Help: What do I wear on a SUP?

Jen See

By

A BeachGrit favorite turns her lonely eyes to you!

(Editor’s note: Jen is a staple on the comment board. Witty, insightful, fun and not afraid to mix it up. She is also a notable writer, with bylines in the Men’s Journal, Adventure Journal, Breitbart and Playgirl. Having her on BeachGrit is long overdue especially since our new tagline is “BeachGrit… the nexus where Breitbart and Playgirl meet!)

Shimmies through open door.

Looks around.

There sure is a lot of white space around here. I should do something about that, maybe.

Hi. I’m going to come visit you each week starting right about now. Up here. Instead of down there. It’s weird up here. The air is so thin. As my long-time friends will tell you, I’m bad at days of the week. Also, counting. So don’t expect this to be a predictable only on Tuesdays kind of deal. Sorry editors! Anyway I will make things for you. Maybe you’ll even like it. I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to make any rash assumptions.

In the meantime I totally need your expert advice. You see, this weekend, I have to go to a brand event and there is going to be SUPing. I’m never quite sure about correct usage here. I am going to do a SUP. I did a SUP. I am SUPing. Words are really fucking confusing sometimes.

It seemed like a good idea. This is the time of year when the surf where I live is super meager. I always know we’re deep in the summer flats when I start thinking of weird boards I’d like to ride that probably wouldn’t actually work in real life, but are fun to imagine.

Like, my current obsession is a super short Mini Simmons. As in, under 5’0”. I was riding a soft-top 4’6”, you know, one of those Beater thingies that Catch Surf makes, and thought, hey, maybe I should make one of these in foam and fiber glass. Yes, I know, this is a bad idea. But that’s what happens when there’s not really much in the way of actual surf. You get some really bad ideas.

Anyway you can see why I thought a trip down to Huntington Beach for some hot SoCal beach break action sounded good. Why the hell not, she said. It’ll be fun, she said. Also, there was going to be a surf lesson. I figured this is my chance! I could finally get better at surfing. That seemed pretty great, actually. I’d like to get better at surfing.

Then along came a hurricane and it ruined everything. You can’t do a surf lesson in a hurricane swell, because all the soft tops would get washed out to sea or something. I’m not actually sure what would happen, but no doubt it would be dire.

So I’m going to do a SUP. And I really need your help with this. I have so many questions.

Like first of all, what do I wear for this? There’s a guy who likes to do the SUP at one of my local spots. He wears quite bright red board shorts over a wetsuit. Also, booties. This approach seems aesthetically suspect. But maybe he’s right! Maybe this is totally correct style for doing the SUP. Do you know? Can you help me?

Also, I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall off it, because I’m good at falling off things. This seems like an important consideration in making style decisions. I would not want anything vital to fall off in the water.

Honestly, I am so worried about doing this whole thing wrong. What if I carry it backwards? Do the fins go first or last or somewhere in between? Also, the SUP looks big. I’m not sure my frail frame can support the SUP. Dropping the SUP would be bad, I think! But I’m afraid I might drop the SUP. Do I wax the whole SUP? Or wax it at all? I feel like it would take a lot of wax to do a SUP.

Do I carry the paddle jauntily down the beach with blade flying high, as though riding into battle? Or do I just drag it along behind me in the sand like a sad afterthought? I’m not even sure what to do with paddles, on the whole. My arms are already attached to my body, which is a way more convenient arrangement in my opinion.

I need you to help me do the SUP right, you guys! I’m totally counting on your wisdom to see me through this deeply uncertain time.

Also, if anyone knows where I can find a super short Mini-Simmons, let me know. I remain obsessed! Totally obsessed. And winter is still so very far away.

Comments
0
Load Comments
0

Sharks: “The new norm” at contests!

Chas Smith

By

The U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington will have two shark boats in the water. Unbelievable!

I told you just days ago that ex-WSL CEO Herr Paul von Speaker is sitting on his parlor’s settee and grinning smugly. Two roses rest in a floral Ashley Madison vase just below a Thomas Kinkaid limited-edition lithograph titled, The End of a Perfect day.

He was right.

When all was said and done, surfing is the most watched sport on the planet. And when our old flame went on Fox Business News and pronounced that it would be the most watched sport on the planet we all laughed. Laughed him right out of a job. But he was right and do you think he was thinking “sharks” all along?

Do you think he was considering warming oceans plus over-fishing times over-population equals an increase in shark on surfer action? Do you think he was calculating that it would only take one exceptional kick-off to get the numbers rolling that increased incidents would continue to pad?

He must have been, right?

And now, sharks at contests are the new norm.

Who would have ever even though, one decade ago, that the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, California would have two dedicated shark spotting boats controlling the lineup? The Orange County Register reports:

This week in Huntington Beach, where shark sightings have become the norm the past three years, organizers of the U.S. Open of Surfing aren’t taking chances with the 200 surfers from around the world who’ve come to their contest.

Guards contracted with the U.S. Open of Surfing will monitor the contestants from two personal water crafts, specifically watching for sharks, according to Huntington Beach Marine Safety Lt. Claude Panis, who met with event organizers this week to talk about shark safety measures.

“The organization is in constant communication with its athletes and event organizers regarding venues, safety protocols and response abilities,” the World Surf League said in a statement. “There will be multiple safety and response skis in the water during the US Open and we’ll be working with lifeguards to ensure everyone stays safe and has a great event.”

The possibility of a shark encounter is a statistically legitimate reality. Panis said there were 56 shark sightings at Huntington City Beach in 2015 and 36 sightings last year. So far this year there have been 17 sightings in the city beach area where the contest will be held. And while that number is down in Huntington, other spots along the neighboring coastline — in Dana Point and Long Beach — have seen a dramatic upturn this year, with sharks being sighted in some spots almost daily.

Lifeguards and the two private water craft operators will be in constant communication, Panis said.

Some 750,000 people are set to attend this year’s extravaganza and just imagine if they are treated to a great white snatching Brett Simpson’s board as he Huntington Hops down the line? Just imagine if young Kanoa Igarashi gets swallowed whole then gets spat on dry land like Jonah of old (unharmed except for a slight bleaching)?

Surfing will grow into the stratosphere and probably double all sports combined.

Yes, ex-WSL CEO Paul Speaker is grinning smugly next to his End of a Perfect Day.

A limited reproduction of Thomas Kinkaid’s End of a Perfect Day is part of the Paul Speaker permanent collection on loan to BeachGrit.
Comments
0
Load Comments
0

Buy: Stab and Magic Seaweed!

Ventura Spleen

By

SurfStitch "exploring sales of its media assets."

Oh, to have a bug under the boardroom table at leisure empire Surfstitch this week. With the company’s shares scraping along the bottom of the ASX like a stray driftnet, bumping off heads of coral at near penny stock valuations (seven cents at last refresh), the embattled board are fending off the hordes on myriad fronts.

To the north, the barbarians from Quinn Emanuel Lawyers are lining up trolleys full of lever-arch folders in preparation for a bloody class action lawsuit.

To the south, those infidels from Gadens are also preparing for jurisprudential bloodshed.

The silks claim that SurfStitch (which has the ASX code SRF) owes investors more than one hundred million Australian dollars in compensation for misleading and deceptive conduct (not to mention breaching its continuous disclosure obligations).

Simply, investors are pissed that the board told them in 2015/16 that the company was worth more than a pile of leggies and a rack of last season’s steamers.

The action seems a tad quixotic, given that the entire battered shell is now valued at less than twenty million. But what would stock spruikers and hedge funds and short sellers know about running a surf biz?

As the gavel hovers above their heads, SRF’s board has said it wants to settle “within a reasonably short period of time” on terms that basically will not sink the entire vessel.

“Whether that is achievable will, to a large degree, depend upon the cooperation of third parties, including the class action [law] firms and litigation funders,” the company said in a dire market announcement yesterday. “The requirement to manage two class actions, in different jurisdictions, with overlapping claims, is likely to make it more difficult to bring the matters to a controlled outcome.”

Indeed.

That’s business-speak for… fuck!

So how does SRF intend to fund these court battles? Are they ready to lift the lid on a war-chest full of purloined silver and gold coins from the strategic acquisitions they’ve made over the years?

Well, not exactly.

The best plan the board could come up with this week was to flog their lucrative media assets, Stab and Magicseaweed. Is that not raiding the crown jewels to fend off the marauding villagers?

“In the light of the challenges facing the business, the company is exploring sales of its media assets and the potential for sales of other assets,” the board told white-knuckled investors.

Now a little background.

SRF, with canny foresight into the value of a Red Bull-style vertically integrated synergistic media-product empire, paid a mere $13.8 million and 4.8 million shares for Magicseaweed and Stab magazine in the heady days of the 2015 Asia-Pacific surf media publishing bubble.

Granted, those precious 4.8 million pieces of scrip are now worth a princely A$336,000, but that’s beside the point. Surf media is bouncing back, dammit, and now is not the time to jettison those assets like captain Ahab trying to keep his trusty galleon afloat.

So, what’s your opinion on the SRF board’s litigation and solvency strategy?

Do you think they should save Magic Stabweed?

Should they instead move their headquarters to Venice Beach, file for Chapter 11, and come out shining like a debt-free American phoenix a la Quik?

Should they hunt down the handsome blond twin and tell him all is forgiven? Would he be able to steer SurfStitch back into calmer fiscal waters?

Should they post their swipe cards to the former Macbankers who came up with this cunning ruse, and suggest they take back the helm?

Or, better still, should the brunette brethren drive the share price down even lower, before blondie rides in leading a “white knight” private-equity-backed takeover bid, thus relieving fellow shareholders of the depressing sight of an SRF code every time they log into Commsec?

And, more poignantly, do the hard-working scribes at Magic Stabweed begrudge the fact that the board put them on the chopping block instead of dumping that bunch of expired patents masquerading as a fin technology company?

The drama. The excitement. The corporate manoeuvering. The intrigue.

Etc.

Comments
0
Load Comments
0
Of course, then you have someone like Alex Knost, who dances to his own beat, and whose infallibility I would never question!

Faux/Real: The Pro Soul Surfer!

Derek Rielly

By

Enchanted fairies or manufactured clothes horses?

Do you believe in fairies? I do.

I believe enchantment lies all around us.

My favourite fairy is the professional soul surfer, mostly men who are paid to project anti-capitalist, anti-contest personas. (The female equivalent, of course, is the sex toy surfer, paid to project availability, always photographed with hams elevated, glutes oiled, mouth parted and so forth.)

Earlier today, Chas Smith skewered the soul surfer Joel Tudor for his apparent hypocrisy over his no-booze sponsorship rule.  Read there here.  

Just after it was published, a surf industry man called me and told me a couple of stories about soul surfers and what he said was their overwhelming hypocrisy.

Story one: Standing on a cliff at La Jolla, in California, he watched as a pro soul surfer followed a man to the beach after a drop-in, kicked his surfboard until it snapped and then allowed his pals, who’d rushed down the steps, to pulp him.

Story two: During the Noosa Longboard Festival a very well-known hipster soul cat grabbed his leash and tried to fight him (the back story is, soul cat had dropped in four times and, on the fourth wave, nose-dived. Our surf industry man pushed the leashless board onto the rocks). On the beach, the same surfer that was at La Jolla (coincidence!), told our surf industry pal that he’d better watch his back. And, a little later, surf industry man was  warned by another soul person that if he went to the party night he’d be lured into a dark corner by the La Jolla man and have his arm snapped.

Oh we laughed and laughed.

And, suddenly, I didn’t believe so much in fairies.

But, you?

The Pro Soul Surfer.

Faux?

Or real?

 

 

Comments
0
Load Comments
0

Hypocrisy: Joel Tudor flouts no-booze rule!

Chas Smith

By

World-famous longboarder doesn't like beer sponsors! Or does he?

The internet is a cruel place in that it refuses to forget anything at all. Having an honest opinion about this or that and posting it somewhere, anywhere, online is a sure-fire road to later hypocrisy. Oh of course our beliefs evolve, we’re presented with new heretofore unseen, facts and figures etc. but does anyone accept change?

No!

And soon the honest opinion giver, the thrower of rocks, finds himself living in a glass house with a mob of other, different rock throwers descending.

Just like Joel Tudor!

Do you remember one week ago, at the stunning conclusion of the J-Bay Open presented by Corona when Mr. Tudor posted the following to his Instagram account?

In honor of the alcohol backed j-bay open @wsl & @corona – a partnership catered to the youthful demographic of 14-25 ….huge providers of trash …zero health benefits and probably the biggest gateway drug on earth BOOZE!!

Four days later he gave an interview to Stab‘s almost like new BeachGrit-certified writer Michael Ciaramella in which he said…

Yup. The devil’s poison. Biggest gateway drug on the planet. Kills tons of people every year. This is what the WSL, and the surfing industry as a whole, have been promoting since forever. Every clip you watch on Stab or Surfer is brought to you by Corona AU. Every surf trip on a boat, guys are chugging beers, you know what I mean? And who do you think they’re marketing to? Kids! Are you fucking kidding me? You’re handing it to them! It’s about time that bullshit switches, and I’m glad I’m the one to say it.

Exceeeeeeeeept…. the Internet and its forever memory!

Just two years ago, when Joel Tudor’s own Duct Tape Invitational was allowed at Huntington Beach it was presented by………..

Pacifico beer!

Oh there were many advertisements, both print and online, many featuring frosty cold bottles of Pacifico inviting, begging, the viewer to sit back and enjoy a cold one possibly with a cartoon friend.

And how do you think Joel should defend his glass house?

Comments
0
Load Comments
0
Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
EAT BEACHGRIT SPAM!
It's Daily!