What bride wouldn't squeal at the thought of Gabriel Medina brandishing his sword at your wedding?

The Movie: Adriano Gets Married!

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

A love so deep it's barbaric!

Six days ago, the WSL world champion Adriano De Souza married the broodingly pretty Patricia Eicke in a poolside wedding.

The noted writer Chas Smith reported: “Yes, the hardest working little champ, Adriano De Souza, married his sweetheart yesterday. Her name is Patricia Eicke and she seems lovely. The affair was well attended. Filipe Toledo was there, of course, as was Gabriel Medina and a who’s who of Brazilian celeb. And where are you now ADS haters? Your slings and arrows bounce off a coat of armor made of pure love. And where are you now Kelly Slater? Plotting an over-the-top wedding to Gwen Stefani? A star-studded elopement with Sofia Vergara? Too late! Nothing but nothing can taint this innocent glory.”

And who could spoil this, the movie version of the wedding?

Looks of unutterable ecstasy upon the faces of the bride and bridesmaids!

A squadron of white balloons loosed into the Florianópolis sky!

Watch as Patricia fixes her eyes on the green mangroves of Adriano’s eyes, see Adriano, the third-most handsome Brazilian on tour (can you guess the others? Gabriel, Wiggoly) address his bride in seductive Portuguese.

The film, by Romulo Rosa, uses high definition cameras, shallow depth of field and an energetic drone to paint a tableau vivant.

Watch now!

Filmagem de Casamento – Mineirinho e Patrícia from Romulo Rosa – Marjorie Bona on Vimeo.

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Boog if you want to. Boog around the world.

Totalitarian: Wedge lifeguards’ iron fist!

By Chas Smith

9 years ago

Newport Beach's most iconic wave gets Nazified!

You know the Wedge, that dirty old Wedge, Newport Beach’s most famous wave? Well of course you do! It is the source for endless amusement amongst surfers and non-surfers alike. When it gets rolling you can be certain that the sands will be packed with slack jaws watching the brave get pounded.

The brave used to be mostly bodysurfers and bodyboarders. Surfers, though, have taken to the place more and more and more. Jamie O does it. Dion Agius does it too. But if they try today they may get locked up in prison next to OC gangstas.

The Wedge, you see, has always been a blackballed jam during certain hours for certain seasons but, as voted by Newport Beach’s City Council last night, the lifeguards now have the power to raise the flag any time they deem fit.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The City Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday night giving lifeguard officials the power to blackball, or prohibit, hardboard surfing off city beaches whenever they determine that conditions are unsafe for swimmers, bodyboarders and users of skimboards, which are small flotation devices used in shallow water.

Such power! Such un-American values! Will the surfers revolt? Will they spray paint The Bill of Rights onto the bottom of their hard boards? Will there be a “Surf Lives Matter” movement? Should we start it right now?

"Dirty Old Wedge" Teaser from Jack Murgatroyd on Vimeo.

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Quiksilver Wipes $600 million debt!

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

And announces plan for string of megastores with live music, barber shops…

In a few weeks, the iconic surf brand Quiksilver will emerge from the cocoon of chapter 11 bankruptcy 600 mill lighter in debt.

According to SMH.com, “Under the reorganisation, US-based Oaktree Capital Management will swap its debt for equity, reducing Quiksilver’s debt from $US900 million to $US300 million and freeing up funds to enable the company to rebuild after six months in limbo.

“‘The Chapter 11 process has given this company the chance to have another life,” Quiksilver president Greg Healy, a former Melbourne Football Club captain, told Fairfax Media.’When we filed for Chapter 11 the global entity had $US900 million in debt. Chapter 11 allows us to reduce debt by $US600 million – we’ll be in a lot better shape,’ he said.

“Given a new lease of life by Oaktree, which will own more than 90 per cent of the company, Quiksilver is closing underperforming stores in North America, winding up or renegotiating contracts with athletes and licensees, restructuring its supply chain, rebuilding relationships with suppliers, and reducing the number of products by more than 20 per cent.

“As well, Quiksilver also plans to roll out a new retail format called Boardriders after successfully testing the concept with a handful of stores in Australia, Japan, Europe and Russia.

“Boardriders stores are around 750 square metres – three times the size of Quiksilver’s average store – and have barber shops, live music and hardgoods such as surfboards, skateboards and snowboards as well as Quiksilver’s full range of apparel and footwear brands.”

Do surf shops with hair salons and bands excite or do they repel?

If you had the keys to the brand, what would you do?

Read the full story here.

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Chris White and his gal-kid combo whose lives were preserved by Kelly Slater.

Kelly Slater Saves Doomed Family!

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

Surf Photog nearly loses wife and kid, gains famous pal…

If your kid and gal were washed across the Kam Highway by a rogue wave, who’d you want to be there to scoop ‘em up? How about Kelly Slater? A ludicrous dream, no?

Yesterday, the photographer (and maker of the classic Tension bodyboarding films) Chris White’s little family, wife Sarah and son Van, were swept off the bike path that runs along the beach by one of those great North Shore pulses.

And Kelly saved ‘em.

Chris wrote on his IG account: “So thankful the surf gods denied @kellyslater today cos for whatever reason he was right there to save my wife and kid who were swept across a road by a freak wave today. Forever grateful to the great man and so thankful my family is alive and safe 👊🏼 ❤️💙 Thanks to all the lifeguards too who saved many lives today… So so lucky there was no was no cars at the time as the Kam Hwy is always busy. Van was strapped into the pram and was swallowing water and sand – his ears and mouth ended up full of sand. So lucky Slater got to the pram and tipped it back up. Sarah is pretty bruised and scraped. Safe to say her phone didn’t make it. Could have ended so badly.”

Kelly, who’s as adept on social media and punching the keyboard on his telephone as he is saving lives, wrote: “@chris.whitey thank you! I didn’t look at it that way but for some random reason I stopped there when I normally don’t and happened to be there. Lifeguards were on it either way and had it handled. So glad all is well and we can (someday) laugh about it. Van’s first wave was a huge one! Definitely a WA baby!”

Do you think Kelly was secretly sad that the family rescue didn’t happen four days ago, in time to usurp Adriano De Souza’s wedding?

Do you also think that Kelly should be more expensive than eight-mill on Fantasy Surfer?

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Miguel Tudela, so sad after losing at Sunset.

Watch: Road to the Volcom Pipe Pro

By Derek Rielly

9 years ago

Final episode! It’s an emotional rollercoaster!

Have you been watching Red Bull TV’s four-part series Road to the Volcom Pipe Pro? Cameras orbit the Volcom Houses at Pipeline where you see all the benefits of cloistered confinement: the army-style discipline, the lack of comfort, the dirt, the monotonous idleness, the heats won and lost, the immense weariness of it all.

In this episode, number four, the series comes to an emotional conclusion. Anchored by a banter between the team’s coaches Matt Bemrose and Dave Riddle, we see Volcom teamriders Miguel Tudela, Dusty Payne, Mitch Coleborn, Carlos Munoz, all under perform at the Sunset Beach WQS and miss out on qualification.

As the Peruvian Miguel Tudela slumps over his car, a solemn voiceover announces: “In surfing, wins and losses are each determined in a span of split-seconds even as each inevitably has the kind of impact that will last far longer… For Miguel Tudela one decision on one wave has ended his run at the Vans World Cup at Sunset. But now, the challenge will become turning this setback into something useful.

“An experience (pause)… a lesson (pause)… and a moment he grows from.

“(Long pause.) Next season and all the seasons to come… “

How can you not be moved, maybe even to little tears?

When Dusty loses he says, “I want to go home. Home to Maui.”

The voiceover swings in: “Disappointment is undeniably one of the things they sign up for.”

But then a Pipe swell arrives, just before the contest!

Cue voiceover: “A surfer once put it simply and perfectly. The best thing about waves is they never stop coming.”

Road to the Volcom Pipe Pro is as earnest as a basilica but is wrapped in a tenderness that makes it impossible to ridicule.

Do watch.

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Eat beach grit spam!