A VIEW ON SURFING ETIQUETTE

8-8-07
By Corky Carroll

Today I was going through my emails before writing this column.  I had something I was going to write about until I read an email from a dude named Matthew Bradley.  It talks about respect and surfing etiquette.  Matthew explains this so well and so much the same way I feel about it that I wrote him back and asked him if I could use his email for this week’s column.  He said yes and here it is exactly the way he sent it to me.
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“First let me say that some of the younger surfers do look up to Corky Carroll, Tom Curren, Phil Edwards, Robert August, Tom Blake and Bruce Brown for what they have done for surfing as well as the rest of legends.  Your article about being ugly at the top reminded me of the moment in the movie theatre during the movie "Big Wednesday."  How Jan Michael Vincent’s character was booed by the crowd who only wanted to see the latest and greatest Gerry Lopez (of which I am fan). 

I'm 36 years old now and have been surfing over half my life.  When I was about 9 years old a friend of mine's Dad took a bunch of us kids surfing at north side of the Huntington Beach.  I was hooked from that day on.  I got myself a cheap spring suit for winter and a 5'6" Robert August twin fin short board.  Later on I would graduate to long boards and have never looked back.  The only heartbreak I have is that my custom Phil Edwards 10' 2", signed and numbered was stolen a few years back in HB.  I'm still mad about it.  I do have a 62-64 Yater that I would like to sell if you know anyone who might be interested.  It’s seen some days in the water but it still has some life.  

The point of my email is that when I was a kid you could still surf in most places without getting into a fistfight over a wave including HB.  The older locals would school you on etiquette but always in a manner of a big brother unless you didn't get it or had a bad attitude.  I now have a 7-year-old son whom I am teaching how to surf.  Like me he is hooked on it.  He isn't strong enough to catch the waves yet but after a push by Dad he is up and cruising along.

Last weekend I was down at Doheny trying to get in a few waves by myself.  I don't get to surf much when I am with my son.  What bothered me so much was the lack of etiquette by my fellow surfers.  Most of them were old enough to know better.  I teach my son that you have to have manners in and out of the water.  That fighting over a wave is not what surfing is all about.  An example would be your paddling hard for a wave and some guy who is paddling out into the line up sees its a good wave and turns his board around grabbing the late take off on your inside cutting you off. Or parking your butt directly in front of the line up on your board and not making any attempt to move when a set comes in.  And if the break is clearly a right side breaking beach then don't take off on the wave riding left multiple times right into a billow of white water and all the surfers who have the wave and are heading right so we all have to pull out in order to avoid a mid wave collision.  There is more but most of it is just good manners and common sense.  It's like people just don't care.  I paddled a board back over to a rider in the soup and the guy just glared at me like how dare I touch his precious short board.    

I see a lot of people teaching others how to surf, but what I don't see is them teaching them that with learning how to surf comes a responsibility to yourself (i.e. knowing your abilities and not going out on days that are beyond yours), your fellow surfers (i.e. etiquette, manners, giving up a wave to help someone in trouble in the soup before the lifeguard gets there, helping someone whose trying to learn) and to the ocean (i.e. keeping it clean).  This whole let’s shred the waves, trash the beach and F%&$ everyone else who gets in our way, I just don't get.  It's like see wave, ride wave.  What happened to the days of "Watermen?"
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That dude is so right on.  Thanks to him for letting me pass this on to you and I hope all of us can take his words to heart and get with the program of having fun and being kind to animals…opps.. I mean our fellow surfers.  

 

 

BASKING IN THE AFTERMATH

The Wave ~ 8-8-07
By Corky Carroll

Well it is the week after the big surfing extravaganza in Huntington Beach and the beach and town are beginning to get back to normal.  Normal?  That just doesn’t seem to be a good word to ever describe this place.  Let’s just say it is getting back to the pretty crazy way it usually is when the surf show is not in town.  The usual characters are becoming visible again and you can stand on Pacific Coast Highway and see the ocean on the south side of the pier.

Thinking about this reminded me of being a very young kid growing up in Surfside and competing in the surfing competition when it first started.  The first few years I didn’t win anything but I loved standing on the pier and watching the big names of the sport out there ripping the place apart.  Mike Doyle, Mickey Munoz, Dewey Weber, L.J. Richards, Butch Van Hartsdale, Lima Kalama, the Haley brothers, Denny Buehl, Robert August, Ronnie Sizemore and on and on.   They were all there and it was pretty much the one and only chance most of us kids had to actually see them surf in person all in one place at one time.

In the early days of the United States Championships the contest only lasted one weekend.  Sunday was the big day with the semi-finals and finals.  The place would be packed by 9 A.M.  I used to get my dad to take me down there and drop me off for the day so I could hang out and watch everything.  

Some of my favorite memories include Jack Haley shooting the pier and then coming back through the other way.  This was his winning ride in the Men’s final of 1959.  Then Ronnie Sizemore shooting the pier standing backwards in 1961, also his winning ride.  Mark Martinson’s completely dominating victory in 1964 stands out too.  One year, I think it was 1962, there was an oil spill and all the tandem teams got completely covered with tar.  It was ugly.  That was also the year that Ilima Kalama won the title and showed us some genuine Hawaiian power surfing in large and challenging wind blown surf. 

The one thing that I still remember is going back home after the contest and trying to copy all the cool moves that I had seen the good guys do in the competition.  It was the same way with going to a surfing movie back then.  Then next day I would be out in front of my house doing my best to pull off the hot moves that I had seen in the movies the night before.   In an early movie I saw Dewey Weber absolutely shredding Malibu on a red board and wearing white trucks.  I soon painted my board red and got some white trunks.  Like that was gonna make me surf more like Dewey Weber.  Later I copied Robert August with a light blue board and white trunks. 

I think that the guys that I tried to copy the most surfing-wise were Mickey Dora, Phil Edwards and Dewey.   Dora had the perfect “Malibu” style with the back arm raised and front arm always down to his side.  Phil was the ultra cool dude making the most outrageous moves look smooth and easy.  Dewey was the ultimate “hotdogger” with his slash and tear turns and cutbacks.  He was like Mr. Flash.  

So this year I watched some of the greatest surfers in the world and was both totally impressed and totally jealous.  I used to dream about surfing they way they are doing it today on modern equipment.  O.K.  I am still dreaming about it.  And, like when I was a kid, I came home and tried to surf out in front on my house just like I saw those guys do in the contest.  When I was a kid I could see myself learning that stuff.  But now I am just amusing myself.  Still it is sort of fun going for 14 turns in a three second section even if I could only pull off two and caught a rail on the second one.  These days I am more prone to one turn in 14 seconds.  But my intentions are still there.

The point is that it is really a treat to be able to see real world-class surfing up close and personal.  It looks different in real life than in the videos because you get to see the whole ride, take off to pull out.  The videos only tend to show a few seconds of the hottest part of the rides these days.