(Ancient) Blood Feud: Boogie Riders vs Stand-ups!

Who remembers the war years?

Earlier today, the former editor of Riptide Bodyboard magazine, Simon Ramsey (now a dick-swinging video game exec in NYC), posted a reminder of that oldest, and perhaps oddest, blood feud. The bodyboarder versus the stand-up surfer.

The handwritten letter to members of the Merewether Surfboard Club, and dated February 1987, grimly states:

“Another very important issue which was held in lengthy debate at our last club meeting was the ever growing influx of Morey Boogie (esky lid) riders. Now it’s common knowledge that almost every good rider at Merewether has started off on a surf mat, coolite or foam boogie board. The club realises that these surf craft are the initial stepping stone to advanced fibreglass surfboards. And in no way is the club trying to discourage young grammies (13 and under) from partaking in such an exciting sport. 

“What we don’t have at Merewether is any clearly identifiable group of young surfers (16 and under) blazing on fibreglass boards. Now, we are the top club in Newcastle and every other competitive club on the coast of Australia has a hoard of young up and coming Hot Rats. This is the first time anything like this has happened at the Bay. Whether or not the older boogie riders can realise to themselves that they are going to look pretty funny at 25 to 30 years of age flip flipping around in the lineup with absolutely not respect, Or not being able to get out the back on a nice eight-to-ten-foot day. That is clearly up to them. BUT, what the club would like its members to do is encourage any friend that is riding a boogie or surf mat to join the surfboard club and advance to a fibreglass surfboard.

“Fibreglass is Faster, M McMillan.”

Three years later, the respected, if theatrical, writer and photographer Paul Sargeant wrote the seminal Tracks piece, Will the Next Generation of Australian Surfers PLEASE STAND UP!

“There is little doubt that bodyboarding looms as the surfing issue of the nineties,” wrote Sarge.

As a call to arms it worked.

“Fuck off Lids” became a common graffiti at beaches.

It’s impossible, now, to overstate the animosity, the fights, the battles, the… anguish… between the clumsily named “stand-up surfer” and the boogie rider that last through most of the nineties.

But what it did do was cut the boogie rider so deep he became, almost to a man (and girl), obsessed with ledges and tubes that had been mostly ignored by other surfers.

As Luke Egan says in the excellent film Holding On, “Once you had guys riding these crazy waves it was… (voice dropping to a growl) sick… to watch.”

The feud lasted well into the nineties before the ass dropped out of the boogie market, leaving only a handful of the most expert tuberiders around guiding their little foam instruments through waves that would leave the rest of us gasping like fish.

Do you remember?

Do you still hate?

Or did you swing around?