Surf photographer: “Whoa chill out!”

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

An amateur British surf photographer has a message for rage-filled locals!

On my many travels I have been to Scotland’s Edinburgh, North Ireland’s Belfast, Wales’ Cardiff but I have never been to England’s Cornwall. Its beating surf heart. I should certainly rectify this and yesterday’s dust between a photographer and angry locals made me want to move my trip right up. I love angry locals! And would you like to a recap from CornwallLive?

We all know Cornwall has its fair share of secret surf spots. Waves that may break just a few times a year and that only the locals are supposed to ride.
And we all know how angry surfers can get when their favourite surf spots are revealed.

But now an amateur photographer has landed himself in hot water across the Tamar after taking pictures of rare waves in Plymouth Sound and he’s hit back. Surfer Ben Landricome said that he has received a number of threats since he snapped pictures of the secret surf spot on Saturday, January 6.

He said: “I just wanted to share my pictures. I had no idea the trouble it would cause with the local surfers.” The 36-year-old said that angry surfers having been sending him threats ever since the photos went online.

Ben, from Plymstock, said that some of them had sent him private messages to tell him off for revealing the secret spot.

He explained: “They said they were going to beat me up. I thought ‘woah chill out’. “They’re acting like they own the ocean.”

Jake Yates said: “This should be taken down now. For years it’s been a secret and now one post like this could just go and spoil it for everyone else that has known about it for years.”

Luke Daniel Smith said: “You have got to surf to understand it’s like life out there now there is a chance little scum bags will ruin it for others.”

Cohen Grayling said: “Took us local surfers years of travelling around looking at surf spots at different tides and on different size swells for out advantage. Then one picture and it’s all over.”

Dave C Jones said: “Now everybody will be down there. Thanks Herald.”

But Ben added that he would never encourage anyone to try out the spot – as it is very difficult and dangerous to surf there. He said: “I think it is the most dangerous wave in England. You’ve got to know what you’re doing.” Speaking of the waves themselves, he said: “It is super rare, it probably only happens about three times a year. “There are usually about four or five guys out there when it does happen.

“It’s a shallow reef so one wrong decision and you could crack your head open.

“Some sets of waves were about 4 foot, but it’s hitting on reef so that means deep water hitting shallow reef to produce the wave – way more powerful than a beach wave.”

Old Ben from Plymstock is my new favourite British surf personality (sorry Rip Current Rory). His nonplussed approach to online abuse/continued helpful explanation about the “secret wave” is exactly what the world needs more of. Don’t you agree? I mean, lets be honest. The video of the photographer cowering while spitting high-pitched lawsuit threats was the very bottom of that barrel. Ben from Plymstock sets a new standard in decorum.

(Video on loan from Stab’s permanent collection)

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I fooking told you and I swear on the painful death of our children: I did not buy that 600 pound GSI Hypto in the garage! Or the snowboard I'm too afraid to open.

Femdom: “I hide surfboards from my wife!”

By JP Currie

7 years ago

Secret surfboards help my relationships flourish!

It’s true. I do hide surfboards from my fiancé. New boards live in the van or the shed, places she has no business in.

Recently, late at night and under cover of darkness, I found myself on my knees on the living room rug, surreptitiously stroking a new board. I caressed the foil and froze like a frightened young hind whenever I heard movement from other rooms.

A new snowboard cowers in the corner of my shed, still shrink-wrapped after more than a month. I persevere with an old board for show: “Look, darling, look how knackered this old board is! Aren’t I good for not getting a new one this season?”

Does this make me a bad person, less of a man? Should I be ashamed of this behaviour? I think not. An economy of truth is necessary in a healthy relationship.

Have you seen the movie Interstellar? Let me introduce an insightful dialogue between the main character (Cooper) and his artificially intelligent robot companion (TARS):

Cooper: Hey TARS, what’s your honesty parameter?
TARS: 90 percent.
Cooper: 90 percent?
TARS: Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.

Are not women the very definition of “emotional beings”?

There is no reasoning, there is only the path of least resistance.

But not everyone gets this. On that podcast Afternoons with Chas and Dave or whatever it’s called, David Scales (a divorced man in his late thirties, interested in wine) lambasted me for a comment I made on this very site, a comment about hiding board purchases from my significant other.

And while I can’t remember the exact jist (or perhaps jiss) of his comment, it was something along the lines of this being a bad omen for my relationship, lack of communication etc.

Spoken like a divorced man in his late thirties, interested in wine.

My relationship is great. Without going full Rory Parker on you, my fiancé is wonderful. Attractive, funny, compassionate, incredible mother, all of that.

But I’m sure all of that would become untenable if she knew just how much fucking time I waste thinking about my universally, globally useless obsessions. Much less spending the modest amounts of money we have on them in lieu of a new kitchen, a family holiday or plain old “savings”.

Does my significant other hate surfing? No. Does she hate that I love surfing? Not at all.

Is she dead right that new boards will not make me surf better/more often? Yes.

Is she rightly concerned that a man in his thirties with a child and a mortgage and a dog and soon to be another child should prioritise any one of these things over his own selfish agendas? Absolutely yes.

But as much as I love my family, some things need to remain just mine and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We’re not one of these happy-clappy wanky couples who enjoy wonderful shared passions. We have shared interests, but I’m bloody glad they’re not the things I really love. I can’t imagine anything fucking worse than having to take her surfing.

I know couples who work together, play together, socialise together, all of that. They call each other “best friend”, despite seeming constantly on the verge of spousal rage killing. I love my future wife dearly, but she sure isn’t my bloody best mate.

Call me old fashioned, but I’ve got best mates for that. And I don’t shag them or cry in front of them either.

In relationships and in life, some things are best compartmentalised or kept to yourself entirely.

For me, surfing is one of those things.

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Day 5: Stab keeps lips sealed!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Still nothing about the greatest story of the year!

And the great Stab magazine, which rumor tells me is no longer a “magazine”, from Lawndale, California continues its silence on the greatest matter of our year. The merger of Quiksilver and Billabong. We are rounding the bend toward a week, one whole week, since the news broke and yet Stab maintains its silence. Why? Is it because two of its writers are employed by Quiksilver? Is it because Billabong’s Iggy Pop appears on its homepage every single day?

I don’t know but like any good and true surf journalist I have come under fire for continuing to beat this drum. A great friend told me what I am doing is akin to masturbation. Here is a transcript of our conversation.

Friend: It looks to me like you are masturbating. Nobody is involved in this thing but you.

Chas: No. I’m involving Stab everyday and I think masturbation is bad.

Friend: In relation to heterosexual fulfillment?

Chas: In relation to everything — orgasm, heterosexuality, to style, to be able to fight the good fight. I think masturbation cripples people. It doesn’t cripple them altogether, but it turns them askew, it sets up a bad and often enduring tension.

Friend: Is it possible that you have a totalitarian attitude against it?

Chas: I wouldn’t say all people who masturbate are evil, probably I would say even some of the best people in the world masturbate. But I’m saying it’s a miserable activity.

Friend: Well now we’re getting into this notion of absolutes.

Chas: To what end? Who benefits? Masturbation is bombing. It’s bombing oneself.

Friend: I think you are assuming masturbation involves violence to oneself. Why is it not pleasure to oneself?

Chas: Well, if one masturbates, all that happens is, everything that’s beautiful and good in one, goes up the hand, goes into the air, is lost. Now what the hell is there to absorb? One hasn’t tested oneself. You see, in a way, the heterosexual act lays questions to rest and makes one able to build on a few answers. Whereas if one masturbates, the ability to contemplate one’s experience is disturbed.

Friend: So you are not masturbating on Stab?

Chas: No. It’s called bukkake and it is different altogether.

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Gimme: The perfect surf car!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

Forget that weird #vanlife!

My very first car was a three-on-the-tree 1960 Ford Falcon in Grabber blue. It was a fine car, though I had to learn the intricacies of clutch play while rolling backward down hills very quickly. My favorite car was either a 1972 MG Midget that would run out of gas lots because its gauges didn’t work but it was so little that I could easily push it OR a 1993 white Ford Bronco that may well have been O.J. Simpson’s. It caught fire in the Surfing magazine parking lot one blustery day and almost burned southern California to the ground.

But what about you? What is your favorite car? What car do you drive now? Do you dream of upgrading? What about to a custom surf wagon?

The car website Jalopnik posted this masterpiece a few days ago, which happens to be for sale in Hawaii, and made very much fun. Let’s read?

Wood paneled surf wagons from the late-40s and early-50s are undoubtedly cool. Mercury Sable station wagons are not cool. “But what if you combined them” you ask to the frightened man sitting next to you on the bus. He quickly looks away.

Some mastermind in Hawaii has an answer to that question on the form of an ill-advised $17,500 Craigslist purchase. That’s right, you can now buy your very own “50 TIN WOODIE SURF WOODY CUSTOM WAGON.” That’s two different spellings of “woody” for the price of one!

This… surf wagon(?) started life as a “NEWER MERC WAGON” and has been transformed into what looks to be a Ford from 1950 if you got hit in the head with a slow-pitch softball. The seller does not specify what wagon it came from but be assured that it “DRIVES SMOOTH AND CORRECT,,.” The 3.8-liter V6 appears to be out of a Mercury Sable wagon which ended production in 1995.

The owner of this nightmare version of a 1950s surf wagon states that it’s a great investment and that it won “LOT OF TROPHIES ON THE MAINLAND.” The ad also states that it has all the modern options. I don’t know what that means in this vehicle but I doubt it has lane-assist or radar-guided cruise control.

It might be a service to society to drive this wagon back into the ocean from whence it came.

Well? You in?

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Day 4: Stab a verbally abused husband!

By Chas Smith

7 years ago

It's getting embarrassing.

It has been four entire days since Quiksilver and Billabong merged into one company and not one peep from Gardena, California, the town Stab magazine calls home. Nothing at all but The Best Travel Bags For The Minimalist Three-Board Traveler, Surprise: Matt Banting Is Back!, Watch: Gabriel Medina Gets Steamy In Hot Music Vid!, The Art of Losing Your Mind, What Does It Cost To Qualify For The CT?, and The Burleigh Single Fin Festival: Beers, Boobs and Bummer Waves.

No Quiksilver. No Billabong. No merger.

At first I thought there was something insidious behind the silence around the biggest story of the year. That Stab was angling to become the vehicle in which “synergies” and revamped “brand identities” were rolled out to their unsuspecting public.

Now I realize Stab‘s staff is just a dime-a-dozen verbally abused husband, pushed into the corner by a relentlessly petty yet vicious wife and fully neutered.

At this point if they publish something it will be seen as a spineless capitulation due my harangues.

But if they don’t publish anything it will also be seen as a spineless capitulation due my harangues.

The narrative, you see, has been set for them and like the verbally abused husband its always easier to lower a shamed head, take the name-calling and pretend she doesn’t mean it.

Well I mean it you lily-livered bunch of worthless twats!

Stab’s embarrassing head-in-the-sand routine is emblematic of what is generally wrong with today’s surf industry. A refusal to deal with, much less enjoy, confrontation/reality. The damn thing becomes more and more like The Inertia every day and I mourn its loss.

While continuing to berate.

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Eat beach grit spam!