Tow Controversy: Equal Time with Vince Broglio & Ed Guzman

Guzman’s Rebuttal:

Ed Guzman is the 47-year-old operator of the Club Ed Surf School in Santa Cruz. He has been surfing and living in Santa Cruz since 1986 and surfing Moss Landing since 1972. Ed has been tow-surfing for a few years and is the tow-partner of Don Curry. In fact, he put Curry into the wave that’s in XXL contention. Since Ed was named directly in the interview with Doug Kasunich, here’s his chance to respond to what Doug had to say.

SURFERMAG.COM: Ed, how long have you known Doug?
ED GUZMAN: My first recollections of him were in high school. I believe he was just getting out of the Army at Fort Ord. Him and his buddies were always out surfing, so he just became a fixture. He’s a good, solid surfer from Palos Verdes with a good big-wave background. When the tow thing started, it would always get under his skin and he would always go at me in the water. I said, “Doug, you and I are friends, and I’d like to be out in the water having a peaceful time surfing with you.” He corrected me on the friends part and said that we were "good acquaintances.” Even today we talked out in the water. We’re on good terms. He paddles up to me and says, "Did you see the article?" I said I agree on a couple of your points but your other info is not very accurate. I didn’t make it point by point, but I did bring up him saying that because of the bum vibe I don’t surf here anymore, which is just not true.

SURFERMAG.COM: Do you get a hard time because you run a surf school?
ED GUZMAN: A lot of core surfers aren’t too stoked because it means more surfers in the water. But what they don’t see is that most who go to our camps do it one time. They’re not clogging up the lineups at Moss or the higher level breaks. It takes a special commitment to surf those spots. I get to help people in the Aloha way in something they have a desire for; hopefully they’ll vote environmentally and be conscious of the ocean when they go back to where they live, whether it’s the Bay Area or Chicago.

SURFERMAG.COM: Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?
ED GUZMAN: Absolutely. In fact, all of the higher level tow surfers are. No surfer is out flushing birds. People who are are more [San Joaquin] Delta or lake people. But of course, as we’re doing this new discovery, we need to learn about etiquette and how we affect other surfers. You don’t want a wake to hit that perfect barrel or to have the stink of a two-cycle motor. Four-cycles don’t do that and most everybody has converted to them.

SURFERMAG.COM: Maybe it’s the inland kooks who are giving you guys a black eye.
ED GUZMAN: I don’t see what happens all summer long as these kooks drive around flushing birds. Some guys don’t know etiquette and have never taken a safety course -- weekend dirt-bike yahoos.

SURFERMAG.COM: Is it in your interest to rein in the kooks?
ED GUZMAN: When we’re out, if we see anyone being out of line or getting too close to other surfers, we have an absolute rule. If a guy gets too close to the paddle-surf peak because he rode too far down -- that guy goes down the beach and runs to the paddle spot and gets picked up. We do this consistently. Guys like Doug might call bullshit on that, but he’s gotten pissed off because of a few inconsiderate people, and some of his claims have been inaccurate. He claimed one day that me and my partner were out and ran through people. We weren’t even out that day. He’s got a bee in his bonnet that he’s gonna shut these guys down. I’ve seen him out at Moss on days when it’s too big to paddle, just watching for someone to make a mistake so he can make a call.

SURFERMAG.COM: He says that towing has become a small-wave sport.
ED GUZMAN: There are definitely some guys out on small days, but that’s not the main thing on towing. Most of us are happy to see the waves get too big to paddle at Moss. But all the guys I tow with, nobody used their boats from the end of March to the first swell in September.