Dudes on sup's are the worst

SUP's have their place for sure, but the NE isn't a good fit unless it's flat. I enjoyed them in HI.

live aloha......funny stuff......... your hypothetical scenario seems way too familiar.

 

Aaaaah!! One of my favorite subjects this year; "Kooks With Weapons". What mostly pisses me off about these people is their complete and total lack of respect for everyone else in the line-up. They seem to be saying "Yes, I am a complete tool/ I have no idea what I am doing or how to control this thing but I am going to paddle it out into the middle of a crowded line-up and take every thigh-high rideable wave on a knee-high day because I am from Jersey and I could care less about anyone else's enjoyment as long as I get mine"...Tell 'ya what, what do you say you take 15-or 20 years to figure out how to "surf" before you paddle one of those behemoths into a crowded line-up...just a suggestion Unfortunately, like someone said earlier in the thread, there IS a time and a place for these contraptions, distance paddling for fitness, or 20' Waimea Bay....but knee-high Bradley Beach, on a Sat. with everyone from 8-to-80 in the water...c'mon people gimme a break. Show a little Aloha and leave the boat at home. That's my 2 cents.

 

Has anyone yet tried charging the Bay on an SUP? I searched youtube and couldn't find anything...oh wait, google image delivers...

http://seandavey.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Waimea_120509_0864.jpg

damn, that's super ballsy. that wave jacks up so quickly and violently, even more so than Pipe because it's so massive and unpredictable. this guy has some serious cajones for even trying it.

 

Surfed monday with 3 SUPs, one guy blatently burned me and didn't even kick out after he saw me behind him and offered a halfassed "you can drop in on me next time". Then I bumped rails with a guy dropping in on me and trying to avoid the SUP dropping in on him. After that I went in. NOT a fan of the SUP.

 

Paul, that sucks no doubt, and maybe its different out there with the SUP culture and all that but I cant help think anyone who would pull that, would do it on whatever craft they were riding. I've gotten exactly that thing at both spots in DE where that kind of thing happens, and almost always on big funshapes/longboards.

 

I just bought one last week and already have taken it twice out in the water, however, I got it to paddle only when it's flat, if there's waves I'm surfing, no way I'm going to take it out on a good day.
I really like it, a good of a workout.

 

Money's been tight for me the past few months and I finally got an offer for this great gig at my local break sweeping up out the back. Nothing I couldn't handle, so I signed on the proverbial dotted, and got down to business. They say if you like what you do you don't have to work a day in your life. This new gig of mine proves the truth of those words. I started mid June and have been collecting one helluva paycheck for all that sweeping. I get paid in smiles, and my jaw muscles are damn near cramped up! Best part is that none of the crew wants the job, so I'm on my own!! Say hi sometime when I squeeze through the lineup!

 

It's not the board it's the person riding the board. That's true
for long boards, shortboards, surf ski's, and SUP's. Been all over the world
have a quiver ranging from a 5'9 pod to a 12' prone paddleboard
with everything in between, including SUP. Seen inappropriate, stupid
moves committed by riders of every type of equipment.

 

Around Wrightsville that "person" tends to be an upper middle class, middle aged dude who can't stand for one of his buddies to buy their way into something "cool" without them doing the same. It is a complete fad fueled by a rampant gated community-living induced case of "keeping up with the Joneses." These are the same guys you see in the lineup on one day with one of the guys wearing a kooky "surfing hat" then you see the same group of guys the next day...... and they are ALL wearing hats. The same guys who start "associations" so they can put stickers on their cars and have meet-and-greets....... even though 90% of them rarely and barely surf. The same guys who found their stoke after shunning surfing for the past 30 years of their lives and are all of a sudden traveling to more world-class destinations than you can count on your hands....... where they end up maybe "surfing" for about 2 hours out of the entire week they are there, take one on the head and get scared.

I have a running bet with some of my surfing buddies: Give it about one or two more years and the used SUP market is going to be so flooded people won't be able to give those monstrosities away.

Ha! Been coming to SI for a while and FINALLY decided to post something..... those SUP's really bring out the worst in me.
/rant off/

 

If you stand up paddle board and you have etiquette in the line up you are the exception.

Sure there are plenty of longboarders, shortboarders and even my own brethren bodyboarders that are kooks in the lineup. I would even say a good half of them have kookish tendencies. But the SUP it's more like 99%.



However, down in the banks everyone has etiquette, even the SUP'ers. The only ones who don't are the people from VA on to the north. In VA the SUP are 10 times more abundant and 100 times more inconsiderate.

 

I agree that they are kooks on all equipment but SUPS cause the biggest risk. For safety reasons alone, I would rather have a kook on a shortboard/funshape than an SUP ready to decapitate me.

 

May want to broaden your sample data.... there are always 12 kooky dudes on sups at the light house, just like at the VB oceanfront. Rule of thumb- dont surf anywhere that has convenient parking and showers if SUPs and kooks bother you, simple as that. Nobody wants to lug an 80lb sup board over a dune to the beach. If you are fighting with crowds you gotta ask yourself, is it really any better here than a few blocks / miles away? If you are sitting around in a crowd complaining about kooks, well, you may be a kook.

 

Hittin the nail on the head

 

Just curious... where do they have their place in surfing culture?

 

There are some real jerks that are very proud of themselves riding/trying to ride Wedge.

 

Cause weather you like it or not they are used for wave riding. I assume the people who use them get the same stoke on them as you do. There are many forms of wave riding , Shortboard, longboard, Sponge, Skim , Kite surfing and Sup's.

SUP's Have been around by since the 60's its not a new thing just made populare by Laird.

Surfer now adays are fixated on being good surfers rather than good watermen. If they did there would be less of this join the cool kids and hate Sup's stuff

 

Kooks are kooks. I can't wait to borrow this thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL14Lpv6_10&feature=player_embedded

 

They have been around since the hollow surfboard days of Tom Blake -- that goes back a good bit further. Prior to the hollow board days SUPs were not practical because even the big olos would sink when not moving.

Just because SUPs are used to ride waves doesn't mean I need to embrace the SUP culture. Too many SUP riders are motivated to ride SUPs for the same reasons so many longboarders are motivated to ride longboards -- to catch more waves than the other guy. This is particularly the case for so many SUP riders. They are rather blatant about it. They are increasingly becoming a pain in the butt in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Their sense of etiquette mostly does not exist. It is driven by greed and overcrowding in the surf. Many a SUP rider has told me they have moved to SUP to catch waves in the crowds.

 

What exactly is a "waterman" anyway? And why, as a surfer, would I want to be a "good waterman" rather than a good surfer?

SUP apologists want to afford them some kind of respect as a different waveriding tool, which is fine in theory. Surf mats have their place, Rod's paipos have their place (not hating, just illustrating!), and so on and so forth. The problem with admitting SUPs into the realm of legitimacy is that you're simultaneously making it OK to catch waves without any semblance of understanding of the lineup you're a part of, which seems pretty antithetical to the notion of a "waterman" to me (at least, what I assume it means).

Like Aquilles, I've got one, and it's a bunch of fun for exercise on flat days, but I'd sooner stop surfing than paddle into a lineup on the thing.

 

"A waterman is ready, willing and able to ride waves of all sizes and conditions using a diverse array of equipment"

to answer your question, surfline did an entire feature on "watermen". and just a warning, there are bunch of SUP guys in there
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/what-is-a-waterman----and-who-merits-the-moniker_47114/