Could a skimboard decapitate a man? What about a
Wavestorm?
The Jaws Sessions, as they have come to be
called, are reaching legendary status in our surf world. January
13th and 14th saw some of the biggest ever surf at Maui’s iconic
spot and the lineup was filmed with all manner of surfer, towed
surfer, photographer, ski driver, etc. Albee Layer weighed wrote
about the madness and thrill on his Instagram account.
The water safety thing is ridiculous. The fact photographers
are willing to give more money for a photo than surfers for their
safety is ridiculous. We need to find a way to put surfers in
contact with water safety and maybe a gofundme site or something so
they can’t be bought out by photographers. There are a lot of great
water safety teams here, but after years of saving random people
for no reason it makes sense they would rather hang in the channel
making $600 cruising around with a photog. Lets work together to
fix this because it puts everyone in danger including those of us
who hire water safety. With a wall of skis trying to get the shot
waking up the inside and getting in the way.
It sure does sound very chaotic with many moving parts, people
things and you can watch this fine compilation from Surfer
magazine, paying special attention to the 2:40 mark.
And was that a transfer to skimboard? It most certainly was.
Firstly, I must say, whoever did is a very brave man.
Secondly, with board transfers being all the rage I am curious
as to the etiquette. You’ll notice his Wavestorm goes flying out
the back which is, I assume, the best possible scenario but what if
it accidentally catches the wave too? Is that bad form sending a
foam missile through the crowd? Are you supposed to have a
dedicated Wavestorm clean-up man who fetches it or are they single
use? Have you ever been hit in the face with a Wavestorm? Did it
hurt or did it feel like a pillow fight?
Also, you’ll notice the brave man becomes dislodged and his
little disc skitters away. Could a skimboard take a man’s head
off?
I’ll get to the bottom of these questions soon. In the meantime,
off to Davos.
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Surf media: The art of losing cool!
By Chas Smith
To hell with the high road!
It has been almost one week since
Stab’s new editor Ashton Goggans and I met in pastoral San
Clemente, California. There, you may recall, I completely lost my
cool and flew over the reclaimed wood coffee table betwixt us and
tried to silence the portly man by use of strangulation. Though I
haven’t carved out the time to listen yet (you can here!)
I imagine it sounds choked and ugly. Still, even after almost one
week of reflection, the only thing I would change is that I would
have gone over the table sooner and more often until that smug,
smarmy bastard either fled or fought.
I don’t like Ashton Goggans one little bit. His behavior during
his brief stint in surf media has been marked by two-faced
artificiality and self-serving stabs in the dark. To simply play
the game, as it were, of smiling and nodding while being subtly
underhanded and demeaning bores me to no end. I have purposed to
say what I feel even if what I feel is wrong.
Now, many if not most of the reviews of the podcast have been
unkind, focusing on how Ashton utilized my button pushing tactics
and how I was too thin-skinned to put up with the abuse. The
classic he-can-dish-it-but-can’t-take-it argument. All fine and
good except when have I ever been a proponent of taking it? I
nudge, poke, cajole and grenade throw from this tiny little soapbox
precisely to get a reaction. Some heartfelt scream that
can be employed, at the very least, in the cause of entertainment
and at the very most in making surf media great again. Real
opinions, real beliefs as opposed to snide, cool silence.
Keeping one’s cool, I think, is most important when dealing with
children or the mentally/physically compromised but has replaced
genuine communication, and real fun, in our surf world. To hell
with measured responses, I say. To hell with neatly worded yet
empty digs.
To hell with the high road.
And no, this speech is not cribbed from the great Martin Luther
King Jr. though I understand your confusion.
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The Australian Harry Bryant, who flew to Los Angeles to
join What Youth on their reader-funded road trip.
What Youth: “Advertorials make our skin
crawl!”
By Derek Rielly
Newport surf media house holds cup out to readers
to fund surf movie!
Seven years ago or thereabouts, the creative
muscle behind Surfing magazine flew the coop and started
What Youth, a
print mag and online portal.
Recently, What Youth, who get their money from making
well-crafted, sponsor-funded online shorts, creating a gorgeous
office in Newport and providing salaries for half a dozen people
and so forth, held its cup out to the
readers.
“We need your help. We’re embarking on the first surf trip
for our new film. And that means we need some money,” the
magazine’s editor and co-founder Travis Ferré wrote on Kickstarter.
Wetsuits, signed photographs and a surfboard were offered to
benefactors.
With thirty four hours to go, $US5,500 had been pledged.
All that, the public cry for cash, for five gees?
Is What Youth, a cultural arbiter unlike any other
in surf, whose movies turned Chippa Wilson, Nate Tyler, Creed
McTaggart, Mitch Coleborn and Noa Deane into stars, on its knees
financially?
“This is honestly less about tough times, and more about wanting
to create good times,” says Travis, who is thirty five years old
but presents as someone more like twenty nine. “Crowd funding has
always been in the back of my mind as an interesting experiment…
I’ve also always thought our audience as a whole was more
participatory. And I love the idea of them being involved in
producing something with us. Something our style. Not just a reader
poll or something. Like, literally help us get somewhere.”
If you were to point a camera at Travis, right now, you’d find
him piloting a fifteen-seater Ford Econoline with two seats taken
out to fit in surfboards and cameras. The Australians Harry Bryant
and Mitch Coleborn are in the van, along with the Newport surfer
Colin Moran. They are somewhere on Interstate 5, between Los
Angeles and Santa Cruz.
“Just passed a slaughterhouse,” says Travis.
BeachGrit: Tell me everything about the movie, who,
where, how long, why?
Travis: At this stage, this trip is that first backfire as you
warm the car up for a long journey. We’ll see how this goes, log
some clips, set a mood and the rest will take shape after that. All
goes well, What Youth will have a full-length movie that
will come out before then end of the year. The response to this has
been overwhelmingly positive though, so I like the opportunities it
sets up. This was dialed in over a margarita the other night and by
the next day we went for it. So we’ll go nail this, hunt ramps and
see what happens next.
Is it a hipper version of Drive-Thru
California?
No, we’ll make something from this trip (maybe something of a
prequel) that may have that vibe I suppose, but we’re chasing a
bigger project and this will just be the first of many excursions
this year. Call this the pilot.
I see two sorts of surf media biz models, those who’ll
do any sort of advertorial for money no matter how demeaning (to
advertiser and website) and others, like you, and Warshaw too, who
don’t do anything by halves. What’s your
ethos re: advertorial? Would you, for instance, knock out a few
hundred words and a thirty-second half-assed short for five gees?
Would you generate a little fake news, say, ten best whatevers, at
five hundred a shot? Or does that make your skin
crawl?
Your examples above do make my skin crawl a bit, but I’ve found
ways that you can actually change “advertorial” to a far less
offensive word. More like a collaboration. Or partnership. We’re
more set in our ways of working to create valuable franchises like
“Fairly Normal”, “Afternoon Interviews”, What Youth short
films, and some new freesurfing based projects like What
Youth Parts that I think it will be a way to collaborate and
elevate surfers and their personalities alongside brands who
support them and us… It’s a long play, but we’re in this for the
long haul, not the quick buck, and hopefully we’ve established that
by now. We have a long history now of declined credit cards and
well-executed projects. So we’ll make it work one way or
another.
You can’t manufacture something like the act of surfing. Surfing
is about so much more than riding on a wave. And that sounds dumb
and cheesy, but it really is. I think we try to show that
mysterious magical part at What Youth — that strange
universe that surfing introduces us to that’s important.
Do you still make a print mag? If yes, is it long for
this world? Do you lose money with every issue?
Yeah, we still make a print mag. We actually gave the last one
away for free and it was gone in two hours. We don’t get rich off
making an expensive coffee table style magazine, and no, the
magazine is not exactly the future of media, but it’s also the
instigator of a lot of rad things we do. We love celebrating them
when they come out, it’s also a tangible thing that drives the
whole operation. I call it a wash financially, but it definitely
creates value for us, even if it’s not monetary.
We still make a print mag. We don’t get rich off making an
expensive coffee table style magazine, and no, the magazine is not
exactly the future of media, but it’s also the instigator of a lot
of rad things we do. It’s a wash financially.
You refused an invite to the Surf Ranch! Tell me why!
And did it hurt, even just a little?
There is no doubt in my mind riding that wave is “fun.” And
there is no doubt that there could be some insanely fun and rad
things we could (and hell, hopefully we will) do at that venue —
both on the wave and as an event space — but for me it still
represents the bottling up of something that should not and cannot
be bottled up. You can’t manufacture something like the act of
surfing. Surfing is about so much more than riding on a wave. And
that sounds dumb and cheesy, but it really is. I think we try to
show that mysterious magical part at What Youth — that
strange universe that surfing introduces us to that’s important.
The people, places and weird things I’ll never be able to explain
quite right are what it’s about. And being okay with that is okay
too.
Is it fun to have principles?
Absolutely not.
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Mavs: The Khloé Kardashian of waves!
By Chas Smith
Gets attention but for mostly for slightly awkward
missteps and also marries odd men!
My goodness gracious me, this Martin Luther
King Jr. weekend was alive with big wave spirit. All the social
medias were pumping out photo after photo, video after video of men
defying the odds. Conquering the sea. Jaws saw record wave heights,
according to Albee Layer, but also featured wild crowding and
minimal water safety. The Maui local took to Instagram after
decrying the dangers associated with a fever pitch of
popularity.
Pipeline was fabulous, Waimea looked classic and hosted Kelly
Slater, island outer reefs hosted Nathan Florence but what about
Maverick’s? Oh, everything was seeming almost perfect for the World
Surf League to run its event but then winds went wrong and the
swell wasn’t quite right and in the end nothing happened and the
eyes of the globe danced to other corners.
Which made me wonder. If big waves are like the Kardashians
which is who? I think:
Jaws = Kim Kardashian: Right? I mean, it is
very hard to argue that Jaws is not the most photogenic and talked
about big wave in the world right now. She gets all the attention
and figures out new ways to stay relevant.
Waimea = Kris Jenner: The mama of all big
waves. An ageless classic.
Teahupoo = Kourtney Kardashian: Quietly goes
about its business from year to year without much change.
Nazaré = Scott Disick: Kourney Kardashian’s
ex-husband (I think) manages to stay in the spotlight but many
question if there’s any substance.
Punta de Lobos = Cassandra Marino: Only
four people know that Cassandra is a Kardashian step-sister. Only
three people know that Punta de Lobos, in Chilé, is a big wave.
Todos Santos = Rob Kardashian: Remember Todos
Santos? It used to get lots of covers etc. but then everyone forgot
it was a big wave and stopped paying attention.
Pipeline = Caitlyn Jenner: Not
generally considered a big wave but so famous it can
choose whatever it wants to be.
Maverick’s = Khloé Kardashian: Gets attention
but for mostly for slightly awkward missteps and also marries odd
men.
Shipsterns = Kanye West: Very strange.
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Find a lake or whatever deeper than four metres and you
can stick your portable wave pool on it!
Shrewd: A portable floating wave pool!
By Derek Rielly
Two weeks to build, comes in big box, stick it on
lake or river!
Want a portable wave tank? Twenty-five metres
long, thirteen wide? Drag it anywhere, takes two weeks to assemble
(the parts come in a container), use river water, lake water
whatever and it costs something like a hundred bucks a day in
electricity to run?
Zero water consumption, low power bills?
Now that sounds like a biz that works.
Lately, you might’ve got the feeling that wave pools are
the new arms race.
Who’ll win? Who’ll be dashed upon the rocks of insolvency? Will
all of ’em prove to be monstrous white elephants, destined to become creepy concrete
pits when the surfers don’t come?
A slightly different angle on the game are the German companies,
City Wave and
Unit Park Tech. The Germans are into
the standing wave model, the sort pioneered by the American
Tom Lochtefeld and his Flowrider. Tom’s been in the game
since the eighties, opening that first Flowrider in Texas in 1991.
He knows the central problem to wavepools. They cost too much to
build, and way too much to run.
And the Germans, who usually get their first taste of surf
riding stationary river waves, aren’t adverse to the idea of this
kinda tank.
The Unit Surf Pool, by Unit Park Tech, is, according to the PR,
“a floating surf pool construction that brings a surfable deepwater
wave to any body of standing water… it operates on a natural body
of water which translates to an endless water supply and no need
for chemical water treatment.”
It’s a good sell.
Here’s how it works. Pumps bring the water up
from the river, the lake, whatevs. Water flows down the ramp, jets
or “hydraulic jump phenomenon” push it back up.
The first commercial version is at a joint called
Surf Langenfeld between
Dusseldorf and Cologne where the Unit Park Tech HQ is (history
lesson: Cologne was one of the heaviest bombed cities in World War
II, almost the entire population evaporated or evacuated).
Now, you’re not going to detour to Germany to jump on the damn
thing, in case you’re wondering it’s 34 Euro an hour to ride, but
it does show there’s a quick-to-build, cheap alternative to the
magnificent $20 million-plus structures being shopped around.