Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Surfing World Magazine

When it comes to mind surfing, I’m a total lunatic. Right up there with Laird, Dorian, and Evel Knievel (if he surfed). Ten foot closeouts at my home beach, for example? Mate, I’ll throw full rote 720s off those things straight out and into the flats. Sixty foot A-frames at Nazare? I’ll swing the deepest fades in history, and backdoor the peak standing bolt upright while eating a chicken kebab. Impossible Superbank sections reeling off at 50 yards a second? I’ll thread those puppies from behind the rock all the way to North Kirra, and throw in a few high speed roundhouses between sections for good measure. There’s pretty much no wave I wouldn’t mind surf my way to a World Title on… or so I used to believe. You…

IT’S SUCH A BRILLIANT IDEA AND AMAZING IT HADN’T HAPPENED SOONER. A TIGHT CONFEDERATION OF WESTERN OZ’S MOST REVERED HEAVY-WATER TALENT HAVE BEEN QUIETLY BUILDING A UNIQUE FILM PROJECT, SOCIETY UNSEEN. THE CONCEPT BLENDS LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND CINEMATIC SCOPE INTO A HEART-STOPPING VISION OF THE MOST TERRIFYING WAVES WEST OF THE 129TH MERIDIAN. SLAB SURFING LOOMS EVER LARGER IN THE PUBLIC EYE IN THIS COUNTRY. ALREADY THIS YEAR WE’VE BEEN BLOWN AWAY BY LEROY BELLET’S BEHIND-THE-SURFER PERSPECTIVE, AND AGAIN BY THE MAD HEROISM OF CAPE FEAR. BUT EARLY GLIMPSES INDICATE THIS IS DIFFERENT TO ANYTHING THAT’S GONE BEFORE: THE LIGHT, THE INTENSITY, THE DISTINCTIVELY WEST AUSTRALIAN OBSESSION WITH RUGGED TRANSPORT: CHOPPERS, PLANES, SKIS, ZODIACS, SERIOUSLY GRUNTY BOATS AND 4WDS. WAVES THAT FOR SIZE, POWER AND REMOTENESS ARE BEYOND THE PHYSICS…

LONG AGO, during a particularly merciless winter in the North Atlantic, a battered fishing ship sank off the coast of Iceland. Five fishermen leapt overboard in an attempt to swim for land, but one by one, hypothermia overtook them and their bodies descended like stones five miles from shore. Eventually, only one man remained, and it seemed that each stroke would surely be his last. But after swimming for six gruelling hours, he finally set his bare feet onto a snow covered beach. As the sun set, he stumbled through the sprawling white expanse until he spotted the light of a farm in the distance. After his rescue and physical examination, doctors flew him to London for further testing. It was found that an unusual medical condition saved him from…

It was five years ago on my first visit to Fiji. I was staying with Taj but the surf was real small and we expected it to be more of a leisure trip really. Even so, I was pretty psyched on the whole place. The water colour, the sunsets; everything was exaggerated and exploding with colour. It was like being in a trance taking it all in. We actually got super lucky and scored this two-day swell with enough grunt to turn on for Cloudy. Somehow, Kelly Slater materialised out of nowhere and started tearing the place apart. None of us could believe what we were witnessing, and it really made us realise how on the pulse he is with that place. His surfing was on another level, toying with…

Five years after famously quitting “this wannabe fucking tennis tour,” giving it a free character assessment as he walked off the beach in New York, Bobby Martinez, everyone’s favourite Mexican-American surfing anti-hero today lives quietly at home in Santa Barbara, California. He surfs when it’s good, hits bags in the gym when it ain’t, hangs with his family and completely ignores the pro surfing life that drove him loco for all those years. When Bobby said he wasn’t coming back he meant it. Turning down half a million dollars to just go surfing takes some balls, but Bobby is a man of his convictions. Believe it. So used to seeing him on tour, on edge, wound tight, bristling at the brass, the guy sitting opposite me on a park bench…

Introducing: Flash Garret, Cheez Louise (California), Sammy the Who, Tommy Turntables, and Copper Kimono. Chapter 1. Copper Kimono Low tide. 5pm. The Pass (carpark stairs). Another muted sunset. Watching dream flavoured green machines roll down the line up like Waikiki; Flash Garret and his boys look business in roughed sleeves and wet swimmers, they’re matching slippers of old dry sand, they’re regulars of the go-by-easy Pass Carpark buzz collective. The coffee shop is very closed… Over there, that’s Flash… not as flaky or flamboyant as you might suppose, and Sammy (The Who) hey Sammy playing the yo-yo with the red glitter star on the side wizzzzzzz wizzzzz wizzzzzz the star spins up and down its string and he knows every trick, Tommy Turntables, clicking with both hands doing…

I’ve only met Kelly Slater once. He was under a hoodie, leaning on the rail at Bells, checking the surf. We were introduced by a third party: he barely grunted because he was busy. A large bronze bull ant was reared up on the rail, waving its mandibles at him in fury as he jabbed an index finger at it. It was unclear who started it, but the matchup was world-class: History’s Most Competitive Surfer meets Nature’s Most Tenacious Invertebrate. There could be no back-down from either party. If they hadn’t called Kelly’s heat they’d both still be there, and he’d only have seven world titles. Bees make honey. Spiders kill flies. Bull ants seem to have no existential drive other than to wreck a summer’s day. What possible insult…

HEN ONE OF THE NATION’S GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BANDS DECIDES TO CO-HOST THE LONGEST RUNNING CONTEST IN AUSTRALIAN SURFING – YOU’D EXPECT NOTHING SHORT OF THE EXCEPTIONAL – AND IT WAS, RIGHT THROUGH THE EASTER WEEKEND OF 1984 ON THE RAGGED CLIFFS OF BELLS BEACH. THE WORLD’S ELITE COMPETITIVE SURFERS WERE THERE, THRASHING OUT TO THE FRETTED ONSLAUGHT BETWEEN HEATS, AS THE CROWD SURGED DOWN THE GOAT TRACK AND OUT TO RINCON, COPPING ALL THE NOISE, SPRAY AND MAYHEM ALONG THE WAY. HOWEVER, THROUGH ALL OF THIS, THERE WAS ONE ELITE SURFER IN PARTICULAR WHO COMMANDED THE SPECTACLE, MATERIALISING FROM HIS YOGI HIDEAWAY, RIPPED LIKE A GREEK STATUE AND WIELDING A BLADE MORE SAILBOAT THAN SURFBOARD. HE WOULD BATTLE THE NEW WORLD CHAMP A WEEK OUT FROM HIS INDUCTION,…

There is nothing more exciting than packing up the car for a month on the road, chasing the WQS up and down the beautiful East Coast. Yet I wondered, do all us competitive surfers drag along the same gear? You know, a pile of boards, a swiss ball and some clothes. Some chia bars in the glove box and the all important AUX cable. Done. Sorted. However, at each stop where my friends would greet me with warm smiles and loving kisses, there were also a few horrified gasps as they caught a glimpse of the uncouth content of my little VW Golf. Allow me to explain. . Probably the biggest ‘wtf?’ was aimed at the cello. That what? Yes, you heard me. A full sized cello. Damn big, and…