Yesterday afternoon at Capitola, when I was paddling back out, a longboarder wiped out ~25 feet ahead of me and I had to scramble out of the way of her rouge rogue surfboard (it was actually red). The board ended up near me so I caught and held it as she swam in. I asked "Did your leash break?" but she turned away and paddled off quickly, pretending not to have heard. She also ignored my "Hey, you're not going leashless out here, are you?" and "Your board almost hit me!" I saw that she was in fact, surfing a crowded break without a leash.
I don't care how good you are, or think you are, if you don't wipe out sometimes you're not trying. And when you lose it on a wave, your board's going to become an uncontrolled projectile. It's simply irresponsible to surf in a crowd without a leash. Someone could get hurt. Like me, or my new custom surfboard. And then there would be tears.
