Professional surfer has board completely destroyed after flight

American surfer Mahina Akaka shared a video that shows her surfboard split in half. In the publication that already has more than 500 comments in solidarity with the surfer, Akaka accuses the airline for the accident with the board.

It was today, walking through social media and pretending that I had nothing more important to do, that I saw a post that caught my attention.

In the video, professional surfer and longboarder Mahina Akaka showed all her outrage at a particular airline by opening her surfboard cover. That’s because the board was literally destroyed.

Although it seems absurd, after all when we travel and pay dearly for the ticket and the fee, we expect some respect with our luggage. However, it is common to go on a surf trip and have unpleasant surprises.

Like Mahina, many surfers who travel the world, including athletes who are competing and use their boards as a work tool, live with the neglect of airlines.

Even memes with airport workers throwing surfboards as if they were garbage bags make the internet happy.

It was much worse but still bad

A lot has improved since I started surfing. In my day (how awful, but it’s true) the fins of boards were fixed, and the most common thing in the world when traveling by plane was to have broken fins.

Anyone who surfs knows that an accident with fins and cups is almost always fatal, so the repair in this area always tends to be crap, and only excellent professionals usually do the job.

Another point in favor is with regard to accessories, nowadays there are more resistant covers. However, nothing is able to withstand certain accidents, such as what happened with Mahina who had her board broken in half. There’s no cover for that.

Tips to avoid accidents:

I thought here as I write about ways to avoid surfboard accidents. So let’s go!

• wrap the board in bubble wrap before putting it in the cover. Although not sustainable at all, it is the safest way. You can replace the plastic with a towel, a blanket, anything, but I still prefer the bubble wrap;
• use a slightly larger cover, precisely to be able to cover your board in bubble wrap (I don’t know how much this can entail in terms of security at the time of check-in and you run the risk of having to unpack the rocket, but in any case it’s worth the worth packing; however it is important that the board does not get ‘loose’ inside the cover
• use nose guard and tail, these areas are usually the most affected
• request fragile material stickers to stick on the board cover, this can sensitize people
• check if the airline is friendly to surfboards, some are and in addition to not charging abusive fees, they tend to be kinder in transport

Besides, I’m so in need of a vacation that I even felt like having my board destroyed by an airline. After all, that’s better than seeing the poor thing gathering dust, isn’t it?