Help: I Wanna be a Pro Surfer!

Chas Smith

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A "Choose your Own Adventure" part II!

Yesterday we began a wild choose your own adventure adventure. Read part one here and in a landslide (2 votes to 1) you chose a nice Newport Beach plastic surgeon over Mitchie Rollins (who was basically Richie Collins but many were confused). Today, we continue. Again vote either (A) or (B) in the comments! (Hint: If you are already tired of this misbegotten charade vote (B))

A nice Newport Beach Plastic surgeon

Your dad is totally great and everyone at school is way jealous. He works a lot but always makes time for your needs. Just last week he took you to the mall to get a new MacBook because you spilled acai all over your old one. He wasn’t even mad, telling you, “Look, son, into every life a little acai must fall…” while patting you on the shoulder and winking.

Next year you turn sixteen and he is going to get you a Tesla. You really wanted white but you overheard the cute girl in history telling her friend that her gaydar goes off when she sees a boy driving a white car so now you want black.

The family is always a priority. It is something he said he learned at Promise Keepers conferences when he and your mom first got married. “A strong man puts his family first and keeps his promises…” he used to tell you regularly.

He stopped saying it as much since he moved offices though, and got that super cute nurse assistant but…whatever. You know he cares.

Anyhow, you finish rubbing your eyes and look at him. He has an extremely apologetic look on his face and whispers, “Sorry, son… the door slipped out of my hand. Say, I was just checking to see if you wanted to go surfing before class today?”

You look over at your retro digital clock, see the number reading 5:32 and say…

a) Would love to, dad, but I’m too tired.
b) Ummmmm sure. Let me grab my stuff.

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Shark Hysteria Fools Chas Smith!

Michael Ciaramella

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Internet sleuths determine truth from finction!

Do you recall, four days ago, when Chas Smith wrote about LA’s latest “shark attack survivor”, Sophia Raab?  A young woman who now responds to the name Shark Bite?

Well, yeah… she was lying. Or brainwashed by social phenomena. I think. Let’s watch and find out:

Did you catch all that?

The tumble in the suds? The Great White attack in one foot of water? The fact that, during the clip, it shows a picture of her busted out fin?

It’s quite clear what happened here.

Kook is made aware of shark epidemic in SoCal, decides to surf anyway (for the love of it). Paddles in from her session, because there must not be another wave coming ever, and gets picked up by some whitewater near the shore. Tries to stand up but puts a little too much weight on the starboard rail, resulting in a raucous tumble. Is struck by fin while underwater, comes up, sees gash, mind goes directly to shark.

Even a shark expert agrees that Sophia’s wound doesn’t correlate with shark jaws.

“The injury does not appear to be the result of a shark attack,” Ralph Collier, President of the Shark Research Committee, told Surfline. “One of the skegs on her board is missing, the lifeguards said it looked like her board cut her leg and I must concur with their assessment. First, juvenile white sharks cannot produce a wound 4 inches deep as described by the physician. Also, the wound forms a right angle, 90 degrees, a shark’s upper and lower jaws are crescent shaped and would not produce the would we see in the photograph.”

In all fairness, I don’t think Shark Bite was purposefully lying. Rather, shark hysteria led Sophia to a sensationalist conclusion and a landlubbing doctor confirmed her fantasy. Once the gal changed her Instagram to @shark_bite_sophia, it was too late to amend her tale. Soph’s gotta carry this one to her grave.

This is much like Chas Smith with his shark hysteria propagation. Like Mick Fanning with his “behind-the-wave” shark punch. They’re not bad people — just misspoke in the heat of the moment!

Also, some people are irate that Sophia is using GoFundMe to support her medical bills, just because she sold the world a lie. While I understand the sentiment, I’m not sure I agree with the logic.

The girl suffered a gruesome injury regardless of its cause. Why should she only receive donations if attacked by a prehistoric beast? Are FCS1 users not a legitimate cause for charity?

Editor’s note: I have an identical (albeit smaller) scar on my right leg from the exact incident Sophia described. I always assumed it was my fin that caused the laceration. 

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Kelly Slater
Hello from Goat Hill Park, an 18-hole golf course in Oceanside, California!

Caught: Kelly Slater’s Rio Truant!

Derek Rielly

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Celebrates back injury with round of golf… 

Remember that one time you split school to play with teenage titties, catch some waves and shoplift a few trinkets? And your pal, whom you didn’t include in the fun, innocently asked your mother why you weren’t at school? (Or some variation thereof?)

Or you’re with someone you shouldn’t be, and they want a selfie, and you’re too polite to exit the frame.

Like, busted.

Kelly Slater, who is forty five, is the king of truancy, at least when it comes to the Brazil contest. He’s skipped Rio seven times: 1996, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2017.

And so your mammy smacked you down, you got grounded, no surf, no gal play etc.

Kelly Slater, who is forty five, is the king of truancy, at least when it comes to the Brazil contest. He’s skipped Rio seven times: 1996, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2017.

It ain’t a surprise. The waves suck most of the time, Brazil can get a little over-the-top, especially when you’re the personification of pro surfing, and as adaptable as Kelly is, in 2017 anything better than a ninth would’ve been a miracle.

Here’s what Kelly said two days ago:

 “I won’t be in Rio and I don’t know how long I’ll need. My lower back has been in constant pain for the last three years and although I’ve been able to fight through it with short stints of rehab, it hasn’t fixed the problem. If I don’t do this now, at some point, I’ll ruin my body. I’m spending the next five weeks rehabilitating with WSL Doctors in Australia and we’ll see how I feel after that. 

Five weeks rehab?

Hello golf course!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT5iIWlB2_s

Here’s an interesting stat.

Kelly has won Brazil three times, 1997, 2003 and 2009. Each win came after missing the previous year’s event.

Does this mean, 2018, Rio, Kelly wins?

Would that be a wonderful miracle you think?

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Do you even vert?

Watch: Unseen Mason Ho Footage!

Michael Ciaramella

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So good I watched it twice!

Y’ever found a crisp twenty in an old pair of jeans? Nothing better, am I right?

Now, imagine that your gig is a surf filmer/editor. Imagine you were assigned to make a movie about Mason Ho, titled License to Chill. Imagine that, probably for clickability reasons, you were told to splice that movie into a handful of digestible ten-minute segments. Now imagine that, after finishing the entire project, you completely forgot about one of the sections that had been produced.

First of all, how? Ten-ish minutes of watchable surf content is not easy to create from an athletic nor an artistic point of view. I find it hard to believe that Mason Ho — the surfer — plus Joe Alani and Rory Pringle — the filmer/editors — could simply forget about something they’d worked that long to create.

But apparently that’s what happened. They say:

Oops, just found this one we never released on the first go around. Mason, Pops and Cheeseburger making sense of the chaos that is Rocky Point. Could be another Pipe segment and some misc stuff that’s deep in the archives. 

By Mason Ho X Rory Pringle X Joe Alani

Despite their forgetfulness, we find ourselves in a rare win-win situation. The boys have located their long-lost Rocky Point segment, and now the masses get to devour it.

We found a twenty and bought some pizza!

Watch the clip here!

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The wave can be scaled to any size, they say. This one's called 'Ant'

Watch: The Cove Looks… Fun!

Michael Ciaramella

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Tell me they host birthday parties!

Two days ago we showed you a first glimpse at Wavegarden’s “Cove”. It was an abstract look at revolutionary technology and, despite purposefully obscuring the wave’s size and length, the video showed promise.

Today, Wavegarden revealed an in-depth demonstration of The Cove’s potential. Watch!

First thoughts?

Looks damn fun, but nothing like Slater’s joint. The wave is smaller, shorter, and less perfect then Lemoore, but it can produce 1,000 waves per hour. Simple arithmetic calculates that at a wave every 3.6 seconds, which would clearly be awful, if it weren’t for a previously overlooked variable.

Unlike Slater’s pool, The Cove can operate simultaneously as a right and left-hander, bringing the true period to roughly seven seconds — a much more respectable range. Why they opted to disregard the left in this clip, I’m not sure. Maybe this is only a half-version of the pool?

On top of controlling wave speed, shape, and height (to a degree), The Cove can be scaled to any size, depending on how much money and energy a developer would want to invest.

The wave in the video comes from a prototype pool in the Basque region, used mostly for R&D. Because they received such outstanding feedback from pros and punters alike, Wavegarden has (apparently) sold pools to the following locations around the world:

Some noteworthy testimonials include:

Seabass – The short interval is better for beginners and really experienced surfers as well
Wilko – You get barreled then come out and do a few turns, then you look behind it and it’s just another one and another one and another one…
Filipe – Ees really good training
Josh Kerr – There was no shortage of waves, that’s for sure. There were almost too many [laughs]
Gab – My knees, they stiiiing

And the pros have it right. A perfect wave is nice, but in terms of profitability, wave quantity is king. Slater’s ten-wave-per-hour wonder is something I’d pay good money to ride, but that means nothing to a savvy businessman.

Money is in the masses, not the niche.

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Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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