I'll bite. What the hell is 'teak surfing'?
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An activity usually done by young wakeboarding types, although often in the
presence of folks much older that you would assume to be wiser as well. You
would be wrong about that assumption. The name comes from the material that
swim platforms tend to be made of that are attached to competition style
wakeboarding and ski boats that are oh so in vogue these days. These types
of boats are most commonly used for teak surfing, although theoretically any
powerboat could get the job done with equally disastrous results.

The activity involves hanging on to the swim platform with both hands while
in the water. The helmsman then brings the boat up to a slow plane, and the
"surfer" then body surfs as he hangs on for dear life to the swim platform.
Unfortunately, dear life often is fleeting as a result of this exercise, due
to two complications that seem to evade any premonition of their
consequences by all participants involved. First, the teak surfer's
nostrils are usually no more than about 24 inches away from the through
transom exhaust ports that the above mentioned type of boats tend to sport.
You will recall that said boat is now at speed, spewing copious amounts of
carbon monoxide in the general direction of the surfer's nostrils. Second,
the wearing of a PFD tends to munge the flow of water under to soon to be
stone cold body of the surfer, thereby hindering the body surfacing
experience. Therefore, teak surfing and the wearing of a PFD are mutually
exclusive. This tends to make the inevitable consequence of complication
#1, namely unconsciousness, even more problematic as the surfer tends to go
directly to the bottom, depriving all aboard any opportunity to get a good
look at his blue self. It also tends to make recovery of the surfer a real
bitch, usually best left to a professional dive team.

Now some may consider this sequence of events a genuine tragedy, and others
may look at it as a natural freshening of the gene pool. But there is an
unfortunate side effect of this nonsense that I believe we all would agree
is tragic. Since the perpetrators/victims of teak surfing (call 'em as you
see 'em) are typical Americans, there is a compulsory denial of self
responsibility for their actions. Surely the fault lies elsewhere, rather
than with the owner/operator of the boat or the person lying on the bottom
of the lake. And who better to find the true bearer of this guilt than a
personal injury attorney? Not surprising, and without exception, the PI
attorney's keen sense of smell for dollars always leads directly to the door
of the marine industry. This has resulted in numerous lawsuits against the
companies that manufacture the boats and motors that the rest of seem to
enjoy on a regular basis without loss of life. One grieving and vengeful
mother of a deceased young surfer publicly decried that the marine industry
was in the business of making "murder machines". There are two immediate
results of these lawsuits. First, the tremendous cost of defending them
gets passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices. Second the
next new boat you buy will be plastered with ugly and obnoxious stickers
everywhere, warning of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning as well as
hanging on to the swim platform of a boat under way.

I am not making any of this up. It's the real deal.