With surfing growing exponentially in SL, here are a few words about surfing etiquette.

~ The Line Up ~
As with all things in life, we will need to line up to catch a wave. If there is no line up then, the wave is all yours. However, if there are people waiting for a wave, please go to the back of the line. Jumping the queue is never a nice thing to do and will cause hurt feelings, bad vibes and frustrate others. As always, we get perfect waves in SL, so use your mini-map to check that someone else is not waiting for a wave on the other side of it before you hop on to it.

~ Paddling in ~
When you paddle out, use the channels on either side of the wave… meaning, don’t paddling out directly into the …

Here are some thoughts regarding some judging and scoring in a Second Life Contest.

Length of ride. This is easy. Take off when the wave starts to bubble and step off as the wave dissolves scores a 3. Anything less is, well, less.

Tricks. A 360 or a flip falls in this category. A good bottom turn and carve does too. Basically, mix up your attack and use what the wave throws at you.
Style. Tougher to quantify but here goes. If you did flips straight all the way to the beach and never did anything else, you flunk style even if you get some trick points. Like a wave as a canvas, you are painting a line across it, the style is portrayed by how you move across the wave. Generally, I like to start at one end …

The following are some suggestions to help you reduce lag with surfing during surf competitons:

Detach all items that use scripts (AO’s, jewelry with bling, wings, etc.). Spectators can do this too to help.
Turn off streaming audio and video if on.
Change your group title to none.
Change your preferences (you may not need to do all of these, just the ones you can live with):

General tab

Change ‘Show Names’ to ‘Never’ (you can turn this back on when you finish surfing)
Select ‘Hide My Name On My Screen’
Select ‘Hide My Group Title’

Network tab

Set your Disk Cache Size (MB) to less than 500 MB.
Click ‘Clear Cache’ and relog.

Graphics Detail tab

Deselect ‘Enable Bumpmapping and Shiny’
Deselect ‘Enable Ripple Water’
Select ‘Normal’ for ‘Avatar Rendering’
Select ‘Sun and moon only’
Select ‘Low’ for ‘Terrain Detail’
…

Hey guys. This Friday, February 2nd at 5 pm SLT… we’ll be getting together to surf the brand new pipe waves at Chi (122, 205, 22)… come watch, come surf, come with your friends…

Sally and Poid, the owners of the full surf sim at Chi have graciously allowed us to descend en masse and try out their newly landscaped beach and newly installed surf waves. Many of the Namiko Team Riders will be out in force goofing off in the waves and trying to keep from getting crunched into the sand. Come surf with us… or if you haven’t been initiated into the life that is surfing, IM Malcolm Sydney, Seano Osumi, or Caly Sleaford for a surf lesson!

Send an IM to any of Keala Mimistrobell, Caly Sleaford, Blue Alonzo, Inara Tokyo, Suzy Shenzhou, Malcolm Sydney, Surferjoe Wind or Moin …