Thank god wetsuits haven’t gotten hit by the uncool stick. Photo: Skyler Fitzmaurice//The Inertia
To surf is to navigate a cultural minefield. A labyrinthine maze of dos and don’ts that only sometimes follows any sort of perceptible logic. One must hold their board with the wax out, wait to put the leash on until the water’s edge, know the locals, hate the kooks. Above all, though, one must look cool while doing it.
The least we can do is point out a few of the mines for you to walk around, lest you get taunted by your betters in the lineup. To that end, here’s a list of surfing equipment that you won’t use, because surf culture has decided it’s not cool.
The Simba Sentinel 1 Surf Helmet is great at keeping you alive, terrible at making you look cool. Photo: Skyler Fitzmaurice.
Helmets
This belongs in the category of “gear that is standard in basically every other sport, but still frowned upon in surfing for some reason.” The benefits are pretty self explanatory: brain damage is bad for you, helmets stop that. The reason for the resistance towards them is equally easy to spot: a mix of extreme sports bravado, surfers’ general refusal to do anything that makes their hobby feel like a sport (remember when Mick Fanning stretching was controversial?), and good ol’ fashioned idiocy. Luckily, the tides are turning on this one, with helmets cropping up atop the domes of more than one Pipe pro of late.
Photo: Skyler Fitzmaurice//The Inertia
Hoods
Surfers looking down on hoods (and by extension any other gear that provides more than the bare minimum level of comfort) is another case of misplaced bravado. Nobody thinks you’re cool because you’re cold (see what I did there?). Luckily, unlike the pride that keeps helmets off the heads of barrel-chasers, insisting on getting by through shivers and ground teeth most likely won’t kill you.
Photo: Vans
Reef Booties
Once again, pain equals cool, I guess. At this point, surfers’ constant insistence on fashion over comfort is getting so psychotic it’s almost admirable. Because even in the face of having their extremities blended into stumps by a razor-sharp reef, combined with the very real threat of infection from coral cuts, it’s just too uncool to wear a damn shoe.
Webbed Gloves
This one’s a little more tricky than the others. Unlike the scientifically-proven benefits of safety gear, it’s a little harder to tell whether this is going to actually do anything to help you. Strapping on some frog hands will certainly help you displace more water while paddling, although Redditors will tell you that comes at the cost of a potential shoulder injury. That’s all besides the point though, because the real reason nobody uses these is that they look stupid as hell.
Photo: Surf Co Hawaii / Shutterstock.com
Nose Guards
If you’re too young to remember the ’80s and ’90s, the nose guard is a humble hunk of silicone glued to the tip of a board in order to render it at least slightly less deadly, should it come rocketing towards your face. Unfortunately, they are both a piece of safety equipment and a sort of tacit admission that you think your surfboard may end up rocketing towards your face at some point, which means they will inevitably earn the ire of core lords. On the other hand, they’re not going to do a hell of a lot if any other part of your board hits you, so you’re not missing out on much.
Photo: Courtesy Ryan Jones
Front Traction
This is a tough one. Between the overreaching mid-level surfers who tend to use it, and the legitimate shredders who often turn their nose down on them (Noa Deane not withstanding), front traction exists in a sort of quantum state where it is both under- and over-used. In short: You’re probably not good enough to need traction, but even if you were, you wouldn’t use it anyway.
Photo: Dragon Eyewear
Sunglasses
Pterygium is no joke. The fleshy growths that inevitably begin to grow over the eyes of professional surfers (and avid enthusiasts) are a result of constantly staring into the sun while sitting into the lineup. Luckily, there’s a relatively easy way to prevent them: sunglasses. Unfortunately, it’s rather difficult to actually keep them on your face in any kind of surf. However, even the most water-worthy shades would earn you so much side-eye that you’d just opt for surgery instead.
