Or a kneeboarder. It could be waist high at best for a surfer of average height, while a bodyboarder could for all intents and purposes hunt for a sneaky little tube on the same size wave. And let’s admit it – that’s kinda cool. There are times when I’ve sat hovering around the shoulder of a 6 foot wave that has no face – it’s all an air drop – staring enviously at bodyboarders dropping in with apparently no sympathy for how difficult the very same wave is for us surfers. Sure, they land right on their stomach and probably seriously damage their genitals. Come to think of it, aside from one or two exceptions I know of who have children, for all anyone knows most bodyboarders have rendered themselves sterile from landing flat on their torsos one too many times. At the very least they give themselves hernias or risk fracturing their ribs. And if kneeboarders do the old air drop thing themselves, it’s farewell to the ACL. Farewell to the ACL. That rhymes.
Hardcore I tell you. And here is the crux of today’s article – we stand up surfers tend to give other wavecraft riders about as much respect as the speck of bird poop we casually flick off our car windshields. We find them annoying and unsightly but an inescapable part of reality; exactly as per the bird poop metaphor. If you ride a surfboard, you’re guilty of this lack of respect towards other wave users, and I’ll hear no buts about it. It’s an unfortunate aspect of being human – you are prejudiced against others that are different from you. Prejudice against alternative wavecraft is hardly a new topic of discussion. Here at Trident we consider ourselves pioneers of progressive thinking, yet even we tend to occasionally judge other wavecraft. Imagine being a serious surfer or even a former pro, and your kid comes out the closet to you. “Mom and Dad, I’m a bodyboarder.”
“Scandalous!” You cry, beating your chest.
“What will the neighbours think?!” You scream at your own DNA.
“I have failed as a parent,” you mutter to yourself, unaware of how your child has been just tubed off their mielie at 6 foot Kalk Bay, body-mangling dry reef just inches from the surface. (Editor’s note: Yes, surfers do this as well, but we’re making a point here smart-arse.)
Just let other wavecraft riders go out and charge, Trident says. Live and let live. Still, shredding on your chosen equipment and/or taking on heavy waves is usually still not enough for us stand ups. Like, for some reason seeing a guy riding a waveski on his butt personally conjures up the image of a dude on the toilet. All that grunting, and waving their paddle in the air like they just don’t care. Or they’re possessed. To us at Trident it sorta looks like troubling times on the porcelain throne. Yet, who are we to judge? Some of these guys rip, regardless of their craft. And as a stand up surfer (shortboard OR longboard – which of course, is a whole other debate altogether) we need to give these guys props. You just try squeeze your 5 foot 11 body into a 1 foot tube while looking graceful. Nigh on impossible. And if you do somehow manage to fit into said tube, it won’t be pretty – like a hallucinating Harry Houdini trying to vigorously scratch his own bottom.
It’s possible much of the surf bigotry comes from a false sense of entitlement to the waves. “Other riders will ‘waste’ the waves with their kak stupid equipment,” we stand up surfers say. Sure, some of those ARS things bodyboarders do rather resemble drunk synchronised swimming. Yet at other times, landing massive (and we do mean massive) airs prone on a bodyboard look just sublime. Let’s be fair. Not all of our moves as surfers will earn a ten from the judges. Even pro’s suffer this humiliation occasionally, as YouTube will attest. Sometimes we do turns that look like someone tripping in puddles of rainwater. And that is Trident’s point. Watch some standup surfer fall head first into the wave with his arse in the air like a baboon in heat and tell me that still looks better than a kneeboarder gracefully trimming a J Bay wall. Go on, I dare you. Like any form of prejudice, alter your perspective. This article isn’t some cathartic attempt to overcome deep seated bigotry like a drama set in the Deep South, nor is it about poking fun at other waveriders. It’s simply about recognising that kneeboarders, bodyboarders and paddleskiers can charge and rip. But not SUPers. SUPers have no place in a modern, civilised society.
