early summer benny accident

How about keeping your eyes open. Actually I'd rather surf around most kooks than most good surfers. You can surf around them, get a lot more waves - they're slow and predictable and miss most waves they try for, and usually give up pretty quickly.

 

i dont mean to judge you bodyboard dude but how/why are you surfing with your back turned? also it sounds like this happened rather quickly, if you didnt have time to see him how could he have time to see you? if by chance you were turned around performing the ancient hawaiin sign of respect to the ocean for granting you waves, respect and i apolagize, if not your story is full of holes just like your board and there was more than one kook in the water.

 

Accidents happen but you put yourself in these situations. Look around... where was this? certain breaks have higher kook population densities, like first street and kook-a-tan (or croatnam if you will). Find your own peak and you can go back to worrying about surfing.

If it's high tide or a weak swell and I have to surf a crowded spot I just give everyone around me sh*tty looks from the get-go and rarely have problems. Ever since I grew a beard the kids stay out of my way. I think I remind them of their abusive fathers....

 

Nice Lee, the beard helps. A shaved head and a Pagans MC head tattoo helps as well!

 

I feel like this is something that happens to every surfer at one point or another and it gets more risky out there as the water and weather warm up. The results of this type of thing range from a near miss, to a dinged board, or someone loosing and eye, Yes, I saw that happen, but I was not involved. This situation could have been much worse.

On the other hand the guy should have offered to pay for your ding repair and apologized. It's hard to make a clueless person understand that the person riding has the right of way. Especially hard when they are facing a pricey ding repair. It seems like nobody wants to take responsability for their actions anymore. Hopefully this story will teach people that they need to do so. The guy was just a kook and a coward, afraid to admit he was wrong and pay for it.

On the flip side of the coin if you see someone down the line who can not get out of the way then you should always try to avoid hitting them if you can.

Also...look where you're going lol!

 

how do you hit someone who is standing behind you? sorry dude but this story does not add up and leads me to my original conclusion.

 

I've never really had that happen to me, But It was crowded one day & Ponce inlet fl, and the surf was starting to push overhead & A bigger set came in and I was to far inside So I had to duckdive it but I timed it wrong by about a second nd I was trying to hold onto my board but It got ripped out of my hands, and Some guy caught it. I was kinda scared. I said I was sorry like 15 times . I was like 13 at the time though .

 

When your his age you wont give a crap either and you'll be the one tormenting people........two wrongs dont make a right so forget about it and move on.

 

you have it backwards - the person surfing is the one responsible for avoiding the obstacle

 

I've been waiting three days to see if anyone else would point this out. thank you.

 

that's not true at all...the rider has the right of way. people who think you like you are part of the problem!

 

lol @ full blown investigation, good times! maybe this will help a few people...

BTW green has right of way, red does'nt

 

the paddler is responsible to head towards the whitewater and take it on the head unless they are far enough down the line and can easily make it over the shoulder or duckdive without interferring but in the case that the paddler is unfortunately caught in "no man's land" the surfer up and riding must avoid the collision because they have far more control of where they can go and are covering ground (or water I should say) much faster.

 

the rider always has right of way. that's not to say that, in "no man's land" situations that some mild evasive action isn't called for...there's no reason to plow straight on through w/out making some effort to avoid a collision like an asshat.
in the situation described by the OP, the guy on the shoulder didn't even make an effort to avoid the collision. that's entirely on him, not the OP, particularly if the OP had already committed to completing a maneuver.
long story short, it's each individual's responsibility to keep themselves out of harm's way. there's no need to sit back & say, "oh well, i'm in no man's land...it's not my responsibility to get out of the way now. he has to avoid me." get your own ass out of dodge! most (competent) surfers are aware of their surroundings & if you, as a paddler, pick a direction & stick to it they will avoid you.

 

then we more or less agree- etiquette calls for the paddler to avoid being in the way of the surfer if at all possible and in the case that he cannot the surfer needs to avoid him for safety's sake. A surfer (on a shortboard) is moving at a speed up to 26 MPH on a wave that is also moving- I don't know the top speed of a paddler but it's nowhere close.

 

Funny how this discussion is blowing gray matter when the facts and conditions are simple: it was a 2-foot wave and the rider had his back turned while executing some advanced maneuver? Does not compute. What ever happened to being aware of your surroundings... and again, a 2-foot wave??? Jeez, that is 4 fingers over knee high!

 

maybe it was 2 foot Hawaiian

 

Perhaps we can take this a step further...you are the surfer and the choice is 1) barrel though a line of guys out there together with the intention of keeping you off of the wave or 2) too bad, so sad. I notice a great deal of indecision in heavily surfed areas regarding this. My guess is suck it up and surf elsewhere.

 

The wave was 2 foot...