Top Five eternal annoyances in surfing. What, only five?! Surfing has progressed so much over the years. Yet at its heart, surfing is simply a person riding a wave on a flotation device. Trident doesn’t want to hear any hair splitting – that’s surfing at its purest. However, surfing’s equipment, culture, the means of tracking and predicting (and sharing) conditions is ever evolving.
Why then, Trident must ask the hard question, are there still minor annoyances in surfing that have yet to be dealt with? Sharks, drowning, reefs, serious injury and wetsuit crotch are 5 serious issues in surfing. So are crowds, beachfront crime, contaminated water, costly equipment and poorly angled surf photo’s that make you look pregnant.. What about the relatively minor stuff that drives surfers potty though? Why, oh why – hasn’t enough thought been given to:
Number 1. Wax on the bottom deck of your surfboard.
This drives everyone here at Trident up the freakin’ wall. Apparently wax on the bottom of your board does slow it down, so there is some science to it. However, unless you’re Mick Fanning, Yago Dora or a Colapinto bro (or one of us here at Trident explaining why they bogged a rail so badly), we doubt most surfers would notice wax slowing one’s board down much. Particularly as many of our comrades patch up surfboard dings with judicious applications of wax. Perhaps if said blob of wax down under was the size of a tractor tyre we’d notice. Anyhow. All of that being said, wax on the bottom just looks unsightly at best. At worst, it looks like a crusty blob of dried snot during kindergarten flu season. And also, wax down below just feels plain horrible. Like a slimy pimple on your surfboard. Like finding weird bumps on your body where there shouldn’t be any. So let’s somehow look into ways of improving on this particular irritation, okay surf industry?
Number 2: Wax, full stop.
Yes, surf wax smells nice and has a certain tactile quality, but man – anywhere else but on the top deck of your board just sucks as we’ve just mentioned. Wax collecting on the chest and rear end of your wetsuit? Unsightly enough but understandable. But on your car? In your car seats? Carpet? Body hair? Sunglasses? Your significant other who thought it was hard cheese/sunblock/facial sponge? Wax kinda sucks if we’re being brutally honest about it. So see point Number 5 below which basically puts us in a circle of annoyance or at square one.
Number 3: Leashes constantly wrapping everywhere you don’t want them too.
“Expletive” me. Leashes come ready for purchase in a stupidly wrapped roll of some kind. Dangle them with some weight from a ceiling light fixture or something, and you’ll still never get the kink out. (Speaking of kinks, here’s an old article on just that here.) So before you’ve even used a leash for the first time, the darn doodad is inclined to misbehave and do its own thing. Like an ill mannered grom. Get it wrapped around your leg (or neck), or around your big toe or under your feet and your session (or heat – true story), becomes toast. Leashes are irritating, frustrating and occasionally, embarrassing. Surely we can do better with leash technology? And all you smug leashless hipsters grinning sagely while reading this can just sod off. We won’t save your board the next time it washes over the rocks.
Number 4: At least slightly accurate surf reports.
Look. Trident is not asking for 100% accuracy. But when the surf looks set to be 4 – 6 foot, light offshore and consistent… We expect at least 75% accuracy. We’ll settle on 50% even. Not to arrive at the beach, only to bear witness to 1 blown out foot closeouts with a horde of kooks going over the falls like some Amazonian human sacrifice. (Author’s note: Like in the movie, The Mission. Ed’s note: How old are you bru?!) Trident admits this is a double edged sword. Too accurate, and on the cooking days you’ll get 500 plonkers rocking up frothing at the bek ready to surf. So ja, to be fair – Trident will at least settle on slightly more accurate surf reports.
Number 5: Effective grips that aren’t tail pads.
Oh sure. You have that weird hexagonal stuff (or octagonal, or whatever damned polygonal shape they are), and you have front grips that almost do the trick. Almost. But in our experience, everyone using alternative traction to wax just goes back to relying on, well, wax. So yeah… back to Point Number 2. I mean, surely some enterprising alchemist can come up with something like a skateboard deck tape? One that won’t sandpaper the soles of your bare surfer’s feet, not to mention scraping away your nipples and ‘nads and stuff? Well Trident is gonna figure it out, gosh darn it. You heard it first here folks, so don’t you dare try patent surfboard grip tape without owing us some royalties.
