Snapper Scrap: Who’s In The Wrong?

A timeless Snapper Rocks scenario went down Monday afternoon.

Pumping waves. Beautiful weather. Tempers high. 

In dense crowds, priority and etiquette can get blurrier than a pair of Mick Fanning Mirage boardshorts. A line was crossed somewhere on the Superbank on Monday after a shared wave led to a surfer punching a bodyboarder in the lineup. 18 Seconds caught it all in HD.

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As you can see in the clip above, a bodyboarder takes off in front of a surfer on a running right. While we don’t know all the details, it appears the bodyboarder was inside at first, so the surfer sprinted into a deeper position behind him. The two played a bit of tube tango before getting sucked over the falls in a loving embrace. 

The footage then cuts to the enraged surfer throwing punches at the boog’s well-mopped head. According to the comments, a local man came to his fellow sponger’s defense, reportedly breaking the surfer’s nose with one punch. 

So, who’s in the wrong here?

Before we jump to conclusions, let’s consider all the facts we know, while recognizing there are some things outside of our purview.

Word in the water is the surfer was a blow-in, and the sponger was ‘just a kid’ — not sure if that means he’s actually under 18, or just young-looking. 

Based on the video, the bodyboarder probably thought he had the wave all to himself. Then, like magic, a surfer appeared behind him…and a fist appeared in front of him.

From the surfer’s POV, it’s possible that he’d been waiting for hours for his opportunity, only to be slighted by a kid undercutting priority. It’s also possible that he considers boogs second-class citizens and planned to go no matter what.

Though there’s a debate to be made about enforcing etiquette rules in today’s overcrowded lineups, it’s impossible to justify slapping around kids for waves. Perhaps this dualism can best be expressed by the first man to surf in Australia, Duke Kahanamoku, who was once quoted as saying, “I think we have to teach a lot of these kids to first be gentlemen. Try to help one another and not hog the doggone waves.”

Granted, the Duke was one of like…12(?) surfers globally at the time. So it’s kinda pineapples and prawns.

Lots of angles here, what ya got?