Jordy Smith Filipe Toledo
Is it better, overall, to be six-foot-one and tons of fun (Jordy, Stud) or four-ten in one sock (Filipe, Twink)?

WSL: It’s the Studs vs the Twinks!

Does size matter in the game of pro surfing?

The Ultimate Fighting Championships began without weight classes. Martial Artists, brawlers, wrestlers and boxers fought without gloves, matching different specialists against one another to see what fighting style reigned supreme. A new sport was born out of the bare knuckled bloodshed. Championed by Brazilian Royce Gracie, who showed the effectiveness of choking people.

The World Surf League is like the early days of the UFC in the sense that athletes of all statures surf against one another. But for the most part, size don’t mean a thing.

Or does it?

Intrigued by the far-fetched idea of weight divisions in surfing, I used the WSL profile stats of each athlete and divided the tour by height and weight, then ranked them into light, middle, and heavyweight divisions.

John John is your Heavyweight World Champion! Adriano and Wilko hold the light and middleweight belts heading into Pipeline.

Let’s examine who’s where.

Lightweight 60- 70 kg 

Adriano 167 cm 62 kg

Filipe  173 cm 64 kg

Italo    167 cm 68 kg

Caio 170 cm 69 kg

Kerr  173 cm 70 kg

Miguel 175 cm 68 kg

Keanu    163 cm 66 kg

Kanoa   175 cm 67 kg

Jadson 170 cm 66 kg

Davey    172 cm 67 k

Flores    173 cm 68 kg

Middleweight  70-75 kg

Wilko 180 cm 75 kg

Kolohe  180 cm 74 kg

Slater   175 cm 73 kg

Mick  177 cm 73 kg

Stu  175 cm 72 kg

Conner  173 cm 74 kg

Nat      180 cm 73 kg

Matt B. 180 cm 69 kg

Alejo     173 cm 70 kg

Taj            175 cm 72 kg

Heavyweight:  75 kg+

JJF   183 cm 76 kg

Gabby  180 cm 80 kg

Jordy   190 cm  80 kg

Julian  183 cm 79 kg

Parko    183 cm 84 kg

Sebastian 185 cm 79 kg

Ace    174 cm 77 kg

Michel  176 cm 76 kg

Wiggolly  175 cm 75 kg

Dusty   178 cm 75 kg

Jack  183 cm 75 kg

Alex R. 178 cm 77 kg

Ryan 178 cm 78 kg

As kinky an idea as it is, weight divisions in surf would suck. You’d lose match-ups like JJF x Slater, Parko and Mick, or Gabriel vs Filipe.

No longer convinced that weight divisions are the answer, I went through every man-on-man heat this year and tallied if the larger or smaller surfer won that heat to see if there was a clear advantage.

What I learned: Over the course of the season, weight don’t mean shit although larger surfers had a higher winning percentage at Gold Coast, Bells, Margaret’s, Rio, Fiji, Trestles and Portugal.

Smaller opponents won more often at J-Bay, Tahiti, and France.

As vastly different as these venues are, one could argue that speed is more important than power at these locations. Possibly explaining why the lighter opponent had a higher winning percentage.

Interestingly, apart from Adriano, Filipe and Italo who are sitting comfortably on the rankings, the lightweight class is struggling. Kanoa, Pupo, Davey, Jeremy, and Keanu are all on the bubble of re-qualification.

The events on tour that are thought to cater to light-footed surfers, didn’t.

Gold Coast: 1st Matt Wilkinson, 2nd Kolohe Andino

Brazil: 1st John John, 2nd Jack Freestone

Lowers: 1st Jordy Smith, 2nd Joel Parkinson

Waves that favour heavier and taller competitors… did.

  • Margaret River: 1. Sebastian Zietz, 2.  Julian Wilson
  • Bells Beach: 1. Matt Wilkinson 2. Jordy Smith
  • CloudBreak: 1. Gabriel Medina 2. Matt Wilkinson

The place where larger surfers had the most advantage was Margaret River; winning 25 of 35 in the man-on-man heats.

Size doesn’t mean a smaller surfer can’t thrive in waves of consequence (Flores at Pipe or Teahupoo for instance) or a larger fella can’t grovel (Jordy Smith and Parko’s final appearance at two-foot Trestles).

Size could only be a factor in turns. Right?

See, there are a few questions that go through a judge’s head when they see a turn.

How critical was it? Was the turn on the open face or did the surfer attack the lip?

Speed: Did the surfer come out of the turn with more or less forward momentum?

Flow: Did the surfer link the maneuver? Or did the turn put the surfer behind the pace of the wave?

Power: Was there a large displacement of water coming off the rail of the surfers board?

This last question, The spray factor, outweighs the rest. Judges love when a surfer sends a fan of water to the horizon. Spray shows how clean the carve was through the face of the wave. It is indicator of how much weight was being driven through the heels or toe edge. A forehand turn done timidly, produces less spray. A gouge done with gritted teeth sends buckets out the back.

But from what I’ve gathered, it isn’t size that dictates spray, it’s strength and timing.

Kanoa Igarashi is often told he needs to fill out to be competitive on tour. However, he didn’t think he was at a disadvantage this year for being younger and lighter than some of his more physically developed competitors..

When I asked him if he thought size was an advantage on tour, he told me: “Honestly, I don’t think so. I think being strong has a bigger advantage than height and weight. Adriano is a prime example. Size only matters when you choose the wrong board for the conditions.”

After staring at this topic for too long, I concluded that it ain’t size that matters but conviction.

Surfers come in all shapes and sizes. Those that make it onto the Dream Tour do are there not because they’re physically superior to you and me. It is their conviction, a burning desire to improve on past expectations.

It is proper equipment, physical fitness and determination that makes a surfer WCT level. Hours of practice and perseverance through barriers that make one uncomfortable, has always, and will always, lead to success.

So what if you are six three, two-fifty and can’t grovel worth a damn! Add more volume under your chest and subtract a few cheeseburgers a week and you’ll be gliding where you once sank!

Five-five in socks and a hundred pounds dripping wet? Throw yourself over the ledge. Drown a little. You’ll only get better at handling the abuse.

Lack of performance due to size is an excuse only suitable in the bedroom.


Style: Are surfers ugly freaks?

The elements! They smite us! They smite us bad!

I was surfing swampy high tide lulls in southern California this morning. The water was a bit chilly but not too bad. The sun was dancing in and out of clouds. A man paddled out with a neoprene swim cap covering his head. Since it was so swampy and high tide lully I had much time to ponder and my first thought was, “Wussy.” But my second thought was, “I wonder if his wussy swim cap is going to protect him from surfer’s ear?”

And my third thought was, “Pterygium (surfer’s eye) is so unattractive.”

And my final thought was, “Are surfers ugly freaks?”

Are we?

Do we maybe think, after watching lots of surf movies and reading lots of surf magazines, that we look something like this?

62f5ce5a9ee23b1f4323119ad3fb33f2

Or fantastically rugged dispositions, jaws cut from granite, clear eyes gazing into a brave future like this?

nick_m

But with surfer’s ear and surfer’s eye and sun damaged skin and paranoia born of fighting over swampy high tide lulls with a bunch of wusses do we really look something like this?

gollum

Look at yourself honestly in the mirror.

Well. At least we have each other.


Jordy Smith Sunset
Jordy Smith's vicious, malicious and, on a good day, delicious! Wins Vans World Cup! | Photo: WSL

Just in: Jordy Smith Wins Vans World Cup!

Sunset Beach electrified by the world number two!

Crazy weather in our delightful archipelago this week. Rain rain rain. Post storm glass-offs are firing. I had my first surfing shark encounter of my life yesterday. Cracked wise to the wife before paddling out. “Yep, sunset session at a river mouth after heavy rain. Super smart idea.”

Decent-sized black tip, somewhere between six and eight feet long, surfaced and thrashed a few feet away. Spooky! Line up cleared immediately. I nearly booked for shore myself, but one courageous soul reminded me that’d be stupid. They’re always there. I see them when I dive. It’s a little scarier when there’s zero feet viz, but no reason to panic.

We got the line up to ourselves for half an hour. It was very fun. I’m glad he was there to lend me some balls.

Today wasn’t nearly as good, but still very fun. Got in a good session, came home to see that Sunset looking pretty good too.

Sunset’s an odd wave, in the contest of competitive surfing. It makes for killer still photos, often disappoints on video. It’s impossible to appreciate how difficult it is to surf from behind a computer screen. Usually looks like a semi-mushy closeout. Provides mostly low scores. Doesn’t really present a lip to hit, only occasionally offers a makeable barrel.

But it’s another story from the lineup. Grinding power, massive amounts of water moving around. The pros may paddle out on six sixes, but there’s a reason the guys who love the wave appreciate a lot of foam. Deep water scary spot. Easy to imagine under-the-lip takeoffs, but a normal human needs a plank that’ll get them in early.

I tuned in in time to catch Zeke Lau sneak though the first quarter final heat with a buzzer beater 5 point something. Good for the local kid. Replay shows that Frederico Morais was ripping.

Slater’s still in it? Crazy stuff. Billy Kemper’s gonna do well. He’s got the solid wave comp scene dialed these days. Might be because six foot Sunset ain’t shit compared to Jaws. More than enough to intimidate us normal folks, just a small fun day to a true charger.

Quarterfinal two was all about Kemper and T. Gudauskas. Super committed turns. Kemper hammered that rail into the face, put every ounce of strength into some delightful gouges. Unfortunately for Kemper, while he dropped some beauts he couldn’t link them for the score. Jack Robinson, on the other hand, could. Kemper may be the better surfer at Sunset, but Jack’s the better competitor.

Meister and Slater slid into the semis during the next heat. I was distracted by Meister’s OAM sticker. I always forget that’s still a company.

Meister threw a frontside finner that came as a shock. You can’t do those at Sunset.

Who was it that did the reverse a few years back? I’m drawing a blank.

A wicked storm blew through during lunch, but it’s gone dead calm again here on Kauai. I’m having a hard time justifying watching surfing rather than going surfing.

Parko and Jordy spent most of the fourth quarterfinal putting on a rail clinic. Surfing so smooth, so pretty. But Ewing and Andre both found solid scores in the final five minutes. Ewing unleashed on a right, but with a 2 something back up he was done. But Andre got lucky. 8.17 for an out of control backhand off the top to carve to reo. I don’t know, I thought the score was a bit high. But I’ll give it to him. Andre needs the points to stay on tour, I think. Parko got knocked to third, Andre scraped into the semis.

Too bad that John John got knocked out in an early round. But he’s still got a shot at wrapping up the Eddie, the Title, and the Triple Crown in the same year. That’d be pretty sweet. Damn hard to repeat.

Though, as far as the Triple Crown goes, and I know I’m not the first to point this out, the fact that the final event is a ‘CT number does hand an unfair advantage to guys on Tour. Morais is on fire in Hawaii. Second at Haleiwa, looking like a win at Sunset is likely. But he’s gotta battle through the trials to get into Pipe. Just like Rick Kane!

I think that’s how it works. I’m never sure with the Pipe wildcards. Changes too often to be certain. I’ve got Eddie Rothman’s phone number written down somewhere. Maybe I should call him and ask.

I go back and forth with my feelings about Sunset. On one hand, it’s such a waterman wave that it would be great to see it on tour. It’d play spoiler every year, be a near guaranteed loss for all the beach break specialists. But there’s only so many comp days you can run, and it’s great that the less famous heads get multiple chances to shine. I guess I can take it either way. Change is good, but the current system works well enough.

Oowee! Gudauskas is playing tactics in the final minutes. Chasing Zeke Lau across the lineup, trying to keep him off a wave. I think there’s a lot of drama going on I don’t understand. Qualification points or something. Maybe one of our lovely readers can enlighten me in the comments.

It worked for Gardaflopulous. He and Morais are in the final.

Semi two is kind of dragging. Jordy got a smoker, not much else going on.

But Ross and Kaipo shared some knowledge that sheds light on the Triple Crown scenario. Apparently Morais gets a spot at Pipe because he’s leading the Triple Crown rankings. That’s good.

Kaipo’s good too. WSL needs to put him on desk duty more often.

I got stung by a bee a few nights ago. Inside my home, at around midnight. It was the second most unexpected sting I’ve ever got. The first was when I went hiking in Ojai and a wasp flew up out of a pit toilet and stung my ass while I was taking a shit.

I blame it on my landlady’s son. The bee, not the wasp. He keeps hives on the property, always leaves wax strewn around after he harvests. It’s kind of annoying. Not a huge deal, bees don’t bug me. The biggest problem is accidentally stepping on the gobs of wax and then having to scrape it off your shoe.

He always gives us free honey. Pretty nice of him. They sell the shit for ridiculous amounts of money. People claim the organic Wailua honey has all sorts of healing powers or something. I don’t really care for honey, honestly. But I like the idea of it so I’ve always got a few jars in the cabinet.

Fucking Slater. Never enters Sunset, gives it a shot and almost makes the final. Of course.

I thought he had it locked up, but Meister’s little snap to layback off the top combo was enough to sneak into second.

Slater almost got it back with an inside barrel, but no dice. Still…all hail the king.

I just noticed, Kaipo looks taller than Ross at the desk. Very interesting. Kaipo is a good guy, but not a particularly tall one. Is he sitting on a couple phone books of something?

Final’s in the water. Mel says Gudasuskaks needs a first or second to qualify for next year. Pretty slow start. Jordy got a good one. Plenty of sitting.

Morais waited it out, found a good one, surfed it well. 8.23 put him in the lead.

Mel set the wildcard situation straight. Morais only gets a spot in the Pipe trials. Still gotta battle his way into the main event.

Seventeen minutes left. Wind at my house is still dead. I’d much rather be surfing. Hopefully Morais will grab a ten in the next minute, I can call it for him, then bounce the fuck out.

No such luck. Meister and Jordy both found gems. Jordy’s layback was fucking nuts. Jordy in the lead with 15.06. Morais now sitting second.

Walkie talkies in the lineup! Shades of Bradshaw and Beachley.

Morais got a good one, but didn’t get the score. Jordy held the lead for the rest of the heat.

Jordy Smith wins the Vans Sunset Pro. Cool, great, hooray.

I’m out of here. Couple hours of sun left, I’m gonna go slide some waves.


Rumor: Gabi daddy banned from WSL!

For allegedly making threats to judges! Death threats!

Gabriel Medina and his step-father Charlie’s relationship is as storied as any modern romance. Where would the younger Brazilian be without a steadying hand? Where would the older Brazilian be without access to riches and fame? Oh how the love between them is so thick you couldn’t cut it with even a brand new Gillette! So strong that you couldn’t explode it with a Samsung Galaxy 7!

But our world is dark and evil forces, tougher than Gillette stronger than Samsung may be conspiring to keep the two apart.

I was informed today that Charlie has allegedly been BANISHED from the shoreline during World Surf League events for one calendar year. Purportedly EXPELLED into outer darkness. And have you seen him on the beach thus far? The camera always pans to him but no. You haven’t. And why?

For supposedly maybe possibly threatening to OFF a surf judge whilst in Portugal. Perhaps murderous threats. Feasibly death threats.

Aye but love. True love.

And do recall when Gabi daddy, after stepson was defeated in the Hurley Pro, turned to the cameras and said:

I feel sad because they are clearly locking Gabriel. Just imagine if athletics would lock Usain Bolt. Or if swimming would lock Michael Phelps. It’s not cool. The kid born for the sport. He goes there and win, but sadly, five people here define what is good and what is bad. Its like a dictatorship.

A dictatorship!

So really, let’s be sincere here and study the facts. If Charlie did indeed make threats to surf judges whilst in Portugal and if surf judging is indeed a dictatorship then isn’t Gabi daddy a freedom fighter? Part of La Résistance?

Also, if he is doing it for love also doesn’t this quite basically make him Romeo to Gabi’s sweet Juliet?

Yes?

Is Gabi daddy a mix of Che Guevara and Lothario?

Such poetry!


great white

Sharks: “A Town in Anguish!”

How did a 70-click stretch of coast become ground zero for Great White shark attacks?

You hardly need me to remind you that the little stretch of coast from Evans Head to Byron has become ground zero for Great White attacks, an honour Cape Town and Margaret River were thrilled to relinquish. A potentially lucrative upshot if you’ve got a dive biz for thrill seekers or if you’re a surgeon specialising in combat wounds; not so great if you surf or if you’ve got little kids who like to catch a couple of reforms on their foamies.

In the past couple of years there’s been eleven attacks, two fatal, and innumerable near-misses on the seventy-click stretch. Nightmarish attacks. A swimmer killed in knee-deep water near the Pass by a Great White. A surfer killed by a Great White after it ripped off both his legs. 

Here’s a timeline of recent hits. 

Anyway, the government is about to drop nets and, good god, the you should see the weeping from the snowflakes who view it as the extermination of an entire species. You’d think kittens were being throttled in front of their mothers.

The reporter and surfer Fred Pawle has taken an active interest in the events and the public’s response. And, this week in The Australian, he presents a six-part series, with video, that provides the most comprehensive reporting yet on the saga.

In today’s episode, The Families, moms talk about spending every day shivering with fear that a husband or a kid’s going to end up in a box. And, as summed up by the shaper Phil Myers.

I’m just worried about my kids and my friends’ kids,” he says.”The mood in the water is a lot different. You don’t just paddle out and look for the waves and sit around and chat and everything. Everyone’s sort of looking this way, that way and up and down the beach, or you know, waiting for the helicopter to come over.”

Myers knew the region had changed when he went surfing at Shelly Beach one day in late 2014. “I was just out on my board, talking to some of my son’s mates, and I turned around and this thing came around behind me,” he says. “I was only 50 yards off the beach. And it laid beside me and I sort of sat on my board and looked at the tail, and then looked right along it. It was like a front of a jet, with these huge pectoral fins sticking out and this great big pointed nose.

“I just turned around the guys and said, ‘There’s a fucking white pointer down here, sitting right beside me’.”

A few months later, Tadashi Nakahara, a father and local surfer, was attacked and killed at the same beach. “It was like they arrived overnight,” Myers says. “It’s just not normal, mate. It’s not normal.”

Upcoming episodes include: The Conservationists, The Surfers, The Politics and Science, The Business Owners and Solutions. A new ep every day from today until Saturday.