Not the best of days.

A great day of surfing ended bad for me the other day. It was head high at Cardiff reef and after a three hour session I finially decide to call it a night, but not before I caught one more wave in, but as I paddled out a very stupid 14 year old girl who was body boarding on a POS beater 10’ longboard caught a wave right in front on me and ranover me and my board! The end result was two knife chops to my rail, one to my arm, a two foot scrach on my deck, and a ding! My injuries were mild, and thank God I did not get a fin to the skull, but as you can tell, I’m pretty pissed about the whole incident. What makes people think that they can go out on a crowded day without ANY surfing experience and fart around on a 10’ beast in 6’ waves?!

So dose anyone have any recomendations on how to fix these gouges? The board is balsa and glassed with 1 layer of 4oz and RR. I think I’ll take this as an opertunity to put a high gloss finish coat and a leash loop on.

Cheers, and thanks for letting me vent.

  1. What makes a full grown man take a handcrafted wooden surfboard that obviously means a very very very great deal to him out on a crowded day and fart around near silly little girls who don’t know any better?

  2. Better you than her.

  3. Eponymous thread title?

  4. Doesn’t REALLY look that bad. And you’ve had plural days to GET OVER IT.

  5. Cursing little girls–nice.

Wash your face, get back out there and tell her what you think of her.

A few months ago I bought a board I’d been saving for. I was loving it. On the 5th or 6th time out, it broke. I was deflated. I couple hours later I was better. I just had to realize that it was only plastic and money. No reason to let it wreck me.

I feel your pain though. Had I built it myself it would’ve been worse.

You might check into boardlady.com. She repairs everything and does some awesome work with wood veneers.

From the looks of it the repairs should be pretty staight forward. Sand the glass back and use your obviously excellent woodworking skills to insert a fill piece and glass it back.

All I can say it, beware the newbies. I always spot them and try too keep an eye on them so I can avoid them. But, things happen anyway.

Right you are Jank,

I usually don’t ride in crowds, and in fact, an hour before this happened there were only 10 people in the water, but then at 6:00pm the number jumped to 30 in a matter of minutes, but I was having too much fun to call it a day just quite then.

Better me then her? maybe, but better her board than mine.

Eponymous? I’m not sure you know what that word means, or perhaps I dont, but I get what you are saying.

(I think it’s a euphemism)

It’s bad enough that I’ll be out of the water for a few weeks because it is my only board and I have not the materals nor the space to fix it.

Cursing little girls can be quite therapeutic.

I’ll tell her if I see her, but I think she was just camping at the grounds on the bluff so it is doubtful that our paths will cross again.

Rhino,

Though a very similar thing happened to me not too long ago - resulting in a major fin gouge in my rail requiring a large foam wedge and tricky color match repair - there were some things I dwelt on…

Yes, it was a relative novice who - though it was the end of the wave - didn’t have the sense to either kick out (there’s way too many “surfers” who don’t or can’t execute this most basic move) or cut back to avoid running me over.

That got me pissed as I was in the water (off my board) and he could clearly see me with plenty of time to avoid me.

Obviously, with a 4" gouge in my rail, my session was over. As I threw my board in my truck - “threw” is a relative term, I tossed that puppy like it was a live grenade that was about to blow - I wondered “Why me?”

After alot of thought - and a pretty righteous repair, if I do say so myself - the bottom line is that, for as long as surfing ettiquitte has been around, “Surfer on wave has right of way! Surfer paddling out - or in water (like me) - does not!”

She may have been a 14 yr. old “newbie” out of control - but, YOU may have screwed up what, to that point, was the ride of HER life…

We all were groms once - give her a little credit for going for it in those conditions - and relax in the knowledge that you have the skills to avoid such situations when it’s your wave.

And, obviously, the skills to fix the dings.

What’s Jim Phillips’ sign off? “Former gremmie who’s living his dream.” Something like that…maybe that’s what she was trying to do…

Just trying to lessen your downer…

Pete

Paul Jensen just lost one of his beautiful hollow wooden boards. He asked me if I knew how fast he got over it.

“In about 30 seconds” he replied.

I know he was covering up but it’s not a bad thing to shoot for. I would still be kicking myself. Of course, when you only have yourself to blame, it’s much easier to forgive and forget!

I am lucky that my board is not thrashed, I’d be wanted for murder if it was…

Just joking ; )

I’m pretty much over that it happend and am looking forward to fixing it. I don’t think I’ll need to use a piece of wood to fill the gouges, I’ll proably just sand it and fill it with resin and glass. I’m having a look through the archives to see just how to do this. then I’ll need to sand down the 2 foot scrach on the deck and polish it up. Luckly the scrach did not get all the way through the hot coat.

Quote:

“Surfer on wave has right of way! Surfer paddling out - or in water (like me) - does not!”

I’m pretty sure that the surfer on the wave must avoid all other surfers/swimers who are either stationary or paddling out.

Sure it is the surfer/swimers duty to avoid collision, but it is much easier to pull out or turn to avoid a swimer or surfer than it is for the surfer/swimer to paddle/swim out of the way. In my case, the person who ran into me knew not how to do either and I was unable to evade the beastly girl (and yes I did try)

Hey, I’ll loan you a board till you get it fixed. No worries mate!

Groovy,

I’d be Keen on borrowing the franken board if I may.

Rhino,

Not to harp on this - it’s not a big deal in the scheme of things - but as John said, " It’s much easier to forgive and forget."

My point was that you were obviously the more experienced in that situation and were, or should have been, aware of those around you and were more capable of avoiding the catastrophe.

Reminds me of a situation back in the 60’s. The Californians regularly toured the East Coast in the summer to hawk their wares.

Was surfing in knee high slop at Gilgo Beach with the likes of Edwards, Frye, Doyle and whoever else. If they were out, so were we. Was on a wave with about 20 others and pulled one of my first cut-backs, EVER!

Boy, was I feeling cool…except that I cut back right into Tom Morey’s shin !!!

I apologized mightily but he just swore at me. Back on the beach later, I went up to him and apologized again, “Tom, I’m really sorry for cutting back into you.”

“Yeah, I bet you are, mumble, mumble, asshole, mumble, mumble…” was the response.

Just couldn’t let it go…

Forgive and Forget…No Big Deal…Take The High Road…

Don"t Sweat The Petty Things…Don’t Pet The Sweaty Things…

Pete

Sorry you took the hit, bro–the little girl (I’m the father of one–I wouldn’t recommend you take your therapy while her father is within 2-300 miles or so)

seemed likely to have been proning her way in because she knew she was out when she shouldn’t have been…

and you making the comment about her “POS” board…

I hope you don’t have any more such traumatic incidents.

exactly!

i don’t know who it is that has told all these newbies and kooks that it’s alright to paddle out at good surfing spots and endanger others. around here, there are plenty of beginner spots to go to where they can learn the basics. but do they? NOOOOOO!

all these entitled new surfers and their apologizers need to take a look at this incident. there could have been serious injury here. rhino said he tried to get out of her way. she could have straightened off.

and if this young girl had her dad there…well, where was he? he sure as hell wasn’t puttting in any time teaching her how to surf safely on waves that were safe for her or others. hell no. send her out on a 6’ day and let her bang around like some crazed pinball.

lucky it was the board and not your head,bro.

Read his post again–“…as I paddled out a very stupid 14 year old girl who was body boarding on a POS beater 10’ longboard caught a wave right in front on me and ranover me and my board!”

YEAH, She Came Out Of NOWHERE! HE NEVER HAD A CHANCE! STOOPID GURL!

Right you are about the “Therapy”,

but after she ran me over, she said “Sorry, I’m not a surfer”, I replied, “It’s ok, don’t worry about it” and I swam after my board. Then she headed out for more. I’m beging to think that she was one Bushs’ evil trolls trying to attack the liberal goofyfooted surfers of southern California in a complex plot to keep us in our garages doing ding repair so that the extensive use of resin causes cancer and we die before we can ignite the revolution. Well I’m not playing Dubbua, that’s right…I’ll be glassing with EPOXY!

Janklow,

FYI, Rhino is only 2 or 3 years older than the girl. Person on the wave has right of way. Austin, it doesn’t look like you paid too dear a price in damage. I was that girl once, as a beginner at Windansea. I couldn’t turn yet, and ran over Curren, Diff, and Ronald Patterson on one wave. We were ALL that girl, in the beginning. Who knows, she may blossom into a champion someday.

Right on all points Bill.

Though there is something to say about common sense and good parenting. A 14 year old newbie girl on a 10 ft. board at 6 ft. Cardiff. Sounds like a formula for trouble. As the father of a 13 year old, I wouldn’t let her go out in those conditions unless she was very accomplished.

But whether or not she should be there, she was, and as I understand surf ettiquette, the paddler has to estimate the path of the surfer and avoid them. Even if it means taking on the whitewash.

As a side note, I’m proud to say my girl caught her first waves this summer. Just little whitewash but we were all stoked. Even her mom got inspired and caught a couple.

I’m not as fusterated as the posts give off, nothing a little elbowgreece and a couple of hours can’t fix.

Sure, we all started from nothing at one point, my first time really surfing was in the winter of 94’ when we had that huge el-nino swell. I paddled out in over head high waves at del mar and swallowed a lot of water-Yes- I had no busness being out there, but it was not crowded and I didn’t run over anyone and I never have.

My point is just that someone ran over me because they were farting around on the inside, caught a broken wave without looking (not 20 feet infront of me) and made a b-line towards me giving me no time to get out of the way. How she had the right of way is beyond me, the only way my board could have been salvaged would have been to chuck it to the side leaving me to take the full blunt, but not knowing if there was anyone behind me I held tight (there’s no leash loop on my board).

Now on to the real point of this thread,

when I patch it I think I will just fill the hole with resin then toss 2 layers of 4oz glass on top.

All in favor say “AYE”

I know, Bill (hi, Bill)–I actually know he’s a teenager too. That’s one of the unspoken points of my post. And yes, we were all that girl LOL and some of us may still be that girl – bless that girl – hope she figures it out.

Austin, it was your call to tell her what was up: “Hey, I’m okay and I can fix my board but I’m supposed to tell you-- board control is a big deal in these conditions–you can’t be out here not knowing how to avoid people–somebody might get hurt next time–maybe you. You should probably wait for a smaller day or maybe move down where you can get better practice waves.”

And/But if you were too close to her and not on snap enough about her experience level and/or her likely trajectory–was it both your fault? I’d say so.

Nice boardcraft, and I’m sure you’re a fine surfer, but I think this is a case of comparative negligence.

That’s a good dialog,

I’ll rember to use it next time I almost get bludgeoned to death by large foam and fiberglass projectiles.

Maybe no one is at fault and it was fate saying “Get a leash loop on your 15lb beast before you crush someones skull on a big day like today” I’m not too keen on the idea of fate, but what the hell.

(Tengo Diece Y Nueve anos)

Cheers.