Australian surf company seeks to raise sartorial
bar!
The Rip Curl Cup in Padang Padang, Indonesia
has been a historically wonderful event. Didn’t Jamie O’Brien win
it once? I think he did. And didn’t a boat once shipwreck on the
reef there and spill tons of oil into the water but Rip Curl ran,
like, the next day anyhow? All foggy but I think true. And while I
may have general beef with Rip Curl for being overly conservative
and super afraid of hard-hitting surf journalism, we can totally
agree on Padang Padang.
The upcoming contest, which has a waiting period from July 10th
to August 1oth, is set to feature some of the most exciting surfers
alive. The lineup of international surfers includes:
1) Tom Curren
2) Mason Ho
3) Damo Hobgood
4) Bruce Irons
5) Kai Otton
6) Bruno Santos
7) Clay Marzo
8) Jack Robinson
9) Jacob Wilcox
10) Ryan Burch
“Of these ten international surfers…” Rip Curl notes in the
rules “…only eight will receive a spot in the event. Entry granted
on a first-come, best-dressed basis.”
First-come, best-dressed?
Best-dressed?
Now before you send me over to Stab magazine’s Morgan
Williamson’s house for an asymmetrical tongue
lashing (I’m worried that he’ll call my young child
mentally and physically retarded or write that my parents should be
euthanized for being “dumb fucks”) I know that the phrase
first-come, best-dressed is Australia’s equivalent to America’s
first-come, first-served.
But let’s pretend for a minute that it is literal. Wouldn’t that
be more fun? And which of the ten listed surfers is the best
dressed?
Tom Curren?
Clay Marzo?
Damo Hobgood?
I’m pulling for Damien and, Damien if you are reading please
feel free to stop by my house for a suit.
But who are you pulling for? Which of these ten is best-dressed
in your mind?
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Utopia: Electric Flying Surfboards!
By Derek Rielly
Twelve thousand dollars apiece! Plus shipping and
tax.
A little real talk. Most of us are butchers on
our surf crafts.
We either go too slow, too fast, we’re too loose, too
stiff, our cutbacks are too far on the face or we pointlessly
launch into the air.
At some point, surely, a surfer recognises the futility of
time and money wasted and moves towards a pursuit that
suits his failings. Golf, for instance, or wandering, ever so
sadly, around shopping centres on Saturday mornings with wives who
long stopped reciprocating affection or desire, who feign sleep in
bed, whose bodies stiffen at your touch.
Which is why the clip below elevates my heart rate and kicks my
spirits into the skies. Surf like the Hawaiian prince Kai Lenny on
a hydro-foil and… best part… no skill necessary!
The electric flying surfboard’s inventor Nicholas Leason
explains his vision:
To harness the power of a wave and surf like a bird,
although extremely rewarding, is difficult. Not because riding a
foil is hard, but controlling the source -flying a kite or surfing
a wave- takes skill. To harness that type of power and gain
excellent control is something that may take years to
master.
So I set out to make it easy.
I started with the simple task of strapping an electric
motor to our foils. My team and I took some parts we had in the
shop, cut holes in them, bought some parts off the shelf and pretty
much duct-taped pieces together. It took some tweaking, but
eventually we got our first ride of about 50 feet.
From that moment on, I was possessed. Imagine taking
someone that has never dreamt of surfing, deep powder snowboarding
or flying. A person that doesn’t live the extreme lifestyle and
within minutes they feel it all. They’re soaring like a bird,
carving butter smooth turns and experiencing the freedom of flying
through the freeways of the ocean, rivers or lakes. That was my
goal, but what I thought would take a year to build took a whole
lot more.
Anyway, took a few years, but the company Lift Foils is
taking pre-orders for their electric flying surfboards. They cost
twelve thousand American dollars, plus shipping and tax, and you
gotta sling ’em a six-gee deposit to show ’em you’re serious.
The skinny: Cristian Bosco, a Spanish-born surfer, went
on a trip to Bali to experience its surf and culture. A
month-and-a-half later, still enjoying his Indonesian sojourn,
Cristian experienced an incessant nosebleed. A trip to the hospital
resulted in devastating news -- he'd contracted acute lymphoblastic
leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The Balinese
doctors are incapable of treating the disease, and because he lacks
proper travel insurance, Cristian is unable to fund an emergency
medevac back to Spain -- a one-way fare of $140,000.
Play God: Save another Surfer’s Life!
By Michael Ciaramella
Help a dumb-ass who went to Bali without travel
insurance…
Be honest, when was the last time you did a
good thing?
I won’t utter the term selflessness, because in this
condition we call human, there are only selfish actions. Bank
robbers are just as selfish as Red Cross volunteers are just as
selfish as Trump re: ice
cream.
Certain types of selfishness are more socially justifiable than
others but, in the end, we do what makes us feel good. Sometimes
feeling good means rolling around in a pile of undeserved
Franklins, other times it means giving the shirt off your back.
This time it could mean saving a life.
The skinny: Cristian Bosco, a Spanish-born surfer, went
on a trip to Bali to experience its surf and culture. A
month-and-a-half later, still enjoying his Indonesian sojourn,
Cristian experienced an incessant nosebleed. A trip to the hospital
resulted in devastating news — he’d contracted acute lymphoblastic
leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
The Balinese doctors are incapable of treating the disease, and
because he lacks proper travel insurance, Cristian is unable to
fund an emergency medevac back to Spain — a one-way fare of
$140,000.
According to his crowdfunding page, Cristian
is stuck in Bali while the disease continues to worsen. Happily,
the surfing community has contributed up to 82% of the medevac fee,
and there’s still time left to donate. Surely, by 2017,
you know what to
do.
While weighing your options, keep in mind that this could happen
to any single one of us. When was the last time you got your entire
body scanned for tumors? Never? Yeah, Cristian probably hadn’t
either.
Plugging tunnels one day, bed-ridden and dying the next.
C’est la vie.
So don’t be selfish. Or, actually, do. But be the good kind of
selfish and donate today!
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Help: We’re hopelessly diseased!
By Chas Smith
The "is surfing a sport?" debate laid to rest
forever!
The sun set at its normal time last night and
Michael Ciaramella came over to examine a bee
colony currently infecting the roof of my home’s
guest unit. I had noticed the bees a few weeks ago, maybe a month,
flying in through a vent. Worldwide bee die-off is a serious
problem, I think, so was happy to host the bees at first but then
they spilled outside the roof and it is time for them to move.
Michael told me it, is in fact, past time. That the bees’ honey
will drip down the walls and cause lasting damage. I entertained
just giving them the whole guest unit but living next to the
world’s largest hive could prove problematic.
After he left I poured another drink and scrolled through
Instagram, stopping on a picture of Julian Wilson threading a very
fine barrel at Cloudbreak that was shot earlier that day. I then
went over to Julian’s own Instagram feed and saw that he had been
home just one week ago.
And it was either the bee infestation or the other drink but it
really struck me how hopelessly diseased we all our. Very infected
with surfing. Julian Wilson had been on Tavarua through the final
day of competition at Cloudbreak two weeks ago, having made it all
the way to the quarterfinals. He then flew home and then flew back
to surf some more and just because. Not for points or for glory or
fame or any other reason, as far as I can tell, than just
because.
The NBA season ended a few weeks ago as well and what if LeBron
James, say, went straight to New York and played all day in pick-up
basketball games? What if Russell Westbrook flew straight to France
so he could play on some new courts?
Sure, all next level athletes train in their
offseasons but Julian Wilson isn’t training for J-Bay by going
back to Cloudbreak. He was, I think, compelled by a good swell and
the never satiated desire for barrel.
I think this addiction that all surfers share, to some extent or
another, is precisely why surfing isn’t a sport. Why it is
nearer the opioid crisis than any other professional league. But
what do you think?
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Just look at the numbers!
GET RICH: Invest in Occy’s new wave
pool!
By Derek Rielly
A potential weekly revenue of six hundred thousand
dollars!
Mark Occhilupo, world champion of 1999, is the
“surf industry advisor” of a new wave pool company who wants you to
send cash to help ‘em fill the sudden need for artificial
waves.
Surf Lakes (Everyone Gets a Break) has issued an
investors information memorandum “to raise up to $5,250,000 at 0.10
per share.”
Are you a dreamer? Do you wish you had something you could
shovel money into? Something that would change the world for the
better? Gift you an endless supply of waves? Will Surf Lakes fulfil
this criteria?
The numbers are formidable.
According to the Memorandum, it costs half the price of
Wavegarden’s new tank The Cove to build (Fifteen mill instead of
thirty), creates more than double the weekly revenue of The Cove
and two hundred times more than Slater’s pool (Six hundred gees
versus two fifty k and three gees), creates 2400 waves per hour vs
1000 (The Cove), dwarfing estimates of fifteen for Slater’s
pool.
So how’s it work?
Well, the tech ain’t immediately obvious, it’s not as if they
provide diagrams of the machinery, but judging by the artist’s
impression of the tank, it’s a vertical plunger that goes up and
down to create a circular ring of waves, like the concentric rings
created when you throw a stone into a pool.
You’ll get a throwing peak takeoff, with a wave that loses size
rapidly after the initial takeoff. Plenty of waves created, but
only a few you’d throw cash at.
Physics, right?
I may be wrong, but the artist’s impression implies a wave
height that remains the same through the length of the wave. I
can’t see it happening. You’ve watched that footage of the Cove?
See how it quickly it loses size?
It isn’t a deal breaker, not even close. I can’t wait to spend
days, weeks, months, riding that damn tank. Thousand bucks for a
season pass? I’ll take it. It’s better than any wave I’ve seen
recently.
But, why not aim for greatness instead of good-ish? Greg Webber
(Oh, I can hear the groans! Show us something!) the shaper
turned eternal promiser of a wave pool utopia, puts it this
way.
“None of these things are as good as the great natural waves on
earth. Not one of ‘em… yet,” says Webber. “That’s what’s
gotta be done, to get to the same level as the great waves that we
already surf on earth. It’s gotta be as good if to succeed at a
global level.”
Webber says his full-scale prototype, which is 300 metres long
by 150 metres wide, is going to be built somewhere between Brisbane
and the Gold Coast, and construction could, if all things go well,
begin in a couple of weeks.
Surf Lakes says it’s already build 1:25, 1:10 and 1: 5
proof-of-concept protos with a full-sized tank being built in
Queensland and ready, it says, by the end of the year.
I tell Webber I think the wave pool market appears overcooked.
So many tanks chasing money. So few potential customers.
Webber tells me I’m wrong. He says that the “potential market is
off the chart based on all the normal mechanisms that exist, the
capitalistic world in combination with one of the most addictive
activities on earth. If you can give this experience to another
human being, a two-metre wave that lasts twenty seconds, and it
costs one dollar and you can charge ten…”
It’s a point.
“The waves so far are pretty good,” says Webber. “They’re not
the same as the amazing waves we’ve already got but it’s the
repeatability. We’re distracted by that. It’s neat and clean and
keeps repeating itself. But is it throwing the same way as the
great waves that we really enjoy? You’ve gotta be able to get deep
inside that thing.”