduce myself at that point.

Got me thinking about safety gear. How surfing doesn’t really have any. Don’t think a leash counts, that’s just there to save effort. Big-wave vests exist, but they’re for a different breed.

Gath helmets and nose guards exist, but no one really uses them.

Timed the landing to perfectly hit some oncoming backwash, cased my entire oafish frame into the deck of my board. Shit hurt. Buckled my nose. Sebastian Zietz was just inside pushing some little girl into waves. But he doesn’t know who I am, and I wasn’t about to introduce myself at that point.

It’s kind of surprising no one’s tried to market the equivalent of skate pads for surf. Seems pretty straightforward. Rash guard with padded elbows and shoulders. Board shorts with the same deal in the hips. They’d look damn kooky, for sure, but I could imagine using them at a shallow low tide reef. Like super small Rockies, when it’s breaking right on the inside ledge and straightening out puts you in six inches of water.

Most surfers’d be too cool to wear ’em, but I suspect non-surfing moms around the world would happily part with some ducats to keep their babies safe.

Even better, throw the same padding in a fullsuit, market it to beginners. You wouldn’t even have to build the damn things. Just toss a campaign onto a crowdfunding site then keep the money. Nothing wrong with separating chumps from their dough. Paying up front for a product that doesn’t exist is for idiots, people deserve whatever’s coming to them.

Just look at that bogus gill system morons threw millions at. Got shut down because it was physically impossible to create what they were claiming. Then they put it back up with a few new lies and the same retards lined up to pay again!

Since my wife won’t let me scam people in the internet the idea’s free for the taking.

(Here, Greg Long talks to Vice ’bout his Cortes Bank drowning…)