Surfing Waves

Talking about standup boards on another thread, this came up...

It is not the board that is jinxed. It is you who joined the dark side

What do you think about the dark side? Is it limited to SUPs or are there more characters in the evil order? The motorized toys are "dark" for me. They minimize athletic skills and add to our environmental problems.

By my own efforts, say the righteous, may the force be with you!
Smell the gasoline, v8 power , enjoy the smell of victory.

The worst jerk I ever met surfing was a SUP guy thus my displeasure with that sport not to mention the obvious wave hog attraction it has. If you want to catch a bunch of waves and maybe not surf them all that well. Certainly if you were riding some other board you would ride the waves better hey but more waves for you is a good thing? well so that is not to say there aren't some really nice guys doing SUP just that it has an obvious attraction to not nice guys. Anyway I still go out where there are SUP guys surfing but avoid them if possible. I was out and there were 2 SUP foil guys and they were nice to me and let me catch some waves. They were taking off then cutting out immediately and not letting me catch anything for a while....well so maybe I could have gone on those same waves and would have gone on those same waves but it was close to triple overhead and I needed to figure out the lineup but they left me alone for a while and I caught few. I have met quite a few nice guy SUP surfers and they outnumber the jerks but still I think SUP has more jerks than regular surfing. Foils??? I don't know how that is going to go. I see more and more of them but then I am surfing the kind of waves that maybe touted as unsurfable but I surf them so definitely not unsurfable. The foil guys I see are mostly learning how to use them and just like another surfer in the lineup. Motorized surfboards would be like SUPs easy to catch waves but not as easy to maneuver. Skateboards or what don't bother me at all

BoMan wrote:

That thing came up on my local craigslist. I hope someone would just send it to the recycling center. Motorized vessels have their uses, just not where people come to enjoy the nature be it a surfing break or serene freshwater lake for kayaking and sailing.

Some of the SUPers are the ones who has decided to take the easy way because it's too much work to paddle, to hard to learn the correct technique for surfing, water is too cold... And that mentality shows up in other aspects to shape a jerk on water. I'm not against all things SUP, and I see a few at my break on small days who are perfectly normal, but I suspect they really are surfers but SUP depending on the wave condition. The rest, the ones that come out once the water is warmer, they are all over the map. I try to stay far enough away from them as most of them don't have very good board control. I sure don't want to be in a target range of their 30lb board or their handheld stick.

Blame Laird.

The other day I was sharing the only surfable knee-high peak with a beginner SUPper, and he exhibited total lack of situational awareness by taking off positioned just inside of me, like our boards were almost touching and he either did not see me or pretended not to. But after his so-called ride he left and I had the surf all to myself, in all its miniature glory.

I was out the other day and thought how nice it would be to travel along the cliffs and go a long way up the coast on my board. I realized with that thought that I couldn't do that with my surfboard, but I could take a long excursion with a SUP. I also thought it would be nice to look down into the translucence of the water on such a trip. There are a huge number of things I like about SUP riding, including surfing on waves. However, I still firmly believe that SUPs have no business entering a surfing lineup. If you're sitting outside a surfing lineup on a SUP and taking waves from prone surfers, then in my eyes you're just a selfish kook. I might get a SUP one of these days, but I'll never use it like the SUP kooks who monopolize prone surfing lineups. I'll take it out to a beach break or an area I can catch waves without trampling on the enjoyment of prone surfers. If you're a SUP rider, then you should use your SUP away from other people. Use it for traveling longer distances and take waves that are uninhabited along your way. Or cruise around surfing lineups to say hello, but don't take waves at a surfing spot. Use the greater distances you can travel on a SUP to stay the hell out of people's way. SUPs are dangerous in crowds so are kayaks. That's why they have no business in crowds of people where waves are present. Use your SUP as it is intended--away from crowds and lineups. Just my two cents.

BoMan wrote:The motorized toys are "dark" for me. They minimize athletic skills and add to our environmental problems.

Years ago I had a Swiss girlfriend and we were at my parents place where my parents had an electric can opener. She pointed to it and asked me what it was and I explained it was a can opener. She asked me why we couldn't just open cans with a hand operated opener. Why did we need to use electricity? I didn't have an answer. I still don't. It was at that moment that most motorized toys went dark for me. Don't get me wrong, I think electric can openers are great if you have arthritis or some disability, barring that however I see no purpose for them.

RinkyDink wrote:Use the greater distances you can travel on a SUP to stay the hell out of people's way. SUPs are dangerous in crowds so are kayaks. That's why they have no business in crowds of people where waves are present. Use your SUP as it is intended--away from crowds and lineups. Just my two cents.

Some food for thought. I went out to one of my usual surf spots the other day and there were 5 SUPs out and no prone surfers other than me paddling out. So now the question becomes is that a surf spot or a SUP spot? Should all SUPs just have to leave the moment a prone surfer arrives? Is it majority rule? I dunno. It's a negotiation at times.

RinkyDink wrote:SUPs are dangerous in crowds so are kayaks... Should all SUPs just have to leave the moment a prone surfer arrives? Is it majority rule? I dunno. It's a negotiation at times.

I think safety is the main concern. If you take a line through a crowd on any board you can't turn well (standup, kayak or log) you are asking for trouble. Some folks simply can't get out of the way. If you choose the right peak and plan your ride before taking off everyone's safe and has fun.

To see how Rink's negotiation works, have a look at Malibu today. https://hdontap.com/index.php/video/stream/malibu_surf_cam

BoMan wrote: If you plan your ride before taking off everyone's safe and has fun.

It's even more important on the skateboard. Yesterday on my favorite hill, a grom bombed straight down a residential street and couldn't stop when a car crossed his path at an intersection. He swerved to the side and wiped out. Despite having no pads or helmet, the kid was made of rubber and wasn't hurt. A fall like that would have put me in the ER.

If you really want to surf more you need to lay off the SUP and surf more to build your paddle strength and fitness.