Wanted to relay an incident from this morning briefly which I'm sure most of you have come across.

As a shortboard / retro / longboarder, I'm open to all types of equipment in the line up and am very much of the opinion 'each to their own'.

Obviously there's some that are not, surprisingly longboarders toward SUP'pers from what I'm seeing.

I headed down The Farm this morning for a glass session and headed out on my Mana with about 10 longboarders and 5 shortboarders spread across 3 banks.

Good waves, uncrowded and a great place for a session.

Not !

Paddled out to the farthest bank with 2 longboarders on the inside and let them both get one before I hooked into a right........it lulled and a couple of shifty sets broke either side of us......I commented to one of the longboarders;

'Shifty peak huh ? Nice day though'.

He replied;

'F--K off down the beach dickhead - you're gonna kill someone on that thing, they are bloody dangerous and have no place'.

I thought about ignoring it but to be honest, it really got my back up being tolerant of others and not seeing any need for it. My reply;

'Who the F--K are you to call the shots. Obviously so one dimensional you'd never even think about opening your mind to other types of board but the one mal in your quiver you old prick. You go down the beach if your not happy to share and have a look at yourself'....those that know will cringe when they picture the angry ginger.

His mate also had a shot at him but he wanted to keep it going and for the next ten minutes continued to let fly with all sorts of comments etc........what amazed me was the whole time he carried on, he paddled for one wave, went over the falls, whinged about the weather, whinged about the tide and everything else in his life.

To be honest, it reiterated why I'm distancing myself more and more from 'surfing' and looking outside the square.......what gives ? Why did we start surfing in the first place, the ocean is their to share, no one owns it and it's about enjoyment.

It seems longboarders are very much the first to claim discrimination when a shortboarder gives them a serve but show no thoughtfulness when the shoe's on the other foot which to be honest pisses me off.

Any wonder this generation have no respect for society, authority and elders and will pass that on to the next no doubt. Just live and let live and worry about yourself and whatever it is that provides you with surf stoke and stop worrying about the guy next to you - in this case, this bloke needed to concentrate on his own surfing ability rather than what I was up to.

Um, do what I do, well you cant if you are on a SUP.

If I go for a surf and there are SUPs in the water the one thing I dont do is paddle out with them.

If thats how you feel, go down the beach and surf by your self, easy! And as I have seen heaps SUPs can just paddle away to the next break, or the next beach.

Im on a shortboard so paddling 1 or 2kms on a shortie is hard, a bit easier on a longboard but a piece off p!ss on a SUP, the distance dosnt matter.

Look at the end of the day the longboarder was in the wrong for being agressive in my books, sounds like a kook anyway

Sounds like you got a couple anyway, nice one

Why do we piss people off… because we are really annoying

This bit of swell we have had on the Goldy the last week has made me realize how much I would hate to see me on a SUP paddle out.

I am 50 + surfed all my life but never done the long board thing. Love the southern Gold coast points and as age diminishes paddle power, no matter how fit I try and keep myself, it would drive me crazy that I would be giving it everything to hold position in the lineup against the sweep trying to jag a set wave and have someone on a mal paddle past out to the horizon and steal it off me.

Now that is what I am doing to everyone else, even the guys on the mals. I try and do all the things I can think of to make it not so obvious, sit down often, don’t stay on the same section of the bank, paddle back out up the inside of the line up so I am not such a target, never take the first wave of a set (Well only if I can see what everyone else cant that the second wave is better :-). Don’t call people into waves though because I think that is even more arrogant.

I justify it that I am on a sub 9 SUP, smaller than most mals, and think I surf at a level that I don’t think you could say I was wasting the wave.

But… I take heaps of waves… and am having so much fun.

Don’t know what’s going to happen when instead of the occasional SUP in the lineup we have 10 -20.. can you imagine 50 SUPS out at Snapper!!!

On the rare occasion, say at the Alley where the are a few sups in the water, I am even getting a bit frustrated myself with the guys on 10+ sups who are claiming waves from a further 50 m out then where I am sitting.

The future is scary, but for me I know this brief moment in time where I can just about take any wave I want rather than fight for the scraps like I have for the last 15 years, is to be enjoyed to the max.. and just hope that I can keep getting away with it without getting killed!!!

62mac said...

Short,Long or sup's, there will always be wanks out there.
You had your say and good on you for that.

DONT label all longboarders as aggressive!

haha, mac, coming from you,don't make me laugh, you and your crusty coolie mates
gonna have to have a surf with you mate after all those years.i reckon it could be a bit of a bun fight. all in fun
cheers

I've found it has nothing to do with what style of board people are riding - Some people are just dicks, their dicks in the water and their dicks out of the water, I tend just to leave them ignore them if that's how they feel they should behave and they think it's right.

funny, with the tiny nor east swell and the lack of banks from the last big seas, the farm was virtually dead flat today. i met up with three die hard farm locals on my way back home from my paddle who were suiting up at 'rilla, who told me the farm was an unbreaking shore dump. i went home, did some chores then hit the island, chest high waves with head high sets... three of us out

surfanimals said...

'F--K off down the beach dickhead - you're gonna kill someone on that thing, they are bloody dangerous and have no place'.

I agree they are far more dangerous than mals, which are far more dangerous than shortboards, which are far more dangerous than boogers. I would feel very threatened if I was inside a guy who wiped out on a SUP. 100L + and a paddle? How are you going to control that even at 2'+? No thanks.

People in general suck though. I was out yesterday and I took off on a set and it was touch and go to make the section. I would've had to bottom turn and race it straight away. I could've made it except three people decided to paddle for the shoulder that they were never going to make just to screw it up for me, so I got caught behind and had to straighten out. The furthest to the inside was a 30-something learner girl. I gave it a good 10m or so and kicked out once well out of range of everyone. Came up, pulled my board to me and was immediately bumped into by the girl, who'd obviously failed miserably at duckdiving and been washed right in to me. If you can't duckdive, stay out of the inside and definitely stay out of my way.

love those jerks who for the last year HAVE SO VOCALLY told me the rules and my place in the line up (car park) - fast forward - now they are the same dicks breaking the same rules they still prech i.e. staying in the white water, rotations etc....then theres those older dudes who have endless advice, stories and yarns, i perfer that type of paddle

surfanimals said...

He replied;

'F--K off down the beach dickhead

Couldn't imagine anyone saying that to you surfanimals - you seem like such a nice bloke.

aussiefreebs said...

I was out on my mal, he was on a shortboard, when he paddled back out I said to him "Wave of the day mate, nice work" to which he replies "Dont get in my way on that"

Legion said... Missed this one the first time. Loving these shortboarders' work.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm all for congratulating someone on a sweet wave. If they are an ass in return though, I find it disappointing but it wouldn't stop me running them down if they were in my way on subsequent waves.

Kind of like a mini road raging on a semi, mildly amusing for the semi driver but somewhat stupid from the mini.

Just another case of small man syndrome really, although in this case you'd refer to it as smaller board syndrome.

[}:)][}:)][}:)]

Gav

I rode a bodyboard religiously for 10 years, surfers telling me every other day to standup or f@%k off, now I'm standing up on a SUP or with a kite I think they hate me even more!!! ha ha ha

husq2100 said...

a SB grumbled something as i surfed past,

a few waves latter as i was paddling back he did again... so i paddled more towards him and asked what he said:

"you blokes are F@#%ing as bad as jet skis!"

just looked him straight in the eye and said "no mate, we are MUCH worse"

and kept paddling.....all he could do was laugh

Classic.

People will always whinge. 2 days ago I get up at 4:30 in the morning and hire a driver with a couple of mates to the boats to get out to Airport lefts. Waves are pretty solid, overhead to double or a touch more on bigger sets. We were the first boat out there in pretty much dark.
Got quite a few. Every boat that arrived guys jumped off and paddled straight to the inside.

Guess what, all Aussies, all shortboards, all on holidays to presumably escape a little even if Bali is far from any escape and everyone is hassling snaking and paddling inside.

This stuff just happens and on Sup you are just the most obvious new target. These guys were whinging at each other. It's not good but the day you realised you simply can not please everyone all of the time the happier you become.

Like water off a ducks back! Most often for some reason it's uncool to enjoy yourself for god knows what reason, 10 second barrell? Don't even smile, just be dissapointed you missed the first section it could have been 11.

Legion said...

surfanimals said...

As he paddled back out I said to him;

'Mate, wave of the day, best ride I think I've ever seen'.

He said;

'Who F------N cares mate, I'm not interested in what you think'.

Bwahahaha! That is awesome! I wish I'd tried this the other day when a grom complimented me on a wave I got.

As I've said before, surfing is inherently selfish. I'm not out there to chat, talk about shares and real estate, enjoy nature (although that's a nice fringe benefit), feel good about my fellow man when he catches a wave. It's not a team sport, or a social function. It's about my waves, and how I enjoy them. Each wave your mate catches is one less for you. So all this encouragement and enabling etc, etc sucks IMHO. One reason why SUPs and mals suck, they enable middle aged unfit blokes who shouldn't even be in the water to be in the water taking waves*. People of low skill who don't belong there.

*Obviously I've come to learn that there are some of you who don't fit the stereotype and for god-knows-what reason SUP when you could be riding a shortboard. I don't understand it but whatever floats your boat (figuratively speaking). I know it's about wave count, but the sacrifice in maneuverability is too big a cross for me to contemplate bearing. Quality over quantity.

give me give me give me, mine mine mine, more more more, me me me. it's so true about surfing if most people were honest. maybe dads with kids surfing are selfless
cheers

Had similar locally at my regular spot - mini-mal rider paddles out nice set - let the first two go buy and he gets one, paddles back out and then as soon as I take off he spins around drops in - a nice friendly OY -he ignores it - I push him his board and on the way out ask him what the game is

Replies - Don't recognise SUPs in the line up - the guy was a wanker - 5 surfers in the water for an hour before that - shorties, mals and Skis - sharing the nice little glassy waves everyone having fun nice vibe.

Just have to laugh the guy thinks he's a bit of a hottie - he's a Joe average with attitude

Having been a shortboarder from before and through the mal renaissance I just laugh at em' and tell them it's my revenge on all the mal riders that have snaked shortboarders over the years.

paul.j said...

some how when i read this topic this comes to mind

hahah unlike the guy I saw paddling in from a DW the other day with his shirt off and moppy hair......