How do you feel about our free surfing rules ?
I started very young surfing Botany Bay, no airport second runway in those days, and closeouts onto the beach with swells from the heads, and southerly wind chop on a windy day did cause tiny rideable chop 45 degrees to the beach for a bit of length of ride, but NO crowds existed in Botany Bay, every wave to yourself, riding 9ft 1" old mal.
Maroubra beach hire surf-o-planes catching waves straight to the beach.
By the age of ten I was at Cronulla on my old mal, with every man and his dog. Twently old mal surfers 1966 all taking off on same wave, NO legropes, straight to the beach, bumping sometimes the surfer next to you.
Paddling out was often dangerous due to the numbers on each and every wave. Paddling wide was essential to survival, if you could.
The Surf Life Savers the same in those days, all on, all the way to the beach, sometimes nothing changes, still today the youngest to the oldest are doing the same.
The rules were about together with mates and others, fun stuff, share, look out for each other, then came pro-surfing rules and then their changes, which have now drifted across the competition divide into FREE SURFING, but not S.L.S.C.
I would enjoy discussion on how to develope free surfing without complex rules, like competitions they have judges, but when you are free surfing, especially the very young, the new beginners, those that want to share and have fun doing stuff like cross-overs with two or more on the one wave.
Maybe competitions could go back to the old style free surfing rules, like big wave riders across the world in early days, everyone on?
