On a recent morning, watching surfers at Ehukai on Oahu’s North Shore, the beach crowd laughed and cheered when a spider-limbed youngster did a spirited kick-out over the top of a wave, catapulting himself high into the air in an explosion of spray.
Like everyone else in the crowded lineup, the kid wore an ankle leash, a stretchy length of plastic tubing that was introduced in the 1970s. By keeping your board within reach when you wipe out, a leash can reduce your risk of drowning; when held down by a wipeout, some big-wave surfers have survived by climbing their leashes to the surface.
The kid’s antic, free-flying somersault was adorable, but as he went aerial his board went in the opposite direction — over the falls — and through the white water you could see the yellow line of his leash, pulled taut from his ankle to the bottom of the wave.
I remembered that kick-out when Jay, a reader, requested that I “write about the leash.”
Like me, he had started surfing as a youngster in the pre-leash days, when you had to swim for your board if you got separated from it.
Jay asked if surfers have become too reliant on their leashes. He wondered if most, nowadays, can even swim. And does anyone teach them anything about safety? To judge by their behavior — paddling out into conditions beyond their abilities, taking off on unmakeable waves, letting go of their boards during cleanup sets — he doubted it.
By getting snagged on a rock or coral head, leashes have caused some surfers to have been held underwater and drowned, writes Matt Warshaw in the Encyclopedia of Surfing, noting that Mark Foo is thought to have died this way at Mavericks, the big-wave break near Half Moon Bay, Calif.
“But leashes have almost without question saved a greater number of lives, as there are fewer loose boards in the lineup,” Warshaw added.
But leashes can snap, warns “Surf Survival: The Surfer’s Health Handbook” (Skyhorse, 2011), written by three medical doctors: Andrew Nathanson, Clayton Everline and Mark Renneker.
They provide essential safety tips, such as, “Don’t paddle out if you don’t think you could swim in.”
My grandfather watched me swim a mile in the ocean before he would allow me to surf. A couple of times, an old leash has torn on me. (Another tip: “Check your equipment before going out.”)
But I know to ascertain the current and wind directions and which way to swim to find my board.
“Should you ever get held down by your own leash, you’ll only have seconds to free yourself, so make sure you know how to pull it off quickly,” the authors continue. “Always put your leash on the same way (clockwise or counterclockwise), with the pull tab always located in the same place.”
TWENTY years ago I paddled out with my brother Ethan to Suis into a big summer swell on my brand-new Downing Hawaii thruster.
“Beautiful board!” a passer-by had exclaimed as we walked down the street in the sunshine.
At the time, I was living in New York for most of the year and had forgotten my bearings. As we paddled out I was caught unawares when a big set struck and knocked me and my board onto the sharp, shallow table reef.
Helpless, I was dragged by my board and then suddenly held under and immobilized. My leash had wrapped around a coral head and gone tight as a tourniquet as the board pulled on the other end.
Ethan was beside me in a flash. I could see the worry in his eyes.
“Undo your leash!” he said. In my panic I couldn’t. Which way did the tab pull?
He grabbed my board and ripped open the Velcro on that end of the leash, which slackened. Then he undid my ankle cuff.
Leaving the leash wrapped around the coral, I paddled in. I told Ethan to go surfing, but he stuck by me.
I was cut and bruised, and my new board wasn’t pretty anymore, but I’d learned the value of another rule: Never go out alone.
“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.
