Unconfirmed reports suggest the wounded man then “took the foil-board and proceeded to bash it into the pier and into pieces until his arms got tired.”
The world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater has waded into an imbroglio boiling in his home state after a surfer was almost decapitated by a rogue foil-boarder at Jax Beach pier, one of North Florida’s “most aggressive lineups.”
Mitch Kaufmann posted a dramatic photo of the incident with the message, “Foils and SUPs are cool, but DON’T BELONG in crowded lineups like The Jax Beach Pier. This surfer was injured yesterday when the Foil smashed his face. I know the ocean belongs to everyone, but SAFETY FIRST. Feel free to share this.”
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Kelly Slater, who grew up at Cocoa Beach a couple of hours south of Jax, was quick to add his authority to the matter, joining the chorus of furious natives.
“Zero reason why foilers need to surf near paddle surfers, especially newbies,” wrote Slater. “Bums me out to see. Lots of looks (auto-correct even gets the champ, who corrects his mistake below!) on foils getting way too comfy around other people before they can ride the things with elite skills enough to avoid hitting people.”
The foil-boarder made the mistake, one of several it should be said, of hitting beloved local surfer Tony Warren, who goes under the instagram handle @pierregulator.
Unconfirmed reports suggest the wounded local then “took the foil-board and proceeded to bash it into the pier and into pieces until his arms got tired.”
“I heard it was an expensive mistake,” wrote one commentator. “Think I saw pieces of the foil near a piling this morning…”
Echoes of Fort Point, San Francisco, where foiler John von Tesmar had his leashless two-thousand dollar board destroyed by furious locals after it was washed to the beach following a wipeout.
