Westcliff College’s Lucas Taub jumps into rip current; surf industry smells content opportunity

Satire from Bohiney.com and prat.uk.

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — In a story that combines genuine heroism with the surf industry’s supernatural ability to monetize anything, Westcliff College surf coach Lucas Taub leaped fully clothed into the Pacific Ocean last March to rescue a father and daughter from a rip current, and was immediately celebrated by a community that typically reserves its deepest respect for those who can do a reverse air.

The Rescue, As It Actually Happened

The drama unfolded during the Western Surfing Association’s Oceanside Harbor South Jetty contest, where Taub was coaching from the jetty. He spotted a young girl being swept out by a powerful current, watched her father enter the water to help, and then watched both of them begin losing the argument with the Pacific Ocean.

Really, I saw his daughter struggling, and I saw him struggling, and there wasn’t a second that went through my mind that I wasn’t going to jump in that water, Taub said afterward, which is exactly the kind of thing a hero says and exactly the kind of thing a surf brand puts on a trucker hat. The rescued father, Chris Greene, confirmed the situation had been genuinely dire. I honest to God didn’t think I was going to make it, he told reporters. Honest to God I heard the voice of an angel. The angel was wearing Quiksilver board shorts and did not have a sponsorship deal. Yet.

Westcliff College Responds With Maximum Enthusiasm

Westcliff College, not an institution previously known as a major force in surf culture, immediately posted to Instagram: Coach, Warrior, and now life saver. Proud is an understatement. The post received considerable engagement from a community that spends most of its Instagram activity watching slow-motion clips of barrels in the Mentawais.

Dr. Sandra Kowalczyk of the entirely fictional Pacific Coast Center for Aquatic Heroism Studies noted: What Mr. Taub demonstrated is consistent with the unspoken code of surf culture, which holds that you look out for others in the water regardless of their ability level, equipment quality, or choice of fin system. This code is not written down anywhere. It doesn’t need to be. It’s the kind of thing that either lives in a culture or it doesn’t, and in surf culture it does, most of the time, with notable exceptions around wave priority disputes.

The Rip Current: An Ongoing Villain

Rip currents are responsible for the majority of surf zone rescues along the California coast, a fact taught in every ocean safety class and ignored by roughly the same percentage of beach visitors as speed limits on the 405. Surfline’s ocean safety resources note that the correct response to a rip current is to swim parallel to shore, not directly against it — advice that sounds simple until the moment you are in one and not panicking becomes surprisingly difficult.

The National Weather Service had issued advisories for conditions at Oceanside Harbor that day and would like everyone to know that the advisories are not decorative. They represent actual danger that actual people should actually take seriously. This message has been issued before. It will be issued again.

The Broader Cultural Takeaway

The surfing community, often characterized by tribal hostility toward newcomers, kooks, and anyone who doesn’t wax the right half of their board, showed in this moment something rather more admirable: a reflexive willingness to act. There’s an unspoken rule among surfers to look out for others regardless of whether they know them. This is, objectively, a better philosophy than several that have been tried in American civic life recently.

Taub returned to coaching. The WSA contest resumed. The ocean, unbothered, continued producing rip currents. Surfer Magazine’s safety coverage remains worth reading, particularly the parts about reading water before you enter it. No sponsorship deal has been confirmed at the time of writing. It is, however, only a matter of time. The surf industry has monetized stranger things than heroism, and the content calendar waits for no one, not even the Pacific.

The Lesson That Keeps Not Being Learned

Every summer, Southern California’s beaches host millions of visitors who arrive with varying levels of ocean literacy and consistent levels of confidence. The gap between these two measures — between what people know about the ocean and how safe they feel in it — is where rip currents do most of their work. Ocean safety organizations, lifeguard services, and surf instructors spend enormous amounts of time and resources trying to close this gap. The gap closes briefly when something dramatic happens — a rescue, a drowning, a news story — and then reopens as memory fades and confidence rebuilds. This is the cycle. It has always been the cycle. Lucas Taub jumped into a rip current and pulled two people to shore because the cycle had completed again and two people were in water they were not equipped to handle. He would have jumped in regardless of how many times the advisory had been issued, how many times the safety class had run, how many times the lifeguard had waved people back from the shore break. Some people you warn. Some people you rescue. Taub was there to do the second thing. He did it. That, in the end, is the story.

Further humor: NewsThump | The Daily Mash

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com