I did the same exact thing a four weeks ago. I ended up with four stiches in the corner of my eye socket near my nose and a massive black eye. If i hadn’t put a blunt end at the of my board probably would have lost an eye.
The subject really “hits” home with me (don’t mind the pun, please). Was gored by the nose of my 6-2 Nellis at pre-dawn Ala Mo back in the mid '80’s. Punctured small intestine meant a week stay at Queen’s Medical in Honolulu and a nifty 8" scar on my belly. The hair in the rail of my board at the nose was the only evidence I needed to become a proponent of Noseguards and telling everyone I saw they should use one too! BTW- for you guys over 50, my buddies in med school at the time told me that would be a fatal accident like 50 or 70% of the time for folks over 50. Noseguards do more than protect your eyes!
Yup I also support Dave Skedelski’s multi decade crusade to make the sport safer with his rubbers.
From his Surfco nose guards, tail guards, fin guards and now rail and paddle guards he never gets any credit for promoting safety first especially for the kids.
And
yeah it looks ugly so what it won’t matter when you can’t see your board?
yeah it binds going into the sock but he solved that with his superslick versions
and yeah I have them on the twin tips of all my geminis and pointy nose boards
red is the best to get the attention of the guy dropping in you’re about to skewer.
Paul
many years ago as a dumb and brave TV cameraman, Sharkcountry damaged his eye shooting a womens surf contest at Alii (Haleiwa) using an old Bell & Howell windup 16mm in a plastic bag held up against his eye when the girl he was shooting fell off and shot her board into the camera flush against his face.
To the chagrin of the great lifeguards who took care of him the local ambulance guys said he was going to make (die) with the huge hole in his head above his eye and he probably would lost his eye completely if we weren’t medivac’d by military helicopter to Queens Hospital. He struggles through the effects of that one incident to this day especially since he said it ruined his good looks maybe he suffered brain damage from it I don’t know.
I hope yours was a minor mishap as it looks. I’ve had similar slices, when a competitor hit me in the eye playing racket ball(before the advent of goggles) and when I hit myself in the eye with my own tennis racket in a competition as I was trying to avoid running full on into the back wall retrieving a lob.
Take Care
Be Safe
And get out of the water before the sharks come by to say hello to your friends
Glad your eye is OK Paul.
For the last year or so I have been leaving the noses of my shortboards bluntish.squaring off to about 10mm. Any wider and the kids ask “whats with the squared off nose?”
Try explaining that it may not penetrate your brain and some think its good others not. The others are the ones who probably dont wear seat belts or bike helmets either.
Taking responsibility for our own actions is a good start. If I cop the nose or fins of a board from my, or someone elses kookness, maybe I should have been more careful.
I remember somewhere reading that NSW Aust. is the second most litigious state in the world behind California USA. I have been waiting for years for someone to tell me they were cut by my fins or stabbed by the nose, and I’m still waiting, have even thought about disclaimers when you order for what they’re worth.
Surfing can be dangerous but so can crossing the road or driving a car.
The noses tails or any ends or points on clubbie racing mals have to have a radius of at least 25mm. the leading edge of the fin has to have a 3mm radius and the trailing edge 1.5mm. Doesn’t stop people being belted by those barges though.
I would like to keep both my eyes. your near miss has inspired me to offer the option of quality nose guards and a much blunter nose.
Cheers
Daren
Blunter nose it is.
maybe tom carroll will join you on as class action against fins… i heard he sat on the wrong end of a board at pipe once too. cmon… i bet theres more fin chops here than nose hits… what about the local council shouldnt they provide safe walkways into the break… leaving those jagged rocks to jump off has got to be negligent! you dont get those kind of injuries on a couch… maybe better to not get involved with the dangerous activities…
It does suck getting injured in something that we love to do, but isn’t that all part and parcel of doing it. Surfing isn’t exactly playing with playdough, you’ve got to expect the odd wack, cut etc. It’s the risk that we enjoy and froth on. To me anyone that takes a law suit out on being injured should be laughed out of court. This world has already become a bunch of pansies. In NZ all the good things have been taken away cause of little men who don’t want to be injured, play grounds for kids cant even be over 1.5m high so the kids wont break a leg. Im only 21 but even I’ve seen this world detoriate
I think we should all toughen up and accept what happens is what happens, you cant exactly sue a board manufacturer if you die for trying to surf a 30foot monster, on the basis it would never have happened if they didn’t have that board.
So in reality blunt, sharp, hard, soft you’re still going to get hurt its a way of life that shouldn’t be taken away.
Just my POV
I can’t see how blunting a nose on a shortboard isn’t going to affect a boards performance but keeping a sharp point just increases the risk of serious injury to yourself or someone else. But if you think that blunting the tip is just being “politically correct” do you also think that seatbelts and crash helmets are for panzies?
Personally I think it would take fuck all effort from shapers to blunt the nose and what’s wrong with minimizing the risk?
Fair enough bout the whole seat belt call, no they aren’t just for pansies they help heaps, but then the car crash ratio to surfboard stabbing is a lot higher.
I haven’t learnt enough bout shaping yet, but Im sure a sharp nose would have some point other then aesthetics cause its been around for a long time. I might just have to add that into the research and analysis pile.
I’m interested to know what dimensions you write on a blunt nose board?
The board will be an inch shorter, but it won’t ride shorter…
Sure to confuse the simple surfing masses!
Pointy nose is an unnecessary feature, unlike sharp fins!
I have no problems doing away with an useless fashion feature, I might change my shapes.
BTW, i’ve had 5 stiches in my face and a broken tooth from a fin.
Mates have had bad bruising and lacerations from noses.
I learned a valuable lesson - know where your board is!
well i just could not help myself
a guy walks in to ferels shop
dave can i help you sir
customer i want that board there
dave its gota pointy nse ive this lovelly snub over here
dave that board has 5 fins
customer yea thats the one the k s model
ok says dave heres a nse gaurd &leggie
the guy goes down to stuper bank straps the pointy stick whith the arsnell on the stern
to his leg gets caught in old stupers magic vanishing trick
ends up down at kirra gets sucked in a set
smacked in the face not whith the pointy but the fins
the moral to this if you gonna strap the board to your leg you gona hafto take some responsabailty?
huie
Quote:
Surfing isn’t exactly playing with playdough, you’ve got to expect the odd wack, cut etc. It’s the risk that we enjoy and froth on. To me anyone that takes a law suit out on being injured should be laughed out of court.
Its more likely gonna be joe blogg’s 10 y o daughter, who loses her eye swimming at the beach on a 1 ft day, when a newbie loses control of his brand spanking new board on his first day out, that will be the fronting case.
And of course if she wins compensation every man and his dog who has been scratched by the nose of a surfboard will be looking to turn the bad experience into dollars and cents(or
a 5 year surfing holiday perhaps).
Disclaimer: This post is highly dramatised, based on absolutly zero facts and does not nessarily represent the view of anyone.
All names have been changed to protect the innocent.
No animals were harmed in the making of this post.
seems pretty straightforward and not threatening to anyones macho sense of manliness to round of the nose a bit.
Definitely no loss of performance , if that is what the manly men are worried about.
Young japanese fella died here at Tallows a couple of years back in one foot surf. His mates’ pointy nose thruster speared him in the guts. Bet he felt pretty tough, while his mate was bleeding to death on the beach.
Steve
jezz steve
this is such a complex issue thats why i lightend it up a bit
take fins a properly foiled fin ( single grenough) will cut ya
now we got 5 of the mothers we cant load this all on the makers or designers
any way my freind hows it going were sure having a winter
huie
I got stabbed pretty badly by a pointy nose 20 years ago - and have had the noses rounded on all my boards ever since.
On the other hand, catch even a blunted nose straight into the eye with any force, and chances are you’ll be comparing artificial eyeballs with Derek Hynde…
Shaper/surfer Jim Banks had his short board noses like little eggs, in 1979, Kurt Wilson, Xtrak owner came to me for sponsorship.
The first board I layed out for him, he had me shape it with a blunted nose about 3-1/2" wide, he felt the blunted nose gave him the rail line of a board longer and the safety of a nose that would not fit into an eye socket.
It was the center of cat calls and other ribbing from the competitors he went against, but it never once interfered with his surfing
wow, lots of thought and input on this one
i would certainly feel some degree of responsibilty if it was one of my boards
especially if it was a 7 year old kid
ive been hurt by fins and rails
for a while there there were fins with pretty sharp leading edges
they were bloody stupid as well.
but nothing like from the nose or tail of a board
they are the ones, from stretched leggies
i always cover my head when surfacing
was unlucky this time.
but when your surfing hollow waves everything is magnified
commit to a baz and youll likely land on your fins at some stage
but i was googling some stats (and others experiences) and its the nose that causes the most damage
and its does a lot
just to remove any doubt
heres the second day shot
you can see it was right in the socket and would have lost it for sure
if pros surfing had any sense of social responsibilty, they would use there influence as role model for youth,
by insisting on a blunt nose
and as kit and says
the board is an inch shorter with ZERO difference
Quote:
maybe theres someone like alan gibbons who nows the full story but im sure i remember when i worked for Nev many years ago that Al Merrick was sued by someone who lost an eye... that resulted in his noses not being narrower than 1cm on the tip for a while...
Yeah, I heard the same story. From what I was told, it was the board that Merrick was riding himself that took out the eye of a teenage girl.
Back in the early 80’s, my brother got hit by one of the fins of his own board on his right eyesocket. It cut a nice gash thru his eyebrow and hit so hard that it chipped chunk off his brow bone.
I guess if you really wanted to totally protect your eyes from surfboard noses or fins, you would wear some kind of eye protection like safety goggles that are waterproof.
Quote:
In NZ all the good things have been taken away cause of little men who don’t want to be injured, play grounds for kids cant even be over 1.5m high so the kids wont break a leg. Im only 21 but even I’ve seen this world detoriate
what good things are you talking about?
the 4 year old that will never walk again,knocked off the trail at turoa by wannabe ski hero
( the only time i ever really feel like bashing the shit out of someone is in the ski fields)
or the 3 year old in traction from the miter ten playground
or the 2 year old killed in a carpark by a boy racer
or how about those tough outdoors types that had those 7 kids drown in a flooded river a few months back
its called common sense
being carefull an considerate of other does not make you a panzy
it makes a safe and happy comunity