ASP

Dylan Graves: “I like it when girls let dirty shit out!”

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Who doesn't! Real talk!

You recognise this almost 30-year-old hairball? Maybe y’don’t. A doz or so years ago he was the clean-looking lil Young Gun playing cute foil to the hoary champ Kelly Slater. Tween Young Gun and now (Old Bum?), Dylan took on the WQS (ain’t much success) before settling into that ever-warm freesurfing zone, alongside the Gudauskas brothers. BeachGrit is a fan of the Graves ideal, good times, minimal stress, kooky homemade music, significant tuberides and boozy laughs.

What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever said?

When I was seven I was with my brother and a few pals and we went into this school supplies store with my my mom. We were such little pissers, causing mayhem. We all went to the bathroom, and stored in the bathroom, was all this merchandise. We thought it would be funny if we pissed on these items. We came back in and gave the key back to the guy and then the guy tried to blame us for it. We denied it all, but then they got it out of us. Bullshit.

What’s the one thing you are most ashamed of?

I got so many tickets I had to get a California ID. It’s weird, growing up in Puerto Rico and bringing that out. I feel like I’ve betrayed my country. I’m most ashamed of that.

The drunkest you’ve been?

Typically, parties at our house are big because we don’t have to drive anywhere. And this particular one, all my friends were there, my bro was in town. I had an Electric shoot the next day at eight am. And we were having a good night, everything’s going good, there’s girls around and then, for some reason, my friend and Electric team manager Mark Yonkers starting towing each other into vodka shoe-ies (vodka skulled out of shoes). Next thing I know I was being woken up, lifted out of the car and escorted to the car for the shoot.

The worst thing you’ve said to a woman?

Well, you know, I’m very respectful to women. But if I have said something wrong it was probably when I was at a point when I didn’t know what I was doing. In which case I apologise.

Do women ask you to swish your long hair around their breasts?

I kinda do it anyways.

What’s the worst thing you’ve done to a friend?

I’ve head-butted my friends drunk before and my friends have head-butted me. I have my nights where the gremlin comes out. Once I’m way past my limit I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.

Your most regular hateful thought?

Surfing crowded waves I fucking get pissed. When I’m most frustrated is when someone gets in my way. It’s so hard with surfing, to get the right section, to get that one barrel you’re super psyched on. And you finally get that moment and someone’s in your way? I can’t even describe my feelings. I just want to scream for minutes. Just… fuck! And it’s no one’s fault. I’ve been in people’s way before, too, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do. But it’s one of those things that gets under your skin. There’s nothing you can do. So you want to scream. That’s the worst case. When I super snap. I want to say every cuss word in the book.

The most jealous you’ve ever been?

I grew up with Brian Toth and he’d always win everything when we were younger. And I remember he won this contest and the first prize was a trip to Costa Rica for him and four people. And It sounded so fun, Costa Rica, with your family, I was like… fuck! That was one of the more jealous memories. It made me wanna start ripping harder, howevs. Like, I fucking want to go to Costa Rica.

Biggest illegal activity?

Riding my scooter without tags (registration). They’re strict as shit about that in California. And not wearing a helmet. Double illegal. Going down.

Your biggest regret?

My big regret is a collection of all those small, little regrets you have every session: wishing you’d pulled in or taken a different line. Those things happen on a weekly basis. Surfing’s so crazy like that. You have that one wave that always stays in your fucking mind and you want to go back and do that one little thing that would’ve made you make that barrel or land that air.

Have you stolen anything?

Every time I go to the store I’m starving so I’ll eat a bag of chips and when I’m done I’ll just throw it away or put it in my pocket and figure I’ll pay for it when I’m at checkout. It don’t always happen.

Biggest surf crime?

I gave my mom stitches one time. We were surfing my home spot and it was a super small day and I love surfing out there without a leash because it’s fun to swim in, get your board, run around and see what’s going on the beach, the chicks cruising around. So I was going surfing with mom and she told to me wear a leash (in high-pitched mama voice: “You should wear a leash because you’re going to lose your board and hit someone on the inside”) and I was, like, nah, my board isn’t going to hit anyone and if it does it’s going to be going really slow. And of course, a couple of waves into the session, I lose my board and it hits my mom in the leg and it gives her six stitches. Listen to mama!

What is your darkest fantasy?

Mmmmm. Like. Sexual fantasy? Surfing fantasy? What are we going for here? Mmmmm. I’m a fan of dirty talk. I like it when girls aren’t afraid to let some dirty shit come out. I just like it when they say fuck. For some reason, it’s sexy when they say it really fucking loud, it fucking turns me on.

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Cuter than a tulip, more reliable than a Japanese Motor! Morgan Maassen

Let’s talk surf with Al Knost!

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Cuter than a tulip, who doesn't love the almost-thirty year old Costa Mesa shredder?

Alex Knost is a surfer who has hacked his own pathway out of the cultural jungle. A little bit sixties, some seventies, all 2000s. A retro-futurist-modernist cupcake who loves surf! Let’s rap!

When did you first realise that surfing was going to dominate your life?

KNOST: I think the first time it happened was when I was too young to remember. When I was around 21, I was going really hard experimenting with all of life’s “various perceptions”. Looking back now, I realise that nothing can keep me from surfing, no party, no drug, no amount of beer, no girl, no band, because I’m obsessed with surfing, the feeling, the culture, the history… everything.

When did you know you were going to be a good surfer?

Oh, I still suck.

In what way does surfing change the way you see the world?

Surfing is such a simplistic pleasure that devours pre-conceptions of anything else being important. Surfing helps to free yourself into a world where breakfast doesn’t matter nor does personal hygiene or parking tickets or hangovers or magazine interview deadlines.

Who do hold as the absolute best surfer in the world at this moment?

That’s hard! I really like Ryan Burch and Ellis Ericson, but Dane Reynolds and John John blow my mind.

What’s the worst session you’ve had?

At least once a week, lastly in Hossegor, France, after the contest – mega crowd, three closeouts, four pearls and I broke my favourite board.

What’s the best session you’ve had?

Most sessions.

What is your favourite board?

I made a 7’1″, thinned-out-sorta-Terry-Fitz-type wing-pin with low rocker. I rode it in Bali a few months back. It had a thin tail that was nice, wedge foil, and plenty of flat surface for trimming.

What is your most treasured board?

The last board I shaped or a really epic longboard Dane Peterson shaped, kind of a “Magic Sam” shape (Magic Sam was the board Nat Young rode in the 1966 world titles and regarded as the stepping stone tween longboards and short boards.)

“Looking back now, I realise that nothing can keep me from surfing, no party, no drug, no amount of beer, no girl, no band, because I’m obsessed with surfing, the feeling, the culture, the history… everything.” Alex Knost

What’s the quality you like most in other surfers?

Some surfers go crazy! If fully obsessed, all those can communicate on some awesome astral plane of insanity.

What do you dislike about surfers?

No comment.

What talent do you wish you had as a surfer?

Oh, too many to list!

Has your perception of surfing changed over the years?

Yeah, for sure. The longer you surf, the more waves you ride, the more surfers you meet and that helps to widen your perception and the amount of respect toward everything.

Why are friendships between surfers stronger?

People pretend they aren’t but deep down there’s a brotherhood, or sister hood, a family.

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Four hectares of protected natural bushland that spans Great Ocean Road to Great Ocean. Four mill? Double it in a decade. Y'just gotta find the initial wedge.

Gimme: Wayne Lynch’s $4 million Beach House

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

The original child surf prodigy proves the hoary ol real estate cliche true, buy near the beach…

If you wanna buy real estate, pick a beach you wanna surf and buy as big a hunk of dirt as close to it as you can. Prices will dip, spike, and they’ll plateau, but over the years it’ll turn into a bankroll that’ll get you through your harvest years.

Lifestyle and cash? Who knew it was that easy!

Wayne Lynch, the child prodigy of the sixties, whose backside jams in the movie Evolution were roughly 12 years ahead of the rest of the world, is selling his four-and-a-half hectare spread called Namatjira (named after the Aboriginal artist) halfway between Aireys Inlet and Angelsea on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, a short drive from the burgers of Bells and the Winkipop express channel.

Wayne Lynch beachfront house — Ain’t that a hunk of prized dirt? Four-and-a-half hectares of protected natural bush. Wanna surf? Throw yourself in out front.

It ain’t just one house either, there’s two! Both with three-bedrooms. Perfect for the retired polygamous Mormon tired of Utah’s chill or perhaps a luxury eco-terrorist camp for well-heeled jihadis.

Wayne, his gal Lindy and their two kids Jarrah and Merinda are hitting it to the North Coast hence the sale. See more photos right here! (Click!)

Wayne Lynch from ENCYCLOPEDIA of SURFING videos on Vimeo.

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Insider: Kelly Slater’s Vital Pipe Gun

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

Come and greet the six-six Semi-Pro Kelly rode (with vitality and courage!) to beat John John in last year's Pipe Masters…

When Kelly Slater opened class at The Pipeline on Saturday, December 14, in that eight-to-12-feet north-north-west swell, it became apparent, very quickly, that he wasn’t on his usual mini-sleds.

And so the first question you ask his long-time pal and advisor Stephen “Belly” Bell is, why the length, why the thickness?

“‘Cause it was fucking massive,” he says.

Don’t you just love a slice of Australian ginger! Kelly is just as succinct. “When there’s big barrels and all you gotta do is go straight to get big scores you might as well be able to catch ’em,” he says.

The surfboard is a two-year-old Channel Islands 6’6″ Semi-Pro that Kelly had in the shed. Two weeks previously the 6’3″ he’d ridden at Sunset and another two boards, including a potential 6’8″ for Pipe, were stolen from the side of his house.

And so on the final day of the Pipe Masters, in his house on the beachfront there, prepping boards for his quarter-final, watching Mick ride into his third world title, Kelly chose the 6’6″ to ride with a couple of 6’7″s as backups.

And if you were watching the event, you would’ve seen Kelly make a drop on a squared-up 10-foot ledge that, perhaps, would’ve been impossible if he’d been on one of his shorter, more experimental boards.

“He’ll disagree but for a few years his boards were too short,” says Belly. “He went bigger, went back to length and it showed. That late drop in the final. Anything shorter and he wouldn’t have made it.”

Kelly ain’t one to disagree on that and says that in his first heat he was riding a 5’11” and got breathed off on a couple he could’ve made if only he’d been riding a longer board.

And Kelly says having four fins helped in the completion of the wave. They engage quicker than a thruster, he says, and transition faster at the bottom.

What you really wanna ask about that final day, and those last few heats, was how Kelly would’ve performed, magic board or not, if the world title was still a chance. Would his performance have been as murderously thorough? As complete?

“I like to think I would’ve tried to keep the same head space but things would’ve been different,” says Kelly. “There would’ve been someone else in that semi-final against John John. John John, likely, would’ve won that heat as well but everything would’ve been different, the emotion, the focus. When I got into that final John John was real patient while I was more taking chances, trying to make things happen. It had gotten real slow and I figured the best bet was to get moving and catch a bunch of waves. But if the title was on the line I probably would’ve been looking at it different, maybe catching a little bit better waves to start the heat off. I like to think it would’ve gone the same but, who knows?”

And let’s reflect a little on the day. “When you’re that close to something in life and you don’t get it, it can be a tough pill to swallow.”

But, still, you gave cake. “Yeah,” says Kelly. “I didn’t leave anything on the table.”

(The dimensions of the Semi-Pro are 6’6″ x 18 1/4, 2 5/8″s. 11 1/4 nose, 13 1/14″ tail.)

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A surfboard that is short with a stubbish nose and such a little tail. More fun that the vigorous operation of your sex glands! A surfboard as a relief mechanism! Morgan Maassen

Essential Hardware: Craig Anderson’s Hypto-Krypto

By Derek Rielly

10 years ago

This spruced-up seventies-style design so initially thrilled Ando he "didn't ride it for a year." Look at him now!

Five years ago, the shaper Hayden Cox presented his team-rider Craig Anderson with a surfboard of a surprising hue. Narrow in the tail and with a forward wide point it resembled something from the seventies but spruced up with the carbon Fibre Flex rails and a regular three-fin setup.

Craig was so thrilled “he didn’t touch it for a year,” says Hayden.

“I hung onto the short board dream when I was younger,” Craig says of his reticence to ride the Hypto. “I didn’t really dabble in the tricky looking fish boards. I always like a clean, normal looking surfboard ’cause I feel that shorter, atheistically weird boards have an unclean, almost cheating, look to ’em.”

Until one day when a four-to-six-foot north swell was lighting up the waves of Newcastle, where Craig lives, and he discovered the Hypto’s not-so-subtle pleasures in the long lefts of Dixon Park. “The banks were shallow coming from deep, no one out. I was really excited on how much paddle speed I had. I could sit further out and pick my lines. It was a great experience.”

After that he took it over to G-Land for a Quiksliver trip and then to Deserts where he eventually snapped it and gave both pieces of this magic surfboard to a local kid.

“Everyone likes that model a lot,” says Craig, who takes his 5’4″ Hypto everywhere including that top-to-bottom left-hander in Namibia that features in Slow Dance. “There’s no other board I’d have under my feet. Those boards make serious drops if you commit to them. You don’t have to think about your feet when you stand up. You have a bunch of paddle speed, you fly down the line and then you do turns. You get a ton of waves. It rides fast and it’s exciting. It suits my surfing.”

Hayden explains its genesis: “I was shaping a couple of twin-fins and they had those traditional wide swallow-tail designs and I found they went too straight. They didn’t want to fit into the pocket. So I grabbed that same design and put my semi-gun rounded pintail into it, blended the curves and… it worked!”

Pulling in the tail, moving the wide point forward of the middle, giving it a straight rocker and relying on the curve of the outline to create manoeuvrability ain’t a secret to anyone, of course. Dave Parmenter’s Stub Vectors in the nineties and Biolos’ round-nose-fish a few years later all combined the same magic ingredients. But the Hypto-Krypto is important because it brought the genre to a new generation. And with Craig Anderson, one of the most admired surfers in the world riding ’em in such a sublime fashion, they’ve become so popular they account for more than 30 per cent of Hayden’s worldwide sales.

“It connects with the wave really, really nicely,” says Hayden. “The whole back end of the rocker is super flat. It basically creates all the speed for you. It’s really the subtle features that make it a special board. That is, traditional concepts but it’s those refined features, where the apexes are in the tail, the roll in the entry, where the vee exits, that make it able to be surfed from one foot to double-overhead waves.”

“It’s good for the average surfer who wants to go fast and turn it and have fun,” says Craig.

Hayden says it’s been a sell-out for three years and, even now, with three factories, he’s still building “as many as we can” to fulfil demand.

In five years Craig has owned exactly three Hyptos. “I snapped the first at Deserts years ago, I just retired the one I surfed in Slow Dance, that lasted me two years, and now I’m sitting on a new one. The ol Hypto blesses me with its inner durability, for some cosmic reason.

Craig’s dimensions: 5’4″ x 19 1/2″ x 2 3/8″ (27.2 litres in volume)

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Eat beach grit spam!