"You're gonna hurt someone"

[banzai]

I'm from Hawaii and grew up surfing Waikiki. Back in the day the guys who could surf, and there were a lot of them, caught the first break. New surfers had to prove that they belong letting their surfing do the talking. If you were a young kid learning like me, they forced you to catch the inside waves until you could show you belong. So now if I see that a guy can surf and knows how to handle whether it's sup or regular they get my respect and we share. I do try to give the proners a break by sharing the peak if possible. Like guys said above, it's more the people that don't really have the skills that get in the way and are a danger to others, just because they can catch a wave they do regardless of others in the lineup. It's like that way in most of the places that I surf. Respect is given to those that earn it.

[supthecreek]

^^^^^ zactly!

I experienced an interesting array of tests when I started surfing Sunset regularly.

If you passed, you got waves.... if you didn't..... no waves for you.

Example:
Set wave... everyone out of position... you are too far back.... no way of making it.
"GO brah!"

You go.... and take the beating like a man.
The better you handle the drop... the higher your score
That test says... if he's paddling.... he'll go.... and he'll make it.

The very sound logic behind this is:
Only so many wave every day.... they don't get wasted on people who won't make good use of them
Plus it thins out the line-up of hazards.

Not "fair"....
Not "Etiquette" ...
a simple test of ability and character.

Failing grades sometimes get you a time out.

[banzai]

Well said Creek!

Especially the logic!

Sometimes timeouts were unfair though...depends on who you know.

[stoneaxe]

Saturday afternoon I'm in the water with 1 other SUP and a mix of long and shortboarders. More of a crowd than I like and lots of them obvious newbies so I move down the beach a bit where it actually looks to be breaking better anyway. These two 40 something long boarders who I had already identified as dickheads from the drop ins and snakes I had already seen them do follow me. I'm standing outside waiting for the bigger set I can see in the distance. As it approaches dickhead #1 starts frantically paddling out past me on my right and proceeds to paddle behind me and tries to snake the wave...our rails clicked as we both took off and he says "Whoa watch it". I turned into and rode down the face while he floundered in the whitewater. As I paddled back past him with him mouthing to his buddy ( I hear "fucking SUPs")  and giving me stink eye. I paddled up to within a few feet and simply said don't try and snake me again cause I'll go left, right over you. His bluster deflated as he mumbled something and paddled away.

I don't think SUPs that have control don't have to segregate themselves even though I usually try and stay out of crowds....but assholes like that I enjoy fucking with. I made it a point to surf near them the rest of the day...it completely screwed them up, it was awesome.

[jumpfrom13k]

Most of the people that complain about SUP in the lineup are the longboarders in my experience. They thought they had it all sown up and on top of the food chain. Now with a competent SUPer they are now the new "shortboarders" as far as who gets what. In reality a high performance SUP really doesn't have an advantage against a guy on a 10" longboard. It's the newer SUP guys on BIG SUP's in a mixed lineup that cause the problems and get all SUPers stereotyped into one category. It was like when longboarding made a resurgence, this too will even out as far as acceptability as time goes on, especially with an aging surf population.

The only complaints that I've gotten was by some old longboarders. Young groms they don't really care about SUPs, groms are good enough to get waves on their own.

Why are these old longboarders complaining in first place? They have much longer board. They are laying down so that the weight is distributed much evenly across the board which enables them to get into waves even quicker than SUP board. 

It is 2015. Gay and lesbians can get married, schools and military are desegregated, and marijuana is about to become legal. SUP should be able to go anywhere.

The worst offender for wave hogging goes to group of 14 year olds with a high performance foamy board.

[PonoBill]

Saturday afternoon I'm in the water with 1 other SUP and a mix of long and shortboarders. More of a crowd than I like and lots of them obvious newbies so I move down the beach a bit where it actually looks to be breaking better anyway. These two 40 something long boarders who I had already identified as dickheads from the drop ins and snakes I had already seen them do follow me. I'm standing outside waiting for the bigger set I can see in the distance. As it approaches dickhead #1 starts frantically paddling out past me on my right and proceeds to paddle behind me and tries to snake the wave...our rails clicked as we both took off and he says "Whoa watch it". I turned into and rode down the face while he floundered in the whitewater. As I paddled back past him with him mouthing to his buddy ( I hear "fucking SUPs")  and giving me stink eye. I paddled up to within a few feet and simply said don't try and snake me again cause I'll go left, right over you. His bluster deflated as he mumbled something and paddled away.

I don't think SUPs that have control don't have to segregate themselves even though I usually try and stay out of crowds....but assholes like that I enjoy fucking with. I made it a point to surf near them the rest of the day...it completely screwed them up, it was awesome.

Gee, that sounds kind of familiar. We had very nice parents, where did we get that attitude from?

[pdxmike]

It is 2015. Gay and lesbians can get married, schools and military are desegregated, and marijuana is about to become legal. SUP should be able to go anywhere.

Don't forget--with all the progressive stuff, gun rights are still around.  And there are places where SUP is not only frowned on, it's banned.  So potentially you could legally be barred from holding a paddle, but fine if you replace it with a joint or loaded weapon.  And possibly more likely the gun would be legal in public than the joint...

[surfercook]

13k- "The worst offender for wave hogging goes to group of 14 year olds with a high performance foamy board." lol. No lie! There's that exact group on my local this summer w/Wavestorm boards. They get ALOT of waves! Especially "Tommy"! That kid RIPS on a Storm!