Leashes? We don’t need no stinking leashes. Photo: Brent Bielmann // WSL
Leashless surfing is one of the sport’s more esoteric points of contention. The vast majority of surfers are grateful to have a device that prevents their watercraft from wandering away every time they wipe out, but a vocal minority abhors them.
There’s good reason for the fervor, too. At Wategos Beach in New South Wales, Australia, Matthew Cassidy was surfing when an errant, unsecured longboard sliced his arm open and nearly killed him. As a result of that incident, Byron Bay banned leashless surfing in 2023, with violators subject to a $75 fine.
However, that entire debate is typically reserved for longboarding. With a few notable exceptions, such as The Wedge, a leash is usually a given in high performance surfing. The benefit of being able to retrieve a board is simply too great, even when the device doing it may cause some annoyance.
Enter Kauli Vaast.
In case you missed it, the Lexus Tahiti Pro got the green light yesterday, and it’s been pretty nuts. A massive swell kicked up the kind of waves that strike equal amounts of awe and horror. However, during all that, commentators on the the live broadcast were thrown for a loop when they noticed a dearth of restraining equipment around Kauli’s ankle.
What was his game? Was it a safety consideration? An attempt to reduce drag from the leash? Some other technical wizardry only a Teahupo’o local and Olympic champion would know to pull off? Whatever the case, it was on oddity.
Later on, he finally explained his reasoning.
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“I don’t like surfing with a leash here,” he told the WSL. “If you eat shit, you just have to take off your leash, because the lifeguards are going to come pick you up. Sometimes it’s hard to take off. I eat shit, boom, the board goes. If I’m there, they pick me up, come back with the board. If not I just take the backup.”
