Does Hawaii have the best water saviors in the
world?
Hot god damn, do I love our lifeguards here in
Hawaii. Other places… eh, it’s a little more complicated, but these
guys are true heroes. Literally risking their lives every single
day, saving countless people. Underpaid, under-appreciated, but
never hesitating to put themselves in harm’s way.
According to the video description, this was shot shortly after
a guy paddling out was accidentally run over, knocked unconscious,
and drowned. Watching the guards’ training kick into gear,
struggling to save a life, is awe inspiring. Also intense, and not
exactly happy, but worth a watch.
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Ozzie Wright, as WSL surfer, with Joel Fitzgerald
twin-fin, in Israel. What an enigma he is! | Photo: Derek
Rielly
Historic: Ozzie Wright Joins WSL!
By Derek Rielly
And flies to Israel to compete in first-ever WSL
contest there…
What kind of dull individual would turn down a free surf
trip to Israel, that brave middle eastern democracy with
Syria, right there, on its eastern flank?
Not Ozzie Wright, the Australian surfer-and-artist who may have
thrown away the pro contest dream twenty years ago, but who
recently agreed to compete in Israel’s first WSL contest (along with
the equally dazzling Australian Otis Carey) in return for airfares
and a room in a beachfront hotel.
Tel Aviv to Damascus? Two hundred clicks. Think LA to San Diego.
The armies of ISIS are a day’s gallop away.
What a sight it is to see Oscar bent over a telephone trying to
navigate the complexities of the WSL’s entry system. First, the
surfer must register with the WSL and pay $US50. Then he must find
the contest he wishes to enter and complete an entry form and pay
the required fee.
But the $US150 entry fee won’t be accepted until an insurance
premium of $US320 is paid. Total, $US520. A round one win
will net $US200.
The process takes three hours and a drive to the WSL’s temporary
base on Netanya beach, just north of Tel Aviv.
“This is why I gave up surfing in contests,” he says.
This little cloud of gloom soon lifts, however, for Oz’s
five-foot-five, almost three-inch thick Joel Fitzgerald twin fin
eats up the windswell while those on two-and-a-quarter-inch thick
thrusters get bogged down in a glutinous style.
So textbook! Oz in Israel.
And if you thought Oz’s contest skills might’ve vanished forever
you would’ve seen the almost forty-year-old scooping a wave on the
hooter, squeezing its teat dry, run up the beach, do the same, grab
one more, again with vigorous lines and bombastic hits, and come in
victorious with five minutes left.
(Otis will also win, two heats later.)
Meanwhile, in the country that has produced six Nobel
Prize-winning scientists since 2002, with its world-leading solar
energy and space programs, cutting-edge stem-cell research, three
of the most prestigious universities in the world, a country for
whom equal rights between men and women is a no-brainer, where
homosexuals don’t live in fear of murder or imprisonment, the
intifada of knives reigns and the ideology of ISIS spreads
like cancer.
On the day we arrive, a woman is stabbed to death in her home
and in front of her six kids by a Palestinian terrorist. Shortly
afterwards, a pregnant woman is stabbed, her life spared by a
civilian with a gun.
Since September, there have been 120 stabbings, 46 shootings, 30
car attacks and 78 fire-bombs. Twenty eight dead, nearly 300
wounded.
The Jews, so brave, so misunderstood.
But there are more important things to consider right now.
For example.
Ozzie, is this the start of a qualifier campaign?
“If I win, I might probably go in the next one…”
Really?
“No, and it’ll be a miracle if I get through one more heat.”
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Josh Kerr wins Todos event!
By Chas Smith
Is he the world's most complete surfer? Well?
Who would have ever seen that coming? I mean,
like, years ago when Josh was surfing air shows? Could the argument
be made that Josh Kerr is the most complete surfer on earth? Well,
could it be? More after I sober up. And until then, read Rory
Parker’s investigative action here!
Update:
I’m sober!
Josh’s win was very fine and his after heat quote was the best
of all. “To walk away with a win — I feel like one of those dogs
with his head out the car window, I was smiling the whole time I
was paddling around in the final.”
Bravo and I wonder if he will continue to compete in that
game.
Which raises a larger question. What will happen to the Big
Wave World Tour? That Jaws jam is going to be very hard to beat and
Todos, on its best day, ain’t super wow. I would be very curious to
know how many people tuned in and what the kick from Jaws was, if
any. With money not exactly flowing in to the WSL coffers and maybe
actually running out the door (upcoming hot rumor on the boil for
tomorrow!) what will they chop?
P.S. Why hasn’t the Eddie run yet?
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Big Waves: WSL ripping off surfers?
By Rory Parker
Is the WSL running a literal Ponzi scheme on the
Big Wave World Tour?
It’s fitting the BWWT’s primary sponsor is a
wristwatch peddler. So pointless, who still wears a watch? Who’s
the market for bottom tier luxury watches? I understand the real
nice ones are on the conspicuous consumption trip, but Tag Heuer’s
priced low enough to be expensive to poor people, cheap to rich
ones. Like a low end luxury car, the people you’re trying to fit in
with are laughing at you, the rest of us just think you wasted your
money.
(Editor’s (Chas) note: I love wristwatches more than anything
else, maybe. I am wearing a vintage Rolex right now.)
On the subject of wasted money… Todos Santos, really? Are we
pretending it’s still a relevant wave, in the context of top tier
insanity surf? Cold, scary? Sure, but line it up against what’s
going on at Pe’ahi, or Mavericks, or Nazare, and it looks like a
big wave version of the US Open. The last time someone caught a
wave out there that mattered was in ’98, when Taylor Knox scratched
into a bomb. A big deal, at the time, but it’s been nearly twenty
years, a lot has changed since then. Boards have gotten bigger,
surfers have gotten crazier, I’ve grown armpit hair and a gorgeous
chest pelt. Ch-ch-ch-changes…
Today ain’t great. Howling winds, interminable lulls, boredom
kind of broken every twenty minutes when someone chatters down the
face and kicks out. Big wave contest business as usual.
Speaking of business as usual, I wonder when the guys in the
water are going to realize they’re being ripped off. Did you know
that prize money changes depending on the size of the surf? It
does, and in swells like today’s, running in 20 foot surf, the boys
are on the low end of the scale.
First place gets $12.5K, not a substantial sum of money. Enough
to buy a decent used pickup truck, though not once you’ve taken
into account the cost of last minute flights and extortionate
over-sized baggage fees.
But the real kick in the nuts comes lower on the totem pole. Of
the twenty four guys in the event, no women because the BWWT is
sexist as hell, the bottom 18 take home a whopping $1000! A little
more than half my monthly rent.
Surf’s over forty five feet? Like, in the scary death realm?
Then they double their money!
Considering the fact that
competing is a losing proposition, financially, for pretty much
everyone in the event, and that no one really cares who wins, I’m
hoping it’s just a matter of time until some people start realizing
that their money is better spent chasing swell for clips instead of
results.
Or the WSL will stop being a bunch of cheap ass motherfuckers
and start paying guys a living wage, which they deserve. But I’m
not holding my breath for that one. I can hold my breath a long
time, but not, like, forever.
(Editor’s (Chas) note again: I had no idea this was running and
clicked on it and saw Josh Kerr and Damo Hobgood surfing in the
final? Maybe the final? Who knows! But I’m invested!)
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Vic Secret: “We’re making surfing
cool!”
By Chas Smith
Models and actresses unite in dragging a nerd-fest
into the warm light of popularity!
There are many, apparently, indoor surfing
studios now in New York and why not? It is a wonderful thing to do!
So wonderful, even, that Victoria’s Secret models are getting their
get on! Martha Hunt, a lingerie angel, told Vogue
Magazine:
“My core is on fire!” while whipping her ponytail back and
forth. Here, in a sun-drenched Bowery studio, she is trying
out Surfset, a surf-inspired workout class that uses a custom-built
balance-training board to mimic the ocean’s waves. Having just
returned from a trip to Oahu, where she successfully surfed for the
first time, Hunt is keen on honing her skills. “I got up on my
first wave, actually, and my face turned from absolute fear, with
my eyes bulging out, to complete wonder,” she says. “Now I want to
surf all the time, and am looking for that core-balancing
workout.”
But that’s not all! She is not content to stay indoors and do
exercises. She has caught the stoke! The article continues:
…she’s already planning a second trip to Costa Rica this
spring—and that at dinner with Helena Christensen, she learned that
the Danish super had just started surfing, too. “We’re making
surfing cool,” she says, laughing. “No, it was already cool.” That
may be true—but watching Hunt gracefully twist along the board, she
makes a good case for the sport’s body-transformative
powers.
