Brodie Jenner
Happy groom Brodie Jenner with daddy/mommy Caitlyn Jenner neƩ Olympic gold medallist and step-daddy to Kim, Khloe, Kendall etc Bruce Jenner.

Quasi-Kardashian rents world’s most expensive surf resort!

Derek Rielly

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And gets married in front of Coolangatta A-listers!

Shortly, the step-brother of the Kardashian sisters, Brodie Jenner, will enjoy a traditional heterosexual wedding on the Indonesian island of Sumba.

Jenner, who is thirty-three years old and an ol pal of the Mad Hueys as well as Cut Snake principal Paul Fisher, has rented out the entire resort that fronts and owns the rights to Occy’s Left.

Do you remember when it was voted the best hotel in the world?

Read that here.Ā 

For twelve thousand dollars a night, you can rent a five-bedroom estate while a “starter villa” is $US1500 a night. If you want to actually surf the left out the front, you have to peel off an extra c-note every day with a maximum of “one surf slot per villa.”

It really is fabulous.

Brodie”s daddy/mommy, Caitlyn Jenner isn’t on the islandĀ (she can’t give up a “lucrative business opportunity“) although by cosmic coincidence the woman Brodie’s marrying is also called Kaitlynn.

Let’s scroll through the hashtag #jennerisland. It’s a window into what life might be like if you were pretty and had money in the bank.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjgCzohnpA4/?hl=en&tagged=jennerisland

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bjf6yRWBih2/?hl=en&tagged=jennerisland

@brandonjenner rides in as @brodyjenner heads out at #JennerIsland #Nihi

A post shared by Mark S Carter (@mark.s.carter) on

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bje7EiIlWIV/?hl=en&taken-by=hazza_twins

And so on.

Throw it up against that wall!
Throw it up against that wall!

New: Surfing’s next great sideshow!

Chas Smith

By

A format that will save professional surfing!

I do hope that you are watching the NBA finals right now even if you aren’t a big basketball fan. Of all the sports and all the leagues in this world the National Basketball Association sure does know how to put on a show. The stars are given proper wattage and this year’s Golden State Warriors vs. Cleveland Cavs IV is narrative perfection. We have LeBron James on one side, arguably the greatest of all time and we have Steph Curry on the other, the smoothest operator around.

Last night they locked horns in an epic game one that went into overtime before the Warriors pulled away due, in large part, to Steph Curry’s magnificent shooting. It was he who made 3-point shots sexxy for the first time in basketball history and now that’s what kids on playgrounds mimic, standing very far away from the basket and heaving far-away bombs. LeBron James said, “Chicks dig the long ball.” And he is right.

But now let us naturally transition to Justin Cote, one half of the greatest* brother duo in surfing. I watched a Facebook clip of him recently surfing the Waco wave pool and he mentioned something about “spraying the wall.” I was confused until seeing how much water he smashed against a giant cement wall during a plus-sized cutback. It was like a giant firehose of spray that stuck against the dry grey and was quite impressive. Kelly’s Surf Ranch, as you know, has no wall but rather a chainlink fence.

Watching Justin’s big spray, though, gave me a revelation. Surfing should have a Cutback Series or a Gouge Series or something much like the Air Shows of old wherein the greatest “power surfers” aim to throw the most water, and highest, against a wall. Just imagine! Sunny Garcia vs. Zeke Lau. The Spartan vs. John John Florence. Kieren Perrow vs. Rose Hodge. It would be fantastic watching, clear to the viewer who wins and not dependent on any judging.

Tell me this is the greatest idea since Josh Kerr named his flip Kerrazy. Chicks will soon dig the wet wall.

*not counting the Carrolls.

Wacko In Waco from Superbrand on Vimeo.

Corona Bali Protected
The heat pivoted on a paddle battle with three minutes to go. Jordy greased a slick air, kicked out in front of Gabe, then went toe-to-toe with Medina in a physical paddle battle. I was stunned Jordy won that. Absolutely pole-axed. That left Medina last priority as the clock ticked down and a heat loss he will bitterly rue come year's end.Ā  | Photo: WSL/Sloane

Day 5, Keramas: “Jordy pole-axes Gabriel!”

Longtom

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And challenges Gabriel Medina to fight!

Day five, six, whatever it is caught me on the hop. Women’s heats called on, and it’s not that I’m not interested in womens Pro Surfing ā€“ my plan is to transition into full-time coverage and ditch the mens ā€“ but after thinking and focussing on pro surfing so much a sportswriter needs some clean air away from the screen. ie. the waves were pumping here.Ā 

The notification came half way through heat one round four. But first should we riff a little more on John Florence? Does his year not recall that famous quote from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, ā€œHow did you go broke?ā€

ā€œSlowly at first, then all at once.ā€Ā Paraphrase, I know.Ā 

We’ve failed, so far, to attribute any of the blame to mere randomness, what author Nassim Nicolas Taleb calls theĀ ā€œBlack Swan event.” His first loss to Mikey Wright (at Snapper) just occurred from a slightly too sleepy start in a heat where the best waves came to Mikey.

Then at Bells, he was hassled off the first wave by Zeke Lau and over-compensated with patience.

Margarets he is still going and here in Bali he again suffered a slightly too sleepy heat against an unfancied opponent who threw caution to the wind and prevailed.Ā 

Surf journalist Nick Carroll in comments said he could have walked to his second title last year except for a relapse in heat strategy. I see it slightly differently. He was on fire at Bells and should have won his heat against an over-scored Ibelli. Same in J-Bay against Morais. Again, luck: randomness. The subjectivity of judges. If those two events went his way, the title would have been won far sooner.

I don’t believe he wants to walk away.

Why?

My short but intensive interviews with him revealed a man of surprising competitive intensity. I take at face value his claims to want to win big by going bigger and redrawing the boundaries of competitive surfing. I believe that is sufficient motivating force for him to be on tour.

But he’s been mugged by the reality of randomness. So far. Problem is now plugging the holes so the losing slowly, heat by heat, doesn’t begat the catastrophe of losing the whole year in a torrent of uncontrolled bad heats. J-bay, more than Ulus, offers a reset.Ā 

Four heats today, in perfect high-perf conditions. Bourez masterful, masterful rail lord in heat one.

Heat two was a banger. Ace out of the blocks quickly, Mikey looked hesitant and slow. Griff patient. In the back third Ace’s lead was reversed as Mikey caught fire then Griff bought full repertoire from rail game to fins out surfing. One thing to note: Mikey has been unable to score using hi-fi surfing and has had to ā€œbackpeddleā€ to the rail game. If he meets Filipe that will be telling. Wright and Colapinto through.Ā 

Jordy stole away from Flores and Medina in heat three to open a slender lead with very big opening turns. Medina looked beastly, again. But could not finish a wave properly to ice a lead. J-Flo played patient tube hound and rode the best waves of the heat. The heat pivoted on a paddle battle with three minutes to go. Jordy greased a slick air, kicked out in front of Gabe, then went toe-to-toe with Medina in a physical paddle battle. I was stunned Jordy won that. Absolutely pole-axed. That left Medina last priority as the clock ticked down and a heat loss he will bitterly rue come year’s end.Ā 

ā€œThis really fired me up,” said Jordy in the post-heat presser with Kaipo Guerrero. “We were paddlingĀ  and he pulled my leg once and I went, ok accident, twice, I thought that’s deliberate. Put em up. Letā€™s go.”

“Love it, love it, that passion,” muttered a panicked Kaipo, echoes of Todd Kline’s interview with Bobby Martinez in 2011.Ā 

Jordy had just said, on a live webcast, that he’d been deliberately interfered with by Medina and that he’d subsequently suggested they fight.

No follow-up question. No investigation. No probing.

“Can you carry that passion into the quarter-final?” said Kaipo.

Yawn.Ā 

The final matchup with Italo, Filipe and ADS was a slight, slight anti-climax. Not for aficionados of backside surfing because Italo showed the game has changed and he is at the apex of high performance surfing, not John, not Filipe.

It was slight anti-climax because he skipped away so quickly and with so much dominance that it was no contest. He too, can not quite grease one of the towering airs he’s been attempting. If he sticks one, the dam wall will burst. If Australia can support thrre CT’s an actual Bali leg should be a no-brainer, even if the tech billionaires who now seem to control Big Surfing are enthralled with trains in tubs.Ā 

We’ll meet again tomorrow for the final, I guess.Ā 

Corona Bali Protected Menā€™s Round 4 Matchups:
Heat 1: Michel Bourez (PYF) 17.00 def. Willian Cardoso (BRA) 13.60, Jesse Mendes (BRA) 11.66
Heat 2: Mikey Wright (AUS) 15.80 def. Griffin Colapinto (USA) 13.73, Adrian Buchan (AUS) 12.50
Heat 3: Jordy Smith (ZAF) 11.76 def. Jeremy Flores (FRA) 11.70, Gabriel Medina (BRA) 10.76
Heat 4: Italo Ferreira (BRA) 17.00 def. Filipe Toledo (BRA) 13.87, Adriano de Souza (BRA) 13.16

Corona Bali Protected Menā€™s Quarterfinal Matchups:
Heat 1: Michel Bourez (PYF) vs. Griffin Colapinto (USA)
Heat 2: Mikey Wright (AUS) vs. Willian Cardoso (BRA)
Heat 3: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Filipe Toledo (BRA)
Heat 4: Italo Ferreira (BRA) vs. Jeremy Flores (FRA)

Ā 

The big diff between the Cloudbreak swells of 2012 and 2018? The tide. The 2012 swell peaked on a radically low tide which birthed the eye-watering "flat-bottomed drainer." | Photo: @ownemilnemedia

Compare: Thundercloud vs Tornadocloud!

Derek Rielly

By

How's the great Cloudbreak swell of 2018 compare to the might of 2012?

Last Sunday, on a grey paste porridge day Cloudbreak was devastating.Ā It was the best outside ledge, which only starts to really break at fifteen-foot plus, since the 2012 swell that got turned into the documentary, Thundercloud, by the Australian Talon Clemow.

So how do the two swells compare?

Earlier today, I called the Tasmania-based Clemow, who was there for both swells, to discuss whether or not the comparison is warranted.

First, I wanted to know what it was about Cloudbreak that thrilled the filmmaker so much.

Clemow says the thing about Cloudbreak, and what separates it from other big-wave joints like Mavericks or Shipsterns or Dungeons, is that you can surf it at two feet or twenty feet.

“And” he says, “It has everything, beauty, the water. It offers so much and in terms of quality and if you get the right swell direction it can produce magnificent results.”

As for the two swells, “They wereā€¦ different,” he says. “In 2012 there weren’t any jetskis towing in. Everyone was under their own steam and going for it and that created that level of performance. Because if someone got a sick wave someone else would go on a crazier one. This year, the first wave that was ridden was a tow wave. A solid thing, a fifteen footer. In 2012, it was six-to-eight-foot in the morning, maybe ten-foot sets. Ā This year, I was concerned that because it was so big so early there was no limit to how extreme the day was going to get.”

As for a wave-by-wave comparison, Clemow says the closest thing was Ramon’s twenty-five-footer this year versus a wave in 2012, which you can see below, where Mark Healey bails on his board.

THUNDERCLOUD
Little Mark Healey gifts his surfboard the view of a lifetime during the Thundercloud swell of 2012.

Other things?

“The channel this year was real crowded. Fifty-plus boats in the channel. And in the lineup which got real crowded when the wind went a buttery south-east two thirds of the guys were wearing those red Quiksilver AirLift vestsĀ so it was hard to ID who it was taking off unless it was Ramon or Laurie or whomever. There were definitely a few waves where I had no idea who I was shooting.”

Mostly, howevs, the difference was the tide.

“Check the tide graph. In 2012, it was the seconds lowest tide of the year, 0.13 metres. This year, the low tide was 0.3. That’s a discrepancy of twenty centimetres. In a long period swell that makes a huge difference. In 2012, the swell hit at the bottom of the tide. This year it was on a higher tide and it made a big difference to the roundness. There were no flat-bottom drainers like the one Healey had to dive under.”

Anything else?

“The secret’s out,” says Clemow.

Peter Singer
Want to challenge yourself a little? Buy this book.

World’s Greatest (Living) Philosopher Talks Surf!

Derek Rielly

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A perfectly extraordinary man talks surfing and the secrets to a healthy societyā€¦

Are you at all interested in the fruitless struggle of man? Do you have an inquisitive mind that questionsā€¦everything?

The ethics of eating meat.

The ethics of, say, spending a million bucks to save one cancer patient in Australia or the USA instead of rescuing a thousand Third World kids from death by dysentery or whatever.

The ethics of torture if it leads to, say, the saving of lives?

Lethal injections for disabled babies?

Should adult siblings be able to fuck each other without fear of prosecution?

And so on.

Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher whose ideas have been shaking trees since the seventies, knows how to frame a question that forces you to really switch on a few extra neurones.Ā 

Oh he’s a provocateur. A utilitarian, too.

Which means?

You do whatever has the best results for everyone not just yourself.

Simple?

Not exactly.

A utilitarian would torture the daylights out of a terrorist if it was revealed he had an atom bomb primed to go and the lives of hundreds of thousands depended on finding out where it was etc.

Anyway, Peter Singer surfs.

He ain’t John John, but who is.

Singer likes the “entire experience”, Ā the feeling of sitting on his board, looking at the cliffs behind him, examining the moves of better surfers, the challenge of riding a wave well.

In this sixteen-minute interview, Singer talks about “surfing and the healthy society.”

Listen.

It’ll open your world, even if it’s a just a little.

Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
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