Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 419 i Surfing World Magazine

BB How old are you? CA Just turned 34. Getting old. BB Aren’t we all. But your surfing is still cutting edge and making “top 10” reader and peer polls of favourite surfers, which, for what they’re worth, I suppose is the only real metric for what you do. Considering you don’t outwardly push yourself into people’s eyeballs and algorithms, nor are you on tour, does that surprise you? CA I really am genuinely surprised every time because I just don’t feel like I’ve put out a ton of content. I look at the guys I’m grouped with when I end up on those lists, and I’m just like, “what the fuck?” These guys are winning world tour events, or they’re putting out the most ridiculous parts. To be honest,…

From The Great Mystery has emerged countless other shapers with a propensity and skill to shape from all extensions of the anatomy: calloused hands, a steely eye, the emanation of their omnipotent wisdom and radiant hearts, but like all of us bound to the mundane inconsistencies in the functioning of our bodies, there are days – and hence boards – that are less tuned in than others. With those boards, some are dogs, and some just go “alright mate”. Yet those little single digits and algorithmic signs on Jed’s calculator – half rubbed off from years of number crunching in a sea of foam dust – don’t have off days. As long as there’s battery power, the calculator’s golden light produces golden numbers, that form golden ratios, that birth surfboards…

“In 1970/’71 I was shooting Echoes. I had bought a 1955 Humber Super Snipe for $100 in Sydney after getting off the plane. I took the back seat out and built a bed in the back. I also built a couple of hatches in the bed so I could keep the camera and camping gear out of the way. I lived in the car camping at Lennox Point or along Seven Mile Beach. You can see this car parked on Lennox Point in one of the water shots in Echoes where I am swimming with the camera filming a wave going by. The night before the swell hit I was driving out along the bottom to spend the night at the end of Lennox Point. It was wet and the…

Back in 2018, Australian filmmaker Spencer Frost released A Corner of the Earth to critical acclaim. It was filmed in Iceland, in winter, a long way from his home town of Avalon. It was cold, contemplative… an ice bath for the surfing soul. For an Antipodean surf film, it felt very Euro and very noir. When he decided to explore a sequel, Spencer started scouring the map. Where could he find uncharted, brutalist winter surf? In a shrinking, warming world this wasn’t easy. The surfing ‘cold rush’ of the past two decades hasn’t left much unexplored in the high latitudes. They thought of going back to Iceland. They looked at Alaska. Then they had an idea. Kamchatka is a long way away, both geographically and in terms of the surfing…

It was 2008, and a cold January in California. The Topa Topa Mountains behindVentura were snowcapped. The mustard yellow head office of Patagonia sat amongst some old warehouses on Santa Clara Street, and there was a stream of people outside in mountain jackets, heads down in their laptops, sitting under pergolas with solar panels for roof cover. Even back then, the carpark was full of electric cars and outside the building was a long line of pushbikes. As I walked past, they all remained in a Zen-like state with their work. It was a bit like entering a Buddhist temple. This was my big moment, my first meeting with Yvon Chouinard. I was greeted at reception by a guy known only as “Chipper Bro” who walked me up to Yvon’s…

It’s a Friday night and we’re in Torquay at the launch of Gillian Hutchinson’s book, Surf Life, and it appears half the women featured in the book are here. The place is heaving. Half of Surfing World’s female correspondents are here (welcome to Victoria, Bec Olive). They’re also in the book. Daphne’s in the book. Gillian opens the book with the line, “Surfing is hard.” It’s a truism for anyone who surfs, regardless of whether they’ve been doing it for a week or a lifetime. Gillian started surfing in her mid-thirties and recalls in the book that, “Being an adult beginner taking on the wild ocean is challenging and, at time, terrifying. Spectacularly failing in front of strangers in a vast open space is also humiliating; there is nowhere to…

Dave Michel should be recognised as one of the early pioneers of surfing in Indonesia. Born and raised in Queensland, Australia, Dave and his three siblings all learned to surf early, encouraged by their mother. Aged 13, Dave saved $113 from doing odd jobs for a whole year to pay for his first surfboard. The 9’6” Malibu board became his pride and joy. At 19, after watching Morning of the Earth, Dave marched wide-eyed out of the Alhambra Theatre at Stones Corner and announced he was leaving for Bali, ASAP. His dad bellowed a resounding, “No you are not!” Two days later Dave loaded his EH Holden with his surfboards and a few clothes and left anyway. Dave and his best friend, John Hankie drove to Darwin and then flew…

Art joined a to-be pantheon of surf photographers (Bud Browne was the beacon) including Jeff Divine, Steve Wilkings, Merkel, Bolster. Capturingthe transition of surfing from innocent escapism to corporate professionalism. Snapshots of that blur is Art’s stock in trade. Art didn’t suffer fools, didn’t waste time, but always made time. While nervous energy had surfers wired pre-jump-off, Art was at his calmest in preparation mode, processing, cleaning gear, running through a mental checklist to have everything needed at arm’s reach, anywhere and everywhere. On a trip, if you needed anything for running repairs of any kind, “Hey Art, you got a ……” He would have exactly what you needed (or better) in one of his Halliburtons, or a soft case compartment, his pockets. “You want a band aid? Here’s some…

Sitting with his left leg crossed over his right, sipping his coffee, he tells me about his mum’s parents. There is a lot of love for both in the things he says about them, and in the way he says them. His eyes widen when he talks about them meeting and their young lives together in Ireland. Conversation moves on to his father’s parents, who he speaks of with the same warmth. Both sets of grandparents are still alive and still together, only a few hours north. When he travels he stops in on his way past to hang out. While Shaun considers memories of his parents, he is picking at the wooden table in front of him or playing with a loop of string or fiddling with the cords…

LESTER BRIEN: I was a top competitive surfer, a finalist in the 1968 Australian titles, and a part-time Surfing World magazine correspondent. In 1970 I set up my law practice in Byron Bay, coming up from Sydney. I came as a surfer. In the early 1970s there were police raids in Upper Main Arm around 2am. They would put all the people in a truck and take them to Main Arm Hall at dawn and book them all. Everyone would plead guilty. People would get big fines, and jail sentences. They’d call it the travelling matchbox. If the cops couldn’t find anything they’d find a box of seeds. This was going on for about three or four years. Chris Watson, a solicitor in Sydney specialising in drug related matters, rang…