Question: Is Surfing Worth Divorce?

British woman splits from husband after he becomes "obsessed with night surfing."

Relationships and surfing mix like MAGA-hatted teens and Native Americans. This is not, as I believe the teen parlance goes (though I’ll need to check with Nick Carroll), brand new information.

What is Brand New Information, brace yourselves married men (and two or three women), is that there’s a choice! Turns out you CAN choose surfing instead of kid’s birthday parties, work commitments or Great Aunt Fanny’s baptism.

I mean, there’s compromise. There’s always fucking compromise. It’s my most hated noun. And don’t even get me started on the verb form.

The compromise in this instance is called divorce.

But not to worry, because now you can crowdfund your family breakdown! In the midst of gut wrenching emotional turmoil, who needs dignity, eh?

The backstory to this is the case of a UK man trying to Crowdfund his divorce. A marital chasm that was opened due to surfing. “Karl” is a one-time family man from Bournemouth, England by way of NZ. Recently he split up with his wife and two daughters when the ol’ handbrake filed for divorce, citing Karl as “obsessed with night surfing”.

Allegedly, Karl had taken to surfing Bournemouth pier at night with some friends. Often he would come home just for a shower and to get dressed to go out to work, as if he were a “student tenant in the family home as opposed to a husband and a father,” his wife stated in the citation.

Woooofffft. Stinger.

But Karl’s surf buddies weren’t happy. Outraged by the behaviour of this harlot, this siren, this harpy, this over-zealous mother bitch, Karl’s mates kindly set him up a Crowdfunder so he didn’t need to take out a loan to pay for the divorce.

Now, from the perspective of a man who squirrels boards away in outbuildings, I don’t feel in a position to comment on a healthy surf/life balance, other than to say it involves a lot of half-truths. And perhaps some outright lies (if you’re asking, your honour).

But what do you think?

The Crowdfunder has now gone, so you can’t send money or condolences or relationship advice to Karl I’m afraid. Maybe Chas can offer some words of wisdom in between trying to coax Dave Lee Scales into the arms of a life-partner like he were the Mr Miyagi of Tinder. Chicks dig cock shots these days, Dave, that’s all I’m saying. It’s a brave new world out there.

But back to Bournemouth.

I went to Bournemouth once. I drove all the way down there to pick up a MK2 Golf GTI. It was Tornado Red with a subwoofer that consumed the entire boot space. Nearly 22 years old, it remained pristine and shiny because of the balmy, dry south coast, where old ladies tootle along beside big hedges and Mediterranean winds drift across the English channel. I soon booted it back North beyond the wall, to the mist and the grey, and I ragged the fuck out of it on winding singletrack and black ice and sheep shit for a couple of years. It was good that car.

When I was in Bournemouth I looked at their artificial reef. A monument to wasted public money, it is a £3.2 million shambles of burst sandbags. It opened in late 2009, never worked, and then was finally shut down in March 2011. The charlatans who built it, a NZ based company called ASR, went into liquidation shortly after. I looked at it then turned away, smirking.

So, Karl and his divorce.

Forget that Bournemouth is a terrible place to be a surfer and their artificial reef was hilariously shit.

Is surfing worth divorce?

And (in principle) would you spare a few shekels to help absentee father, lost to the clutches of two drizzly surfs a month on his longboard and his windslop, in the dark?