Etiquette question

[Tudeo]

2 surfers on a left paddling for the wave, both are outside of the peak. The surfer furthest away uses a long(er) board and is maybe a fraction of a second earlier on his feet. Maybe, hard to tell.. But, he goes RIGHT! So he takes off, in his perspective, from behind the peak. If the surfer closest to the peak takes off to go left there is a high risk of frontal collision.

I was almost in this situation this morning, I was the surfer closest to the peak going left. Or I would have, if I had not screwed up my paddling by laying too much forwards on my board. I had to abort because risk of pearling. But I was shocked in seeing the other guy race to the right. I was not expecting that and it made me think what does surfer etiquette tell us about how to best solve a situation like this?

I didn't talk to the guy later because there was no problem due to my accidental abort, and maybe the guy had the skills to react on my last second abort, he looked like he knew what he was doing. Also the guy looked Chinese or Korean and, in combination of my experience and my putty-earplugs, that gives too much language barriers to discuss an abstract etiquette question..

[dtc]

Call 'left' or 'right'. Otherwise just cross your fingers. It's happened to me and I've seen it quite a few times. Once I had a surfer turn left (after going right about five times) on about a 10 foot face and he surfed literally underneath me as I pulled out at the last second

[oldmansurfer]

Realize the only guys I usually surfed with guys I grew up with. But once there was a huge swell at Kealia beach solid 8 feet and there was this one beautiful A frame peak and a goofy footer and me were the only ones out and at the time we were both going for the A frame peak. On two waves we both took off behind the peak wanting to go the other direction I wanted to go right and he wanted to go left, when we met in the middle we both turned back to go the other way (backside for both of us). So he paddled over to me and said "You want to go right and I want to go left so on the next wave you go high and I will go low and we will cross." And so it was

[Namu]

From the longboarder's perspective, sometimes when I'm way off on the shoulder I like to takeoff and bottom turn towards the peak, then cutback to the shoulder and proceed away from the peak, but I don't do that if someone is closer to the peak, not sure what he would have done if you caught the wave, but he should kick out since you have priority.

[waikikikichan]

A single incident might be hard to figure Etiquette. But if the long(er) boarder kept doing the same thing time after time, or just caught a wave, paddled back to the line up and immediately spins around and catches the set wave, that's bad etiquette.
Looking at your situation as I understand it, you were on the inside and he got to his feet a split second before you on your outside. Then he faded Right towards the peak, thus "blocking" you if you got to your feet and bottom turned going Left ?
Questions:
1) How far outside of you was he ?
2) Who paddled first ?

[Tudeo]

1) How far outside of you was he ?
2) Who paddled first ?

He was about 7 or 8 yards/meters outside (on the left-right axis), on the beach-ocean axis he was maybe 2 yards more outside.

I'm not sure who paddled first. But when I started paddling I was sure I had priority because I was just next the peak for the left and nobody inside me and the peak. I was not paying attention to the guy. I knew he was there but didn't expect any competition from that position. I was angling my take off to the left, I often take off on a high line. He probably wouldn't have set this line when I was up, but if so it would have been very dangerous.

I called it a 'long(er) boarder' because I was out on my already 8'2" long funshape (Submoon) and the other guy was on a wide 9 footer.

I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't screwed up my paddle, maybe the guy had just kicked out without a problem. But with me out of the game he just raced right in front of the white water. The set waves were about head high, 5ft faces.

That spot has two peaks about 20-30 meters/yards apart, so maybe he was going for the wall in between the peaks. (we were positioned left of the left peak). The right from the right peak was most of the time only offering a soft shoulder.

Sometimes (not this time) I take off on a left from the right peak when it breaks more outside of the left peak. If nobody is going right from the left peak, and I'm fast enough I can just make the left peak, a section from my perspective. But then I often get dropped in by people taking off on a left from the left peak. That's a whole other etiquette question then isn't it? I consider it 'my wave' then but can understand other people not see me coming from behind that left peak, even though I'm shouting "Inside!". It's already hard enough to see what's happening in 1 peak in crowded situations, to see what's happening in both peaks would require a whole lot of Bali experience that most lack..