Riding a wave
of emotion to bid for a piece of surfing history
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock... Last week, for the first time in my life, I experienced the pure, blind panic of bidding in an online auction with something called “the ten minute rule”. The rule works as follows: if you make a bid on a lot within ten minutes of the deadline set by the auction house the deadline is pushed back by ten minutes, giving others a sporting chance to beat your bid. If somebody else makes a higher bid in those ten minutes, you then have a further ten minutes to better their bid, and so on. In theory, this game of financial chicken could continue for hours or even days, or – more probably – until one of the rival bidders finally gets up from their seat and runs out of the house screaming “I can’t take it any more!” Suddenly I understand why rich people in the movies always seem to pay well-dressed minions to bid at auctions on their behalf.
As readers of last week’s column will be aware, the reason I let myself in for this ordeal was because I had discovered a caballito for sale – a traditional Peruvian surfing raft made out of bundles of dried bulrushes bound together with pieces of rope. Expert opinion is divided, but there are those who believe the caballito is the oldest of all surf craft, used long before the Hawaiians got around to making the first surfboards. Either way, a caballito represents an important and intriguing chapter of the sport’s history, not to mention an impressive bit of design and craftsmanship, and unless you happen to live in the area of north-west Peru where they are still made and used by local fishermen it’s unlikely you’ll ever see one outside a museum.
The caballito I initially placed a bid on was just such a museum piece – one of six up for sale from the World of Boats museum in Eyemouth, which had been forced to close down after the charity that ran it went into receivership. Of these six, two
were stored in Cardiff, with the other four in Eyemouth. The Cardiff ones seemed to be in the best condition, but as I didn’t fancy driving all the way to Wales and back I concentrated my attention on the other four. One of these was clearly starting to fall to bits, so I mentally wrote it off. Of the remaining three, the first seemed to have some damage to its underside – a patch where the bulrushes were starting to spill out like stuffing from a sofa; the second seemed as if it might have been bent or even snapped about half-way up its long, curved prow; and the third, as far as I could tell, didn’t seem to have much wrong with it at all.
Tentatively, I placed a starting bid of £50 on the least damaged caballito, but the red “reserve not met” sign next to the boat refused to change to a green “reserve met”. I went up to £100, but still didn’t make the reserve. With no bids on any of the other caballitos, I had nothing to compare my own bid to. Some of the other boats in the sale seemed to be going for hundreds of pounds, but they tended to be larger and made of wood. What was an appropriate amount to bid for a traditional Peruvian fishing raft made out of bulrushes? It was late on a Sunday night and I was ready for my bed. I decided I’d have one last roll of the dice and upped my bid to £150 – this was, I reasoned, probably the only time I’d ever get a chance to buy a caballito, so why not live a little? The red “reserve not met” sign stayed stubbornly in place. “Oh well,” I thought, and – with some difficulty – fell asleep.
When I checked the auction site on the Tuesday morning, to my surprise I found my bid had a green “reserve met” sign beside it. With only 24 hours to go until the auction deadline, it seemed the sellers might be lowering their sights. As long as nobody else beat my bid before noon on Wednesday, I would have secured myself a little piece of surfing history.
On Wednesday, though, the competition showed up. When I logged in a few minutes before the deadline I discovered that somebody else had bid £175 on my caballito. Did I really want to spend £200 or more on this thing? I had five minutes to make up my mind. Glancing at the other caballitos I saw that the one with the damaged bottom was only on at £25. “It doesn’t look as bad as all that,” I thought, and put in a bid of £50. Almost immediately, somebody else put in £75. Suddenly a hundred quid for a distressed bundle of straw started to seem a bit steep, so I turned my attention to the boat with what looked like a damaged front-end, which was also on at £25. In truth, it was hard to tell from the photo whether it was damaged or not. “It might be fine,” I thought, so I put in a bid of £50 and waited. “Bidding closing in three minutes,” said a little flashing sign. Perhaps whoever had made the first bid was going to wait until the last possible moment before going to £75, just to make me sweat. “Bidding closing in two minutes.” Or perhaps whoever made that bid wasn’t even online. “Bidding closing in one minute.” Perhaps they were out mowing their lawn. “Sold.”
And just like that, I had myself a caballito. Now all I had to do was figure out how to get it home...
What was an appropriate amount to bid for a Peruvian fishing raft made out of bulrushes?