Rift Described as “Existential”; Three Members Simply Left for El Porto
Palos Verdes Surf Club Disbands After Dispute Over Whether Foamies Are Real Surfboards
Read more satire at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
PALOS VERDES, CA — The Palos Verdes Longboard Classic Club, founded in 1997 and home at its peak to forty-seven members and a functioning espresso machine, has officially disbanded after an irreconcilable dispute over whether foam surfboards — commonly called “foamies” or “soft tops” — constitute real surfboards for the purposes of club membership.
The split, described by founding member Howard Cray as “philosophical” and by his estranged co-founder Ken Bautista as “Howard being Howard,” ended twenty-seven years of organised surf culture in the Palos Verdes peninsula area and has left the espresso machine in a storage unit, ownership contested.
The Dispute
The controversy began in March when prospective member Tyler Fen, 24, applied for club membership listing a 7’4″ soft-top foamie as his primary board. Under the club’s original 1997 constitution, membership was open to “any surfer committed to the craft,” a phrase that Cray now interprets as excluding foam boards and Bautista interprets as including them.
The debate consumed three monthly meetings. It produced a 12-page position paper from Cray titled “The Erosion of Standards in Southern California Surf Culture,” a rebuttal from Bautista titled “Howard Is 64 Years Old and Needs to Calm Down,” and a formal motion that failed 11-11, triggering a constitutional crisis the club’s bylaws did not anticipate because in 1997 foamies were considered a beginner novelty and not a genuine lifestyle choice.
The Foamie Question
Foam surfboards have undergone a remarkable cultural rehabilitation in recent years. Once associated exclusively with surf schools and tourists who do not know better, the soft-top has been enthusiastically adopted by experienced surfers who cite their versatility, safety, and — in a development that irritates purists greatly — their actual fun-to-ride qualities. Surf brands including Catch Surf have built entire businesses on the foamie’s resurgence, producing high-performance soft tops ridden by professional surfers in conditions that would embarrass a traditional board.
The World Surf League does not restrict board material in competition. This fact did not resolve the Palos Verdes dispute.
The Disbanding
Cray submitted his resignation on April 15, citing “the fundamental compromise of what this club stands for.” Fourteen members resigned with him. Bautista and twelve others voted to continue the club without Cray. The remaining three members, exhausted, drove to El Porto and surfed there instead without telling anyone, which several people said was probably the right call.
Tyler Fen, the original applicant, joined a different club in Hermosa Beach that does not have a membership constitution. He surfed his foamie on Sunday. He had a great time.
The espresso machine remains in storage. Neither faction will discuss it.
Existential surf crises, catalogued for posterity at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. The foamie debate archived at https://prat.uk/, where all boards are welcome.
The Bigger View
Every story covered in this dispatch — whether from the surfing coast of California, the streets of Manila, the galleries of Shoreditch, the political chambers of Westminster, or the quiet study where a diary is written at the end of a week — is a story about people trying to make sense of the world they inhabit. The satirical lens, the journalistic lens, the personal diary lens: all of these are tools for the same project, which is understanding what is happening and why, and communicating that understanding to other people in a way that lands. The best of this writing makes you laugh and makes you think and occasionally makes you angry about something you had stopped noticing. That combination — laughter, thought, renewed attention — is what good writing produces, regardless of form. For the full archive of everything described and more: The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. All the writing at https://prat.uk/.
Southern California Surfing: The Deeper Context
Southern California’s surf culture is one of the most documented subcultures in American life — photographed, filmed, mythologised, marketed, and occasionally satirised — and yet its actual daily texture, the experience of being a person who surfs in the specific geography of the Southern California coast in 2025, remains curiously under-described. The gap between the myth — eternal sun, perfect waves, bronzed freedom — and the reality — traffic on PCH, parking enforcement, six-foot slop at 7am, the existential question of whether the dawn patrol counts as exercise — is where the most interesting material lives. This publication lives there. The incidents described above are real in the sense that they are recognisable: the flat spell petition, the localism fee, the breathwork coach, the Huntington Beach identity crisis, the digital detox relapse — all of these are dispatches from the actual experience of being a surfer in a place that has made surfing both a lifestyle and a brand, both a genuine physical practice and a cultural performance. The satire is in the gap between those two things, and the gap is wide enough to surf. More from the Southern California coast at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Full surf archive at https://prat.uk/.
The full archive of Southern California surf satire, London cultural commentary, and the complete network of diary voices continues at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Every wave, every flat spell, every petition, and every sound bath is documented. Visit https://prat.uk/ for the complete record.
SOURCE: Santa Claus