Voluntary course teaches right-of-way rules after rise in lineup collisions

SAN PEDRO, Calif. – The U.S. Coast Guard’s Los Angeles-Long Beach sector announced this week that it will begin offering a voluntary “Paddle Etiquette and Coastal Awareness” course for visiting tourists, following what officials describe as a sharp rise in incidents involving first-time renters paddling directly into the path of experienced surfers.

Officials Cite a Pattern of Preventable Encounters

According to Lieutenant Commander Aaron Delacroix, who oversees recreational safety programs for the sector, the course was developed after a review of incident reports found that a disproportionate number of near-collisions in local surf breaks involved rental paddleboards operated by tourists who had received, in Delacroix’s words, “approximately zero instruction beyond a shop employee pointing at the ocean and saying good luck.”

“We’re not trying to gatekeep the beach,” Delacroix said at a press briefing held on a stretch of sand near the harbor. “We’re trying to make sure that someone on vacation from Ohio understands that paddling directly through the middle of an active surf lineup is the maritime equivalent of merging onto a freeway at negative velocity.”

The course, which will run 45 minutes and be offered free at select beachfront kiosks, covers right-of-way basics, how to read a surf lineup, and what Delacroix called “the internationally recognized apology paddle-out,” a maneuver in which a tourist who has just cut off a local surfer paddles well around the incident rather than directly through it a second time.

Surf Community Reaction Has Been Largely Supportive

Longtime local surfer Ben Okafor said he welcomed the initiative, though he remained skeptical of its reach. “It’s a good idea. My only concern is that the people who need this course the most are the ones who will absolutely not sign up for a free 45-minute Coast Guard class on their one week of vacation. Those guys are already in the water by the time we’re having this conversation.”

Rental shop owners have expressed more enthusiasm, citing liability concerns. “Every summer we get at least one guy who paddles his board directly into another surfer’s face and then acts confused about why everyone’s yelling,” said shop manager Renata Filho. “If the Coast Guard wants to explain right-of-way to these people before they rent from me, I will personally drive them to the class.”

Course Materials Include a Points-Based Etiquette Chart

A sample handout from the course, reviewed by this outlet, includes a simplified points chart ranking common tourist paddleboard mistakes by severity, with “paddling directly at a surfer who is already riding a wave” ranked as the single most severe violation, just above “attempting to stand on the board within fifteen feet of a shore break” and just below an unranked category labeled simply “the selfie incident,” which the handout declines to elaborate on further.

Delacroix acknowledged that the course carries no legal weight and cannot be mandated for rental customers, a fact that has drawn some criticism from surf advocacy groups who argue a voluntary program will inevitably be skipped by the tourists most likely to need it. “We hear that concern,” Delacroix said. “But we also can’t legally require a tourist to attend a maritime etiquette seminar before renting a paddleboard. We looked into it. There’s not really a legal mechanism for that, unfortunately.”

Program Expected to Expand Next Summer

The Coast Guard says it plans to expand the course to additional beach communities next summer if the pilot proves successful, with success defined loosely as “a measurable decrease in incident reports involving the phrase ‘he just paddled right through us.’”

Prat.uk has previously reported on similar informal etiquette breakdowns at UK coastal towns during peak tourist season, noting that beach communities worldwide appear to be converging on the same basic problem: visitors who love the ocean deeply but have received no instruction whatsoever on how to safely coexist with people who use it every day.

Rental Shops Consider Making the Course Mandatory Anyway

Despite the Coast Guard’s lack of legal authority to require attendance, several rental shop owners have floated the idea of making the course a condition of rental on their own initiative, effectively enforcing through private business policy what the government cannot mandate directly. Filho said she is seriously considering the idea for her own shop, even if it means turning away same-day walk-in customers who don’t have 45 minutes to spare. “If it saves me one liability headache a season, it’s worth losing a rental or two,” she said. “I’d rather have an empty board rack than another incident report.”

Other shop owners remain hesitant, worried that a mandatory course requirement could push tourists toward competitors willing to skip the formality. Delacroix said the Coast Guard has no position on whether shops should adopt the course as a private requirement, but noted that “if the market solves this problem for us, we’re not going to complain.”

Okafor, for his part, said he’d settle for smaller wins. “Honestly, if even one guy learns not to paddle directly at someone catching a wave, I’ll consider the whole program a success. Lower your expectations. That’s the real lesson here.”

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com

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