Screw stand up paddle boarding
"SUPS... The Next Big Thing in Surfing... You gotta get one!" Bet you've heard that recently, right? Call me shallow, but as a devoted shortboarder I reckon screw 'em. Us poor regular surf folk already have to deal with ignorant kooks, wave hog longboarders, gormless bodyboarders, the odd useless goat boat and crippled kneelo... now we have to compete with these stand-up paddle goons too?
These hodads, for whom the only requirements are general fitness and basic pedestrian balance, seem poised to take over the world’s line-ups. Can you think of anything worse? I call it the 'Stand Up Paddleboard Apocalypse', or 'Armaggedon of the One Armed Paddlers'. Either way, it could end the world of surfing as we know it. After all, this is a surfboard (term used loosely here) you can literally ride on a ripple. Turncoat surfers who buy paddleboards aside, the doomsday scenario is if the greater public discover the stand up paddling “work out” en mass, which is already happening. Most popular urban beaches are a nightmare as it is. No room to swing a rashvest. If the SUP elbows its way into the remaining gap, we could conceivably be overwhelmed by these graceless, throwback buffoons with their oversized spoons.
Anyone selling SUPs will be stoked of course, but not the rest of us normal surfers trying to avoid these potential super wave hogs. Even the longboarders are getting bummed. And unlike mal riders, who still require a basic understanding of line up dynamics and surf etiquette (even if these are mostly ignored), as well as rudimentary paddle out and take off skills, SUPs arguably require none, bar said ability to stand upright and dig, which any monkey can do. At most breaks with a decent channel, it's therefore a cinch for Wilbur SUP pilot to wobble about, even if it's pitching thick out the back. Just heave ho and you are out there. Before long SUPs could easily become a factor at most average surfbreaks, where surfers won’t even have to ever duckdive, or learn to respect the better surfers in the water, in order to get waves.
Predictably, stand up supporters have protested that the SUP is a good workout and a functional wave-riding machine, and promise that they will not be pigs in the water. But isn’t that what the post-revival longboarders all said, and now look at them on a mellow four foot day at your local. And whilst Robbie Naish can indeed ride an SUP at Pipe or Laird or Teehaupo, not everyone has those skill levels, let alone jock suburbanites with more money than sense.
Indeed, throw a couple of clueless or selfish iron man SUP riders - eggbeating into waves from far out the back - into the organised chaos of a good rush hour session and watch the tension mount. It wouldn’t take many, maybe three or four SUPs, calling everyone from sets, to completely transform the mellowest rotation and irk even the most chilled locals. What’s more, as these SUP scum will conveniently bypass any rites of passage to the ocean, they will of course have to be heckled by indignant regular surfers. As a result there will probably be fights - although maybe only for the most aggressive and surf rage afflicted. Think about it: would you really hurl abuse at some buff gym pratt looming above you in the water holding a massive carbon fibre paddle above your head?
Before long, in a far worse rendition of the longboard revival, SUPs could start to dominate sessions and it will be a case of beat 'em or join 'em - or drive somewhere else, where there will probably be more SUPS anyway, multiplying along the coast like foot rot in a shower. It’s a future too bleak to contemplate, although for places like Hawaii, it’s apparently already too late. In fact, if these SUP boards and their inept riders take over, it will do nothing but drag our sport back into prehistory. In my opinion, in terms of progressing surfing, the SUP arguably lies somewhere beneath your granny riding a lilo at Newquay. For that reason alone, I will never get a SUP.
Well, that and the fact that I can’t afford one.
Comments (20)
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http://moodsofthebay.blogspot.com/2008/07/saturday-new-comic-trip.html
Niegà
P.S.: Regards to Vince M.
Work out or not, things have changed on the small wave days when the Sup'ers are out in force. If you have an ounce of balance then you can catch some waves without too much trouble.
Anthony Crute
http://www.pro-ride.com
Pro Ride Snowboard Camps
If a stand up paddler or any surfer is grabbing waves out of line, with respect to the local lineup and pecking order, you have two choices, let him know or complain about it to everyone else. Only one will solve the problem. It's articles like this that plant the seeds of rage that have no foundation. The tone of your article seems that even if everyone were riding the same board size and shape as you and if everyone was giving you all the sets, you'd still sit disgruntled in the lineup complaining about the waves.
Stand up paddling is helping so many people discover a love of the ocean that they have never before experienced. . . and rediscover a love they lost when they forgot that surfing isn't only about the waves. Try it my friend. Aloha.
I never complain about waves though, only wave hogs of any kind! But as I said, I'd love to try Stand Up but I can't afford one ha ha and that's why the article was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek so chill a bit there dude.
BTW I'm in Cape Town, South Africa.
Aloha
Miles
Anthony
http://www.pro-ride.com
Pro Ride Snowboard Camps
if you're gonna catch a wave you gotta work for it, and paddle surfers are taking the easy way out in my eyes. paddle surfers sould be out in the big wide ocean, not in the surf hoggin the swell. x
About wave grabbing. I agree that a big stick is not license to hog the swell. If someone is actually grabbing all the waves, let them know in a civilized manner. I've told other stand up paddlers that their grabbing too many waves, and they respect that and ease up. Watch carefully before you speak though. Yesterday, I was out surfing the inside waves that all the longboarders and shortboarders didn't want. I had a killer session with tons of waves. I didn't steal anyone's swell. I was only surfing the leftovers and there were tons more leftovers than set waves coming through.
When you get good you can rip and get barrelled on a shorter SUP. You can access sharky and inaccessable breaks with little worry. Let the shortboarders go on cursing and hating when they see some one having too much fun doing something they can't do and their ego won't let them try.
Well said Miles !
'so funny how some people take themselves so seriously and don't actually read things properly and what's more don't realise the whole article is a pisstake'
That's the point suggest you check
http://www.surfingivan.wordpress.com
properly - in particular Entry for December 17, 2007 ref overcrowding. Or are real surfers the only ones allowed to take the p1$$ - You started the biblical analagies baby - Peace
The picture you paint here I really don't recognise. Having been a short boarder for over 20 years myself I am aware of the attitude that short boarder have towards anyone else in the line up, but since actually trying SUP and realising what an amazing sport it is, and the ability it gives you to surf new breaks I have been converted.
Its all about repect. I can name and I see countless surfers, dropping in on each other, giving the stink eye and having a bad attitude, SUPers are just an easy target for wave rage.
You need to move beyond your prejudice, open your mind and expand your water skills.
Matt
http://www.supglobal.com
I think that you are wrong, the responses that you have had here suggest you are wrong and my experience of surfers in the lineup from the point of view of a 'turncoat' surfer and now paddle boarder says that you are wrong. Yes there is banter between spongers, goat boaters,short boarders, loggers, and now sweepers - there always will be that's life but the majority know that IT'S JUST BANTER. Can't you see that? You cant then just dismiss your rant as a piss take - as a writer you have a responsibility to your audience some of whom will take on board your words. You are not only fuelling a fire that may not there - you could responsible for lighting it.
Calling anyone 'Goons' 'Scum' 'Crippled' 'Pratts' just because you don't agree with them or understand them says more about you, your issues and background than anything else. Where did you say that you are from?