Mick Fanning shark
The piece starts with a bunch of nerds holding up full color computer printouts. One of them is wearing a super lame little necklace. They take turns making statements. I don't know who any of them are. Possibly their presence it's supposed to lend weight to the following segment?

“Worst 37 seconds of Fanning’s life!”

Can we start calling Mick's "attack" something else?

Can we start calling Mick’s “attack” something else? I’m sure it was scary as hell, rattled his cage good and hard. Shed some adrenaline dump tears post heat.

But he wasn’t attacked. He was bumped.

If you stepped out into the road without looking and a truck rolled by, missing by inches, you wouldn’t say you’ve been hit by a car. Because you’d look like a huge pussy. Life’s full of near misses, you’ve gotta sack up and move along.

Which is exactly what he did. Back in the water, back on with his life. He talks about it, sure. Probably the first question every lazy journalist asks.

If you stepped out into the road without looking and a truck rolled by, missing by inches, you wouldn’t say you’ve been hit by a car. Because you’d look like a huge pussy. Life’s full of near misses, you’ve gotta sack up and move along.

It’s gotta be weird, to work so hard at something your entire life then be catapulted to fame by a random encounter. If I were Mick I’d say, “Enough of the shark talk, ya’ cunts.” Or something similarly Australian.

At the same time, the real world doesn’t much about surfing. That bump came with killer exposure. That’s really what Mick’s job is, staying in the public eye. He does it well. One of the very best.

The piece starts with a bunch of nerds holding up full color computer printouts. One of them is wearing a super lame little necklace. They take turns making statements. I don’t know who any of them are. Possibly their presence it’s supposed to lend weight to the following segment?

It plays as though the bump were one of the most traumatic events in Fanning’s life. I don’t believe that. Mick’s made of sterner stuff. Shaken, but not stirred.

Losing two brothers is heavy. I’ve got two baby bros of my own. It’d be hard to lose them.

His mom’s a good presence. Delivers a very real line.

“I just could not believe that this was actually happening. I thought, ‘Oh my god, the universe can’t be this cruel.’ And, uh, I can’t lose another boy.”

Beyond that, there’s nothing new here. It’s justa glimpse of Fanning’s early life, his tribulations set to swelling music, overlayed with an insurance commercial voice over. Not a single glimpse of what makes him a human.


Kita Alexander baby
Chanteuse, gal pal of O Wright and now… mammy!

Owen Wright’s Gonna Be a Daddy!

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!

Screen Shot 2016-08-01 at 2.39.38 pm

Watch her wonderful song My Own Way, here…


Filipe Toledo
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!

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!

Click here and watch!


kai lenny wins molokai to oahu
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!

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.

It’s a helluva race, and one that takes you to the physical brink. Your body says no, your mind says fuck you!

From SUPthemag.

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.


Quiksilver tech boardies: “Gimme sex!”

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.)