[fricken4]

Surfing is plenty exclusionary. whether or not this is a bad thing, there are a finite number of decent breaks in the world. You can go to the ends of the earth, paddle out an hour before the sun is up, and there are already 20 guys in the water trying to catch the same wave.

If you're a kook with a $100 soft top the others will work together to keep you at the back of the lineup. Whether it's a matter of safety or subculture is besides the point, dedicated surfers don't want you around.

Surfers have no inclination to promote surfing unless they have some kind of sponsorship. Promotion is a corporate venture that has nothing to do with surfing and everything to do with making money. Mo money, mo problems.

[spaceflunky]

The whole "safety" issue is a bit of red herring, used to just keep surfing exclusionary and to accuse others of malfeasance if they get in someone's way.

The serious risks in surfing are relatively low provided you're at a sandy bottom beach break with waves under 5ft. No one is taking these soft-top boards to the Pipeline and endangering lives, they're mostly just showing up at mellow low-risk breaks.

Yeah it's annoying when someone bumps into you, and yeah you might get a bruise in the worst case scenario, but no one is dying or drowning in 3ft waves because of too many surfers.