How does a river sup guy introduce himself to a kayaker:

[clayfeeter]

You cannot help but laugh, though hopefully this doesn't happen too often... it's brought to our attention by a Potomac paddlin' surf bud/Standup Journal photographer, Skip Brown...

Kinda reminds me of the old joke:

Question: "How does a snowboarder introduce himself?"

Answer: "Yo, sorry dude!"

SUP meets kayaker
           
             clay
             www.standupjournal.com

[shapeshifter]

yeowch! see that kayak paddle come up to show him what for... good thing the sup dude was our of stabbing distance.

[localpaddler]

As funny as this is to watch...

Keep this in mind for paddling on river:
The upstream paddler has the right of way so if you are surfing a wave you must do everything to get out of the way of the paddler coming down the river.  This is widely known in the rafting and paddling industry and it really makes a big difference in preventing a collision.  The hard fins on boards could really have done some damage.  Most paddlers, kayakers, rafters will try to go around you so that the you can keep having fun surfing but they don't always have the room and it is you job as the person surfing to make sure to not be in there way.  The beauty of surfing a river way is that it is always there...you can always get right back on it after someone passes.

I am friends with both those guys in that video and it was all fun and games.  I just wanted to pass on some river edicate and rules of thumb.

About a week ago I was coming down stream on a board and fell off my board going through waves and got run over by a kayaker surfing.  He could have easily surf off the wave...I did my best to get out of his way when swimming downsteam but I still got tagged...it left a mark.  It is all good...accidents happen...but they will happen less if the person coming down stream is giving all the space they need.

[Tree]

Like grouchy longboarder/shortboarder prone guys aren't enough, now Kayakers too?    I would think that the upstream guy has all the time in the world to pick a line  avoiding the guy on the wave. Now I don't feel so bad about spraying the surf kayak guys when they get in the way... 

[Caribsurf]

"nice to meet you too,  now would you mind removing your fin from my neck..."

[SUPer Dave]

Thanks Clay that was great stuff.....

[Eric]

funny how we talked so much about etiquette in the line up... we gonna need to start new threads on etiquette in whitewater and etiquette on flat water when surounded by rowers !

[southwesterly]

This reminds me of way back (way,way back. 1982) in the early Windsurf days on Santa Cruz's North coast. It was THE first day of anybody wavesailing Scott's Creek.  I ran into, and over, a German pro over here for the World Cup. We were the only two people in the water at the time.
I said I was sorry and he said some things in German that luckily I couldn't understand. Then in heavy accented english he yelled, "WHY, I SPEAK AT YOU!"
Sometimes there just seems to be some kind of strange magnet that makes these things happen.
"Yo, sorry dude" sums it up best.

[kwhilden]

Like grouchy longboarder/shortboarder prone guys aren't enough, now Kayakers too?    I would think that the upstream guy has all the time in the world to pick a line  avoiding the guy on the wave. Now I don't feel so bad about spraying the surf kayak guys when they get in the way...  

The upstream water craft on a river *always* has right of way, no exceptions. Just like on a wave, the surfer closest to the peak always has right of way. The SUP surfer in this video was in the wrong, and should have surfed  out the kayakers way even if it means that he would fall off the wave. I actually think it looks like the surfer deliberately carved toward the kayaker in the video.

To answer your specific comment of why the kayaker didn't avoid the SUP surfer. Surf waves in particular are a fun feature for 'down-river' paddlers to punch -- this is particularly true for commercial rafters where customers pay for thrills. Surfers on that wave can always drop off, get back in the eddy, and then hop on the wave again when downstream traffic has cleared. The wave will still be there just like before because it's a standing wave.

There is a lot of river  etiquette and safety that SUP paddlers need to learn if they want respect on the  river and don't want to be viewed as kooks by the whitewater kayakers and rafters. LOL, I can't believe I just called SUP surfers 'kooks' from a kayaker's perspective.  As a life-long surf kayaker, I find that *really* amusing.

But it's true in way. Compared to kayaks, SUPs are less stable, have reduced ability to navigate difficult whitewater, have less ability to effect a rescue, and cannot perform advanced tricks on a wave. When I get my plastic Imagine SUPs, I can't wait to take them down class II as a way  to make class II a lot more challenging and therefore fun. I'll have to join the packs of beginning kayakers though...  and probably count on them for rescues.

On a river, we are the newcomers. I'll make an unfortunate prediction that we can gauge how fast whitewater SUP evolves by monitoring how soon the kayakers start complaining about having to rescue and/or avoid clueless SUP paddlers. You can gauge this for yourself at http://www.boatertalk.com

[PonoBill]

What an amazing sport this is.

[Tree]

So when Corran is busting airs on waves at Habitat he has to constantly be scanning up river for guys who will force him out of the wave to spin 360's in a Kayak?     Bummer....

[Blane Chambers]

"I was like, cool, c'mon down...   Then I'm like, WTF??? "

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Classic.

[c iguchi]

That's FUNNY

[clayfeeter]

.... and when it comes to rules (and breaking them with rad delight) localpaddler/Luke Hopkins should know when he tips us off to guys coming from up river having right of way...

BUT Luke who has the right of way when you're doing stuff like this!!?:
        Clay
        www.standupjournal.com

[kwhilden]

So when Corran is busting airs on waves at Habitat he has to constantly be scanning up river for guys who will force him out of the wave to spin 360's in a Kayak?     Bummer....

Yeah, that's how river etiquette works. But the river at Habitat is wide and not very  crowded, and pretty much everyone in the vicinity of the wave is there to surf the wave. So then the surfer has right of way.

This is primarily a problem on crowded rivers with a lot of downstream traffic. Especially when the river constricts to make a surf wave without options for upstream traffic to go around. A  good example of this is on the 'First Threat' wave on the SF American River. It's one  of the best surf waves on the river, but it's caused by a constriction  and has no options to go around it. It's also a heavy commercial rafting river, so kayakers in the eddy next to the wave warn the surfer if there's an approaching raft or kayaker. I've seen collisions where the surfer didn't get out of the way... it's not pretty and can be dangerous.