Are you part of one? Do you wish you were?
You have surf clubs in Australia, do you not? Lifesaving clubs? Are those the same thing? In the United States we have neither (I think). We have ourselves alone and maybe our friends. Maybe but probably not.
Surfing is a solitary experience here, or it is for me. I rarely/never surf with others. If I happen to run into someone in the water it is a pleasant surprise and I think to myself, “I should surf with X more often…” But I never do. I never call and set up surf dates.
And so it is with great jealousy that I look at this extended surf date footage that historian Matt Warshaw of the Encyclopedia of Surfing cobbled together of the Windansea Surf Club circa 1960something. How much fun does it look like they’re having in those red jackets? It looks like they are having the monster time of their young lives!
They surf, travel, waterski, tire roll, laugh and drink all together! It looks very enjoyable and stylish too but maybe that is only the gauze of nostalgia. It looks fun enough, in any case, to make me want to be part of a surf club. I would embroider my nickname on a red jacket. I would be a joiner for once in my life as opposed to a cranky naysayer!
But you have them in Australia, no? Or Lifesaving clubs? Can you tell me, before I start searching for belonging, if they are super lame?
Surfrmag Forum:
User: Sum_Wun
pass: password123
Wish there was a club in my neck of the woods, just so i can get kicked out of it
“Boardriders” clubs in Australia = bunch of dudes competing for king of the beach in their particular neck of the woods. Eventually they challenge each other and some club (that is usually on the gold coast) is pronounced the best in the country. (note that Parko and Mick Fanning are in one of these.) Positive of the boardriders clubs here in Australia is they always seem to set up on the best bank / section of the point. Sadly this doesn’t work so well on the gold coast where they are generally ignored and or run over by dads flailing their arms furiously in a deus vest.
“Surf” clubs on the other hand involve dressing in ridiculous red and yellow outfits, supposedly in readiness to rescue someone. In the southern states in particular it is of no concern if said rescuer resembles the weight and girth of an adolescent blue whale. These individuals believe they are kings of the beach already and consistently set up on the best bank on the beach and use a megaphone to call surfers out of the flags. Again they are mostly ignored.
**before Nick Carroll gets up me, the guys on the East Coast tend to be a fitter bunch and genuinely save peoples lives on the regular, they still tend to be dicks however.
There are indeed helmet laws but unfortunately I was unable to ascertain the way in which they deal with their headdress obligations. The gentlemen I tussled with were Caucasian and I can only assume they were rejects of a more traditional and vicious motorcycle gang who had been forced to join the Sikhs. It was a good old fashioned truck stop stomping while their Indian counterparts played Mahjong with their atrocious looking wives sitting at Oporto. One took a photograph of my registration plate so his iPhone ended up on the truck stop roof. When I left he was holding back tears asking the truck stop attendant for a ladder.
Wigs i feel like Beachgrit may be the only place where you find peace and reprieve from a burning rage, where you can leave the blood red screams behind. Namaste.
Well Chas there are surfboard riding clubs in Australia, and there are surf lifesaving clubs. About 17,000 Australian surfers belong to surfboard riding clubs right now and about 170,000 generic Australians belong to surf lifesaving clubs. They’re quite different on the surface but really they are both just an expression of the great Aussie desire to join up to something. Australian is fucken littered with clubs of various kinds: football clubs, cricket clubs, swimming clubs, RSL clubs, lawn bowls clubs, it’s just an endless cornucopia of clubs as far as the eye can see across this fair land. Clubs clubs clubs! It’s one reason why we tend not to commit mass murder via assault weapon.
I was all “what the fuck is Nicko on about” until you hit us with the haymaker at the end. Well played.
There’s always a haymaker!
chas you start the ‘san diego gaslamp wave sliding club’… ks wave pool coming to america’s finest city
Boardriding clubs yes, surf lifesaving clubs yes. The surf lifesaving club used to be way supposedly to gain water skills.
But seriously having doubts about putting kids in nippers when the majority of these “volunteers” could not save themselves in a rip ( even identify one) let alone the public!!
Surf Lifesaving used to have relevance now …………………
Tom I pulled my kids out of nippers for that very reason and taught them myself! Plus their club culture hasn’t seemed to have changed since the 1940’s – “dickheads” they remain!
Well I coach the Newport surf club surf racing team and I am pretty sure that in any water, at an average age of 17, they’d make everyone on here look utterly stupid.
Even Australians’ surf lifesaving club terms sound racist.
I’ve seen some of these volunteers in action. Seriously unfit and clueless as you said. Trick is some clubbie clubs couldn’t care less about whether these kids are gonna save lives. It’s about selling the uniforms and other fees the clubs charge the nippers parents.
I watched a guy training over summer attempt a dummy rescue on a rescue board – he spent 25 mins trying to paddle in through a rip, he also lost the “patient” 3 times. That is seriously clueless and scary. I don’t doubt that those 17 year olds that Nick mentions below are seriously skilled but that is totally different to weekend kooks!!
My old man was in the Maroubra (?) surf club in 1950’s. Not the kind of guy to talk himself up at all. But his mates from the club I’ve met over the years have spilt the beans about wild shit that went down. Dad gets all embarrassed and stuff, it’s freaking funny as
Oh, and I don’t donate a cent to SLSA. Waste that goes on is crazy
Chas, we have countless surf clubs in the USA. They just happen to be bible surf clubs.
There’s definitely none that incorporate big black tyre rolling anymore. Otherwise I would of kept going with nippers after puberty.
“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx
A little lame in the eyes of many surfers, but a far more constructive and helpful group to join in comparison to alternatives like ISIS.
Almost without exception they cordon off the best sandbank on the beach for swimming tourists. As been said, great entertainment ignoring their increasingly frustrated megaphone demands to exit the water
I had a run in with a Sikh motorcycle gang over the long weekend. Hell of a story. They’re worse than ISIS.
They whistle at me sometimes and wave their arms. God knows what for.
You’ll find the answer to your last question in the lead photo…