Wellington Boardriders Club

Lyall bay is not my local. I’ve surfed it off and on since I was a grom with a full deck of Gorilla Grip, but I wouldn’t consider myself a local. I was in wellington and surfed that last little lump of swell which produced the conditions on Monday the fourth of October 2010. I also surfed it on the Sunday and Tuesday mornings.

Whatever anyone says Lyall Bay can be a fun wave. Monday there were certainly fun waves. As someone not a local I hung on the inside catching the rogue set waves. I didn’t contest the best waves of the set. If I got caught on the inside I took the hit rather than interfere with another guys ride by splashing for the shoulder. I was polite and tried not to be too greedy. The crowds didn’t bother me, there was hardly any crowd on the Sunday and Tuesday. What bothered me was no one looks inside. No one ever looked to see if the surfer closest to breaking wave was on it. Instead you just went. Most of the time when I called out the surfer pulled off. Unfortunately some obviously didn’t know how. It’s one thing to contest the waves, especially when the conditions are crowded, but there are certain etiquettes. The basic one is, if someone has already caught the wave, has the right of way on a wave and is in fact surfing the wave, don’t carry on paddling and then stand up. It’s just rude. It can be argued that on an average day at Lyall bay there is a fifty/fifty chance the surfer paddling for the wave isn’t going to make the drop. So if you are second in line there is a fifty percent chance you’ll be in the right, if you’re third in line a twenty five percent chance.

The unfortunate thing about this is that surfing is not a level playing field. Surfing is a royal sport for the natural kings of earth, as Jack London put it. The good surfers stand out in the line up and so on down to the flailing kook. It should be obvious in the line up who will make the drop and who will not. Even on the small days with a handful of surfers, even after letting four set waves go through and taking the last ugly, misshapen one and a half foot set wave, if a wellington surfer decided to paddle for wave I was on, if they felt the lift of the board and pick up of speed, regardless if I was already on it, the wellington surfer would start getting to there feet without looking to the left or right. Do you cross the road like that? Someone is going to get hurt.

This letter is mainly to those more royal amongst the wellington surfers. You have the authority to regulate the break, what you do is copied by the kooks and the groms. Good etiquette goes a long way toward a pleasant session. If you do consider such conduct to be acceptable in the line up then I would ask you not to surf at my local break.

Ngä mihi ki te Moana