The Weekly Bugle: Should Teenagers Be Surfing Nazare?
13-year-olds graphic wipeout raises the question of risk (death) vs reward (riding a big wave). With added poll to have your say!
“I’m glad it happened because it gave me more confidence. I know I’m capable of surfing those big waves,” said 13-year-old Kamiel Deraeve. Dereave had ridden some bombs at Nazare, before falling and copping six huge waves on the head in front of a packed hill of spectators.
“His parents are a disgrace,” was my wife’s hot take, being a non-surfing mother of a 12 and 14-year-old. The said 14-year-old’s response was an Andy Townsend-like “Fair Play”, which given he wouldn’t hop in the shower this morning due to the presence of a Daddy Long Legs spider was an understatement.
For me, it's pretty clear that he’s simply too young. That’s Deraeve, not my son. He doesn’t know what he's capable of. No 13-year-old has the physical maturity, or experience to always be ready. With the possible exception of my classmate Dean Scott. In our first year in High School, when I was a translucent, hairless, pre-pubescent kid, he was six-foot tall, had a full beard, smoked bongs for breakfast and was banging his hot 17-year-old next-door neighbour. Fair play indeed.
“Age is just a number,” said Nic Von Rupp, introducing the Canary Island-residing Belgian Dereave to his new Mountains of the Sea collective. At the risk of contradicting Nic, a massive, on-the-record fan of the Surf Bugle, age is exactly that; a number. And unless you are Dean Scott (he was also our star soccer striker and in all the top classes), that number is pretty indicative of a number of things.
“Kids should stay away from Pipeline to they are physically ready,” Liam McNamara told me this week when I was writing a piece for Stab, on the issue of helmeted and vested teenagers clogging the line-up at Pipe. “It’s life and death. And parents and coaches are putting lives on the line. It’s fucking bullshit.”
The fetishising of young kids doing extraordinary things in surfing isn’t new. I highlighted young Zion Walla on a huge wave in Mexico on the Surf Bugle earlier this year. The footage of a 12-year-old Jack Robinson charging The Box remains iconic. We like to see grommets charging.
But 60-foot Nazare is a whole new ball game. Surely the risk (a 13-year-old dying) isn't worth the reward (a 13-year-old riding a massive wave). The argument that no one can better evaluate those risks than the elite safety teams at Nazare is valid, but without going full Mumsnet, from the outside this looks to be totally unnecessary.
And I'm proud that I didn’t fall into the trap of once including the ole what were you doing at 13 trope? I’m too good a writer to use the heavily implied but never-mentioned issue of teenage masturbation to get my point across. Instead, I thought I'd do a poll instead. I've heard they are good for engagement.
I'd say the risk is much, much greater of a 60 foot wave compared to pistes, but its true he isn't really putting anyone else in danger
Dean Scott could pull a Nazare sized cone at 13. Copping a gobby as he inhaled and winking at the 6 sets of eyes spying from outside the shed.