Big trouble in Surf City.
Our surf world has mostly steered clear of the toxic polarization of our modern times. Left hating right and vice versa. A real desire to lock up anyone with a different opinion. Disagreement turning to unrefined hatred. It is unfortunate but surfers, again, semi-immune. We all agree that Finals Day at Lower Trestles is an embarrassing way to crown a champion, those who ride longboards have given up on life, surf hats, even if they save a life, should not be worn.
A generally happy family… until today.
For today, a video clip from Huntington Beach has begun to make the rounds and surfers are finding themselves in pitched camps.
Captured from the pier, a man wearing an orange wetsuit is seen burning a man wearing a black wetsuit. After the orange wetsuit man hits the lip with bad form, the black wetsuit man shoots his board right at him, potentially causing much harm.
Many are arguing that the shooter was completely out of line, criminal even.
Many others are arguing that the shootee deserved it for blatantly dropping in.
The reanimated corpse of Surfer magazine is misspeciesing the drop-in as a “snake.
Expected, I suppose, as artificial intelligence learns our vernacular.
Back to the situation, though. Is there a middle ground?
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There’s a difference between sitting inside and paddling for an insider though. You can be sitting out the back and paddle for an insider. The problem I described arises because you’re sitting with the pack already – if you were sitting on the inside you wouldn’t need to paddle for it until everyone else has let it pass anyway. But because you’re further out, you’ve got to do a lot of paddling and that’s what draws other people’s interest/attention.
Also to your point, it becomes a numbers game once the crowd hits a certain point. If there’s 200 surfers in the water and only 10 set waves an hour but constant good insiders, do you expect everyone to sit way out the back taking turns? Hell no, every wave is in play. In that instance, you’ve got no reason to complain when faced with a wall of duckdivers – you can’t expect 198 other surfers to simply not catch waves because you and the one other guy on the peak have been catching every set wave.
If I was trying to spear you, I would have speared you!!!!!! No HamSammish.
really reaching for that ending…yeah?
Both orange suite and spear fisher no barrel.
runnin w/ bulls~
running with the bullhorn!
from beach to beach and from sea to shining sea
remote sensing…
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if someone sitting right next to me squirts around me like that, zero chance I give them that wave. If they try that shit on a macker, will fade them hard for a pounding.
What about own-back-patting? I hear that it’s rife in the WSL .
Seems like some pretty normal shit for HB.
What’s the big deal?
Pier’s Morgan
Piers Brosnan
Pierced!
“I’m your pier-sonal Jesus”
Not kidding, it’s my favorite Depierche Mode song
What about the Johnny Cash version?
Its raw and awesome, but don’t think it topples DM. Same with Rusty Cage from soundgarden. Great song but not greater than. The old dog chose a few good ones to reinvent though, kind of reinvented himself.
Do you need a permit to wear an orange wetty?
He is forced to after his stint in the can, looks like he’s going back!
Xox
Isn’t it kind of a judgement call? How much are you supposed to respect a surfer who takes off waaaaaay out on the shoulder and lets barrels go to waste?
Or if you see a set coming, how close does it have to be before you can no longer paddle deeper than someone else? 30 seconds out? Does the peak have to be coming straight to the other surfer before you can paddle deeper? What if the set is going to peak far deeper than the other surfer, but they aren’t moving deeper? Are you then supposed to sit there and let it break unridden?
Don’t read me wrong. I’m not a back paddler – the respect distance up here is huge compared to SoCal.
But so many people just don’t fucking pay attention or know how to read the ocean even if they surf well. I keep my eyes on the horizon and have the decades of experience to know how to flow to where the waves are going to be ….
Thank you.
A true test of the Surf Ethicist on his first day in office! If you are truly knifing into the barrel behind a shoulder hopper, then Surf Ethicist approves. However, this is a rare situation. If you are taking off behind an already standing and riding surfer in an attempt to snake the wave, definite violation. This phenomenon is most frequently observed at point breaks. If you are in a paddle battle and stroking to get position behind a slow paddler/VAL, then you may be an asshole but you will not have violated the rules, so long as there are more than 12 other surfers in the vicinity.
Not sure I agree. There’s a couple point breaks I show up at now and again in California. The best way for me to get waves is to sit wide and outside. The peak pack inevitably pushes each other farther and farther in, and then when a wide set comes, I’ll roll into the slow-breaking wide wall.
But if somebody deeper than me on the inside then turns and goes behind me, I just kick out. They’re the ones sitting in position, I’m just running some kind of cheap trick to pick off the occasional big wide one that crumbles enough no one can spin on the true reef. I don’t feel aggrieved about it in the least.
And I’m not even on a big board – thinking that you can be on some super glidey mid-length plus and just Sano-roll into a outside soft shoulder and that gives you the right to the actual reef when you finally get to it, I call BS
You sound like a truly exceptional human being and pleasure to surf with (not sarcasm). But your exceptions prove the general rule. Although that brings up another rule: any given spot can establish its own specific rules over time, which is why nonlocals must never start on the peak at new breaks but rather work their way into the lineup and observe how things work. The general rules apply as a background set of guidelines that apply in the absence of more specific, local rules.
If I show up at your spot and observe for a few minutes and see that the surfers on the reef get priority regardless of who drops in first, then damn straight I’m going to follow that rule.
Surf Ethicist Rule No. 1: Respect the locals (unless they’ve formed a gang and threatened physical violence, in which case invite Chas to paddle out first).
xan I see your Real ID?
Or what if you’re paddling for an insider that nobody else has seen potential in, and the only reason they paddle for it at all is that they’ve seen you also paddling for it?
It was more like a roadblock. That was perfect aim. Dude shot his board in front of the dropper inner, not at him.
I’m not sure how this can be reported on without some reference to Miki Dora – the sequence of him doing this to a kook at Malibu is forever etched into my memory…
It’s probably for that reason that he’s never burned me—there’s always someone much bigger out there, and guys like that are cowards at heart.
I had you as tall and slender. I mean, what thick-set brute corrects grammar?
Tall, yes. Slender was 30 lbs and 10 years ago.
😂
I prefer the backside roundhouse cutty bitch-slap to rebound. Immensely satisfying if performed correctly. Best suited for point breaks in and around Santa Cruz
Shoot the peer!
Pier’s off cunt
Back on the piers cunt!
Get on the piers CUNT !
Spiered
Shooting one’s board at a snake is childish, but extra points for at least taking out his target.
Proper form is to catch up to him, and give him a couple of seconds to kick out. If he doesn’t kick out, tackle him off his board and give him a couple of bitch slaps for good measure.
If the culprit is a girl? Just surf behind her. Gentlemen do not brutalize women.
Compliment her on her backside attack.
Definitely an epidemic, although I guess certain spots lend themselves to it more than others. And I don’t get too angry at those who truly don’t know better — frustrating for sure, but I’m usually willing to give them a break. It’s those who know what they’re doing that give me the most heartburn.