Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 425 i Surfing World Magazine

This was a very historic swell. Not even in our lifetime again we see Jaws, the channel closing out. They never experienced it those guys, the locals. They thought Jaws will handle any kind of waves and it’ll never close out. That’s what they believed, until that day. I’ve been dreaming for that day. In 2012, I experienced Jaws for the first time, and that’s when I first believe I could surf bigger than 25-footer. And then in 2019 when I returned to Jaws, I mean, you could say was a big failure, because I attempt to catch three waves, but it was too big. It was 30-foot, maybe it was bigger, but the wind picked up really fast that morning, white caps everywhere within half an hour. I tried,…

“As kids, we lived up on the point at Dee Why with Dad, so I’d go for the earlies and Shane and Brett would always be out there, just killing it. Those memories of Shane back then was just this powerhouse in the water. No one went close to Shane out the point… except for his brother, Brett. Paddling out, you’d put your head over the wave to watch Shane do a turn, and he’d just spray you that hard, laughing. You learned quickly not to do that. It was explosive surfing. He was that good. Both of them – him and Brett. They’d take off at First Rock in a sidewinding ball of foam, and just sit inside it, crouched in this perfect stance. “Dee Why was full of…

The place was fucking heaving. Thirteen thousand people, the solo show sold out months before. And once Ziggy walked out and broke into his opening track and the crowd sang along with every word, it was clear something was going on. “Still the biggest show I’ve ever played,” he reflects of that night, “and there was something thrilling about it.” The show was a vindication of a bold decision he’d made a few years earlier to go it alone. “I got told very early on by certain people that you can’t do this by yourself. You can’t do it independently, and that kind of put a fire in my belly.” Ziggy comes back to a surfing analogy. “I mean, look at the revolution of paddling big waves. Look at what…

“I was talking to Uncle Mike [Michael Ho] about it, and he goes, ‘In 20 years, I haven’t seen a winter like this.’ There’s been so much swell, but even the winds have been good. The tradewinds usually set in from the northeast, but we’ve had these beautiful southeast winds, which are perfect offshore. And it’s just the way the ocean looks; it’s what you remember watching those old surf movies from the ’70s, those movies with all the old gods in them. I was watching a few of those old movies recently and I was like, man, why doesn’t Pipe get like this anymore? But then I was paddling over the shoulder of a couple of waves this winter, looking in, and I’m like, holy shit, that’s it. It’s…

“No!” squeaked Tom. “Did you put the bungs in!!” “What do you mean!!” I screamed back. “Bungs? You drove it off the trailer! You hooked on the sled! I was in the car! What the hell!” Just so you know, a jetski without the bungs in is a jetski soon destined for the bottom of the sea. So yep, there we were, drifting witlessly around the Pacific; me baffled, Tom swimming around under the sled with his goggles on, and Hannah in between trying not to cry with laughter, while the best-looking cyclone in 40 years turned the southern Gold Coast into a mad surfing wonderland. The system that evolved into Tropical Cyclone Alfred first popped on to the real time computer models as a small swirl in the far…

JF You want to start at the beginning? AK Yeah, well, the beginning was all those years ago at Brocky’s house, really. JF This was pre-Litmus, early ’90s. AK When Brocky was making sails in that house. I remember he said, “You guys should go up and see George.” And when we got there, it was like, we need to get the fuck out of here. JF Well, he wasn’t home. AK And it just felt like we shouldn’t be there. Like that to me sort of sums up George in a lot of ways. He just has that presence. He’s a very private person. I mean, I definitely didn’t feel comfortable that day going in there. Did you? JF No, but Chris said, ‘Go and see him…’ AK But…

THE LAST DAYS OF DAVO by Derek Hynd – “Reader, perhaps you’ve taken in the name ‘Horseshoe Bay’ before. Perhaps you’ve never heard of it. Davo’s favourite seat sits in front of it. There were times on a swell when he’d bring a board with him to the seat, wait a while, drink a while, then be pushed out by pals during a lull off the bulging bottom rock at Horseshoe. A bit of a flounder in a one-arm paddle and he’d be out the back, waiting, then to his feet on a long-period set wave, still semi-capable, getting by the rock, making it into the short, sandy cove to emerge and get back to his seat to an accolade of thousands despite there being just a few mates present.”…