City politics wash ashore



I've been fortunate to have been surfing in Southern California for 30 years now, which means that infernal blackball flag has been in my life for all that time. Although summer wouldn't be summer without it.

Yet, never in my life have I ever seen the blackball flag be a political issue. But somehow, in an effort to continue controlling every aspect of your life, the city of Newport Beach has succeeded in making it one.

Article Tab: A blackball sign is posted on lifeguard towers 40 and 44, marking the area off from surfing and other hard board activities.

In my experience, when the beach got too crowded with swimmers and the water would get dangerous for both the surfers and the beachgoers, the blackball flag would go up. That yellow and black flag was there for safety.

That I understand.

But Newport Beach decided to take all logic out of the blackball flag and have it flying in two parts of town not because of unsafe conditions, but because of politics.

At the 40th Street lifeguard tower, the blackball flag is permanently up from May to October regardless of weather, regardless of how many people are there.

While at the Wedge, no floatation devices at all are allowed between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. from May to October.

But those are two completely different issues pertaining to the same little flag.

A six-month permanent blackball at 40th Street is just ridiculous, especially since it starts a month before summer and ends almost 60 days after summer is over. After all, the blackball flag is there to protect swimmers from the surfers, and how many swimmers are out at 40th Street at, say, 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24?

But just as there's an area specifically dedicated for non-hardboard surfers, the city should make an area specifically for hardboard surfers, perhaps at the famous Echo Beach/54th Street area? Until then, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason why only that one area is not accessible to Newport Beach surfers.

For the Wedge, as bodysurfer Glenn Frank said to the Blackball Working Group (only in Newport Beach), “If you were not around (before) the time of blackball, mayhem is pretty much the word to describe it.”

Obviously, there is no common sense here, either, because if you compared the Wedge to other seriously dangerous epic waves around the world, when the waves are big and scary, then mayhem is only created by the inexperienced.

As a resident of the North Shore of Oahu during graduate school, I surfed epic, giant pipelines numerous times and from firsthand experience, the bigger and scarier it got out there, the less mayhem there would be as everyone become more and more cautious.

And the most epic rides I ever saw out there were ridden not by hardboard surfers or bodyboarders, but by the truly crazy bodysurfers, who caught just as many waves as everyone else.

At these world-famous waves (and the Wedge counts as one of these), the only people that should be in the water when it's big and scary are the experienced ones who give respect to get respect.

There's a natural pecking order in those waves and it really is survival of the fittest, not survival as dictated by politics in Newport Beach.

With no blackball flag to be seen.

Jack Wu is a resident of Newport Beach.

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