Major kookery

Safe Surfer? HMMMMMMMMMMMMM

[video=youtube;PKbKJwfeLrw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKbKJwfeLrw[/video]

 

i'm a line cook at waffle house dog

just trying to look for new opportunities

 

I HATE the sup movement. The most common sesh buster is when some jackwagon on a SUP comes paddling up.

The only reason the locals like them is because it lets them sit outside of the line up and catch whatever they want. Same reason "high performance longboards" exist. The locals get tired of us haoles clogging their lineups and want to catch more waves. So they make boards that can do it. And RIDE THE SH!T out of them. So the non-locals wana catch waves to and start riding the same boards, most cases they just dont do it as well and are way more dangerous. Bam it has now become next to impossible to maintain order and some sense of organization to the lineup. Chaos ensues and it is now every man for themselves, burn and be burned.

And please this is a gross generalization i know. But live in a location where sups are a common occurance in already crowded lineups and you will understand what i am saying.

Plus sups are not a "cultural" thing. Outrigger canoes, surfing yeah. Sup'n i dont think so. Thats a modern creation.

 

SUPs are a danger to the future of surfing. The hardest part about learning to surf is the paddling to pop-up; hands down. They will only become more popular because these crafts eliminate that aspect from the equation, making the barrier to entry into a line-up far lower and increasing accessibility to the sport. In today's "I want to be good at it and I want to be good at it now" society, this is exactly what people are looking for. It's the handicap spot in the surfing parking lot.

Government getting involved is a bad idea. Verbal bullying has been around for ages and will suffice just fine in this situation.

 

Crazy things is this wouldn't be the first time a law is passed on surf spots. Look at Point Panic where only body surfing is allowed.

 

I guess SUPs are only an issue in certain areas, certain regions. I can't vouch for Hawaii, but in my short time there, I was baffled by the amount of SUPs pretty much everywhere I went. It was a 50/50 mix of locals who could surf and people out just getting in the way. It was definintely weird. I just didn't understand why everyone was doing it. It kind of scared me, just because people consider HI the motherland of surfing and they kind of set the standard for whats going on in the world of surfing, so I thought, great in a couple of years, this is what CA will look like, then a couple years later, this is what the east coast is going to be like. Dunno though, there is a big SUP community here, and we all live happily together. I literally have not had a run in with any of them, and they are out EVERY SWELL, regardless of how big or how small, but they are all very polite, have proper etiquette and generally "get it"... So, I have no issue with it. If I lived in Maui or somewhere else, I would probably have a big problem with it. The CA lineups seemed to regulate themselves in a different way. Only people in actual lineups that matter were always local legends, pros or just well known waterman. It was like, the only guys out on SUPs were considered kings, so they were always a lot of fun to watch.... James "Butter" Joyce is probably the best Big Guy surfer I know in real life. He can surf an SUP like a shortboard. That guy would surf SS, shoot the pier, get a barrel on the North side and do 10 turns on his SUP all the way into cage. Unreal....

So, summation: SUPS suck in certain places, but in general, i got no beef with them. When used properly, there are no different that a bunch of logs in the lineup.