Wiped from the tour. Barely able to surf. But, now,
a baby with pop star girlfriend!
What a wild old ride Owen Wright has been on this
year. After what was officially mandated as a surf-related
brain injury at Pipeline in December, Owen pulled out of the first
six events of 2016.
One month later, it was reported,
“Serious concerns surround the health of 2015 surfing world
title contender, Owen Wright. Fears that Wright is still
having trouble speaking and even standing have spread throughout
tight-lipped surfing community…revealed he was still
struggling with amnesia just last week.”
In February, Owen looked fragile as hell as he embraced his
sister Tyler after she won the gal’s event at Snapper.
And two weeks ago, the rest of Owen’s 2016 WSL season was
officially wiped.
So, now, after everything, ain’t it something to hear that his
pop star girlfriend Kita Alexander is laden with
child.
“I’ve gone through some really challenging life experiences this
year but the most amazingly beautiful thing has come out of it,”
says Owen, alongside his pregnant girl (on his IG account
@owright). “Enjoying every moment but the future couldn’t look any
better.”
Ms Alexander, in case you didn’t know, is the chanteuse whose
(hit) songs have the easy temper of a warm summer’s day.
She surfs too!
Watch her wonderful song My Own Way, here…
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Don't you love the… immediacy… of King's
work? "I just have my iPhone running. Most of Tour Notes is shot on
an iPhone. I have a RED camera but I just look at it." | Photo:
Peter King
#TourNotes: Filipe’s US Open Rapture!
By Derek Rielly
Follow Filipe Toledo's effortless win at the US
Open!
I doubt I’m alone in suggesting that no other
filmer has such a clear window into the pro game as La Jolla’s
Peter King.
I’ve followed the former pro surfer-celebrity
chanteuse’s career through its highs and
its highs. As for TourNotes, which King makes for the surf clothing
company Hurley, he says: “I was on tour for
three-and-a-half years, back when girls wanted to hang with Shaun
Tomson and Rabbit Bartholomew and were 35 years old and wore
high-waisted bikinis, do cocaine and all those things I didn’t know
about. And what do I remember about my time on the tour? It isn’t
the heats. I wanna show the fun. I want to show the silly little
conversations.”
In this episode, King follows Filipe Toledo, “throughout his
obvious and effortless win. No one else would have been as fun to
watch won, that’s for sure. Most of it was filmed from the Sao
Paulo section of the bleachers. Only this group could make tiny
Huntington seem more exciting that the Olympics…”
As for the Toledos and Filipe’s upcoming role as a daddy, “They
are known as the SurfamilyToledo … so the more the
merrier!”
Filipe, meanwhile, split California to Kandui resort in the
Mentawais straight after his win. He’ll be there till Tahiti!
Kai Lenny, who is twenty three years old and lives on
Maui, is an expert in the disciplines of surfing, windsurfing, SUP
and kitesurfing. Yesterday Kai won the Molokai to Oahu paddle in a
world record time. "The hardest thing I've ever done," says Kai. |
Photo: Courtesy Kai Lenny
Kai Lenny Smashes Molokai-Oahu Record!
By Derek Rielly
Maui hydrofoiler-surfer-kitesurfer-SUP stud wins
world's most tedious race!
Doesn’t Kai Lenny make your mouth water!
Yesterday, the surfer-hydrofoiler-kitesurfer-SUP from Maui won the
stand-up div of the famous-infamous thirty-two mile Molokai-to-Oahu
race in a world record time.
Lenny found his win with a record-time of 4:07:41, besting
rival and three-time M2O champ Connor Baxter’s 2014 record by 27
seconds. The victory is “a dream come true” for Lenny, who spent
the last four years hunting an M2O title with top-4 finishes each
year, including a runner-up victory behind 2015 champ, Travis
Grant, who finished second today. Connor Baxter rounded out the
top-3 with a time of 4:16:19, after the leading trio broke away
from a stacked pack of hungry elite racers, including in-form
Aussies James “Jimmy” Casey, Toby Cracknell and Matt Nottage, who
finished fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that focused in a race
before,” Lenny said at the finish. “This is by far the hardest
event I’ve ever done.”
You know Lenny, of course. He’s precious!
Examine his hydrofoiling here.
A wipeout that “nearly cut him in half”.
And a catchy day-in-the-life piece with JOB.
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Quiksilver tech boardies: “Gimme sex!”
By Chas Smith
The Quiksilver New Wave Highline technical
boardshort retails for $200. Absurd? Let's review!
The technical boardshort has been with us for
near a decade now. Space-aged materials meet unimaginable
performance. The future!
And I have sat firmly on the sidelines as this future has
unfolded. You know my predilections by now. Very small in the leg.
Very thick cotton in the material. Keep your four-way stretch and
fast dry. Gimme style! Gimme sex!
BeachGrit makes a very sex trunk, so does Banks but I
wondered, nearly a decade on, what I have been missing in the
future? I did not want to become the crusty man who refuses to
accept change. Who can’t listen to the new Neon Hitch album because
his mind can’t adjust to new beats.
So the future. I looked at Hurley’s Phantom Hyperweave ($150),
Rip Curl’s Mirage ($100) and Billabong’s Tribong x Airline ($150)
before settling on Quiksilver’s New Wave Highline because it cost
$50 more than the nearest competitor ($200). Looking your
competitor squarely in the eye and raising not folding? Those are
the kind of guts I appreciate. My canvas St. Laurent Vans rip-offs
cost $500. My Tom Ford Ray-Ban rip-offs cost $600.
And therefore I got a pair, black with white piping making a vee
on the leg, scalloped leg, 31 waist. They came. I put them on and
admired myself in the mirror and thought, “Not bad.” They fit
perfectly at the waist, some very future thing that was both stiff
and flexible, and didn’t fall all weird, ending just below
mid-thigh. Most importantly they were trim. Not boxy.
I spun around for a good few minutes then loaded up my board, a
Mayhem Short Round ($500) and went surfing.
And was shocked. Have you surfed in the future? Water somehow
and magically did not stick to me. I was freed from the very
strictures of biology, or earth sciences, and could move and twist
and jive. I was a man reborn and felt very much like Navin R.
Johnson. “Well if this is out there, think how much MORE is out
there!”
Yes, I can whole-heartedly say that the Quiksilver New Wave
Highline future is wonderful thing, a thing that I recommend, a
thing that you need. Like all absurdly expensive artifacts, its
price tag adds to its charm.
The cherry, though? When I finally got home my wife looked at me
and said, “What are those trunks. They’re sexy.”
Oh gimme sex!
(And I know you. You are scowling and saying, “Fucking bullshit
advertorial…” but I can’t hear you because I’m too busy shopping
for a Raf Simons letter sweater ($600) and listening to Neon
Hitch.)
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“I’ve always been about aesthetic, something that
generally looks or feels good, or has a good vibe to it, but I’m
pretty sick of shit that looks cool but has no substance.” | Photo:
Steve Sherman/Surfing/Photo Union Worker
How to: live in 10 Dane Reynolds
Quotes!
By Derek Rielly
Wisdom is totally where you find it!
Do you think surfing has lost some of itsmerry now that Dane Reynolds has disappeared from
the stage? Do you miss those goofy, but quietly profound, post-heat
interviews, Dane’s honesty wrapped up in a comforter of aw
shucks?
Dane is also capable of a luminosity of thought unequalled among
surfing’s barbarians. Here are 10 quotes (taken from interviews
with Chas Smith and Morgan Maassen) which, if followed, will make
your life immensely more enjoyable.
Let’s dip our fingers into his soup.
1. “Thinking of holding back is blowing it more than pushing
your hardest and falling.”
Interpretation: We all do it. Draw the same
lines on waves. Fall off on the same air attempts. Same steps. Same
everything. Everything is half-assed. What does it matter if we
made the wave. One violent little huck will give you more pleasure
than a hundred lip taps.
2. “I hate watching movies. There have been three movies
I’ve ever enjoyed. Movies kind of creep me out. They take too much
commitment.”
Interpretation: In our beds, in our hotel
rooms, on planes, we squander our precious hours on pointless
reels. If you’re going to watch a movie, make it count.
3. “I don’t need perfect reef breaks.”
Interpretation: That whole hang-up about
getting good waves? Screw it. Forget the tides. Forget the
swell events. Drive to your favourite spot. Board in car.
Ride whatever. Name reefs are so… jock!
4. “I’ve gotten to where I am because, fuck, in high school
I was obsessed with it and obsessed with improving.”
Interpretation: Do you really want to be good
at surfing? Or is it something you… think… you want to be? If you
want it, it’s there. But it takes time and all of your mind.
Obsess. Obsess. Obsess. And you’ll get good.
5. “I want to be positive and have hope, but a lot of shit I
see bugs me.”
Interpretation: Trump, Hillary, and a race war
warmed up by a liberal media and frightened, over-armed cops. Dear
god, you give us Obama then… this?
6. “Shit, I don’t really like cities.”
Interpretation: Yeah, it’s chic to dig on the
New York vibe but after a week you’re crying to get to a beach.
7. “I’ve always been about aesthetic, something that
generally looks or feels good, or has a good vibe to it, but I’m
pretty sick of shit that looks cool but has no substance.”
Interpretation: Lose the soul arch.
8. “I don’t even think of surfing as tricks, it’s just one
motion.”
Interpretation: It’s a holistic thing.
Compartmentalise when you’re learning the pieces, then bring it all
home.
9. “Once you get to a certain level of surfing, it’s your
art. So it’s undeniable to say Gabriel Medina is amazing at
progressive surfing but it also doesn’t really resonate with
me.”
Interpretation: It ain’t all about points.
10. “Big-wave surfing’s not relatable to me. It’s like
playing chicken.”
Interpretation: What’s the fun in dying? And
surfing’s about fun… right?
