In other news: Seth Moniz headlines class of 2019 World Surf League rookies!

Chas Smith

By

What is happening outside Venice Beach, California? But do you really care?

It is really difficult to imagining surf news happening outside of Venice Beach, California right now. Really hard to think that the World Surf League didn’t press the pause button while leash-gate snagged wall-to-wall coverage. That drama had absolutely everything, surprising at every turn and really solidifying into 2018’s defining moment. There is much more to come including a very deep dive into what Mr. Wagner Lima knew and when he knew it.

In the meanwhile, the Vans World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach, North Shore, Oahu is either done or almost done and the 2019 World Surf League Championship Tour roster is either all the way set or almost all the way set.

What fresh faces will we be seeing?

Seth Moniz, Hawaii. The WSL writes… what the 21 year-old achieved in the span of two years is nonetheless exceptional. He jumped from 142nd on the rankings at the end of 2016 to No. 2 this year with major results in Japan, Ballito, the US Open and at home at Haleiwa.

Peterson Crisanto, Brazil. The WSL writes… career choices by his sponsors at the time cost him a potential run for the big show and he spent the next seven years battling to come back.

Deivid Silva, Brazil: The WSL writes… his progressive nature and ability to take to the sky will fit right in with his compatriot on Tour in 2019.

Soli Bailey, Australia: The WSL writes… the 23-year-old Australian has been working his way through the Qualifying Series since 2012.

Who are you most excited to watch? Which will still be on tour in 2020?

Oh who am I kidding… All I care about right now is in Venice Beach, California. We have so many storylines to follow, so many things to learn and time is ticking.

But wait: Did a poor Brazilian man get pilloried for merely removing a leash from his surfboard’s nose?

Chas Smith

By

Outrage is a complicated business.

Today has been a very important day in surf assault history, threatening to eclipse Stab magazine’s Ashton Goggans’ brave run to the police and also even Jordon Montgomery’s braver run to the police. You are well aware of the situation that occurred by now but in case you are not let us sally forth to Venice Beach, California where…

The waves were horrible and dumb. A Brazilian man, Wagner Lima, who owns Brazilian Surf Club, was out amongst it as was a Senegalese Olympic hopeful, on whom NBC was shooting a profile, and her host Danielle Lyons. Also shooting photos from the pier was Rhonda Harper, the owner of Black Girls Surf.

Ms. Lyons paddled for a wave, Mr. Wagner dropped in, faded behind her and pulled her leash, Ms. Harper captured every motion in crystal clear frame by detail.

But wait! Should we look at one of the crystal clear frame by details? (I clearly meant frame by frame but can you forgive one misstep in this bang-bang-bang story day?)

And…… there! There it is!

Is Danielle Lyons’ 10 ft leash actually to blame?

It certainly appears that the 10 ft leash, drifting 1.2 kilometers behind her wrapped around poor Mr. Wagner Lima’s board. Oh how horrible are those damned longboard leashes and especially the ones that have been subject to multiple wipeouts. I actually don’t know but Ashton Goggans does. He longboards proficiently though I imagine falls enough to stretch out his 9’0 leashes to a full 4.5 kilometers because he is brave.

It does not excuse the extra pull but… it might. I mean, if someone drifted their 3.2 kilometer leash over my board I’d be pretty annoyed too. Especially if it was Ashton’s.

More as the story develops!

The possibly racist and sexist "aggressive leash pull" which is soon to be featured on NBC and CBS!

Black Girls Surf’s Rhonda Harper: “I’m going to tell BeachGrit, no fucking comment!”

Derek Rielly

By

A glorious trifecta of localism, sexism and racism!

Earlier today, you read about the wonderful new successor to last summer’s World’s Lamest Surf Assault when a man was cuffed and arrested for breaching another surfer’s airspace. 

Today, police were called, reports filed, news organisations notified, when a surf instructor pulled the leash of another surfer at Venice Beach.

It was, perhaps, a glorious trifecta of localism, sexism and racism.

Maybe hate crime too!

A very quick recap.

The waves were horrible and dumb. A Brazilian man, Wagner Lima, who owns Brazilian Surf Club, was out amongst it as was a Senegalese Olympic hopeful, on whom NBC was shooting a profile, and her host Danielle Lyons. Also shooting photos from the pier was Rhonda Harper, the owner of Black Girls Surf.

Ms. Lyons paddled for a wave, Mr. Wagner dropped in, faded behind her and pulled her leash, Ms. Harper captured every motion in crystal clear frame by detail.

Ms. Lyons went to Yelp and wrote:

I was up and riding on the peak and he decides to try to block me, so I turned around him, then he drops in behind me and pulls my leash causing me to fall. Not only is what he did super dangerous, it’s assault. If I was a novice surfer I could have knocked my teeth out.

In all my years of surfing I’ve never been attacked unprovoked like this. I gave this guy every opportunity not to be a dick, hell I even gave him room to share if he was that hard up for a two foot wave.

I’m not sure if this was localism, racism or sexism there were two black women in the line up and he targeted me for whatever reason.

When I called the owner of Black Girls Surf, Rhonda Harper, to explain why it was necessary to bring the dang pigs into it, echoes of Goggans v Smith etc, she told that she’d seen Chas Smith’s story and “As the owner of Black Girls Surf, I’m going to tell BeachGrit, I have no comment, no…fucking…comment.”

Harper added that USA Today and NBC have the “appropriate film.”

Comments on various adult learner Facebook pages are a delight to behold.

Omg that wave was totally yours and he could have seriously hurt you. I hate ASSHOLES like that in the water!

Pulling a leash is almost like pushing someone. He could’ve lifted your tail and made you pearl.

I’m certain this situation happens to women ALL the time in the water and they just don’t speak out against it. I’m so very sorry this happen to you but I’m so proud of strength and tenacity in speaking your truth.

File chargers for assault, localism and hate crime.

Interestingly, a closer examination of the clip shows Ms Lyons’ leash wrapped around the nose of Lima’s board.

Therefore, does it qualify as an “aggressive leash pull” or is it more of a “dissatisfied removal of stuck leash”?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrBP5denU1m/?utm_source=ig_embed

So much more to come!

Breaking: “World’s lamest surf assault” challenged by “aggressive leash pull incident” in Venice!

Chas Smith

By

"We are filing a police report now that we have more footage from another vantage point."

The Inertia has the best story in all of surf today and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I’m not going to sit here and pretend there is anything that even comes close to Venice Beach-Based Surf School Owner Under Fire After Aggressive Leash Pull Incident and I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t challenge Derek Rielly’s crack reporting on Watch: The world’s lamest surf assault!

I’ll give you the rough details here. It was a day like any other in Venice Beach, California. The waves were horrible and dumb. A Brazilian man, Wagner Lima, who owns Brazilian Surf Club, was out amongst it as was a Senegalese Olympic hopeful, on whom NBC was shooting a profile, and her host Danielle Lyons. Also shooting photos from the pier was Rhonda Harper, the owner of Black Girls Surf.

Ms. Lyons paddled for a wave, Mr. Wagner dropped in, faded behind her and pulled her leash, Ms. Harper captured every motion in crystal clear frame by detail.

Ms. Lyons went to Yelp and wrote:

I was surfing at Venice Beach pier with a friend for over an hour, all the locals were super chill and friendly sharing waves all morning until Wagner showed up and decided to be a bully.

I was up and riding on the peak and he decides to try to block me, so I turned around him, then he drops in behind me and pulls my leash causing me to fall. Not only is what he did super dangerous, it’s assault. If I was a novice surfer I could have knocked my teeth out.

In all my years of surfing I’ve never been attacked unprovoked like this. I gave this guy every opportunity not to be a dick, hell I even gave him room to share if he was that hard up for a two foot wave.

I’m not sure if this was localism, racism or sexism there were two black women in the line up and he targeted me for whatever reason.

Then Black Girls Surf went to Instagram and added:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrBP5denU1m/

There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for this. His name is Wagner Lima. He’s a Brazilian surf instructor in Venice, CA. He owns @braziliansurfclub. We are filing a police report now that we have more footage from another vantage point. He knew this was a filmed surf session prior to this incident. I watched him from the pier and took a sequence of photos. We’re going after him. His yelp reviews are as horrible as he is…this kind of behavior in the water needs to end. Surfing is about fun. This situation was pure hate.

And, seriously, I haven’t chuckled this much sinc…..

Damn it. I just spit coffee on my computer. The Inertia strikes back.

In all seriousness, I get that we live in aggrieved times, outrageous times, and that the women involved here felt there could be a racial or sexist component to the aggressive leash pulling incident but… do you think it was completely necessary for them to mention Wagner Lima’s Brazilian nationality at each and every turn? I mean, doesn’t that further perpetuate the stereotype that all Brazilian surfers are snakey li’l bastards? That it was in Mr. Lima’s Brazilian DNA to do something like this?

Just kidding, that wasn’t in all seriousness. I am going to write a three-act play titled Venice Beach-Based Surf School Owner Under Fire After Aggressive Leash Pull Incident though and expect to win many Tony Awards, though.

One last thing. Between Stab magazine’s Ashton Goggans, the former World’s Lamest Surf Assault and the new “aggressive leash pull” what do you think police around this great nation think when their phones ring and a surfer is on the other line with a complaint?

Obvs, if you're pally with Shane Dorian, shots are gonna come up with a little more glow.

Promotion: Christmas Gift the camera that’s surf-movie ready straight out of the box!

Derek Rielly

By

GoPro's HERO 7 Black turns any hoodlum with four hundred bucks into a Kai Neville, Joe G, Blake K etc.

Two winters ago, we took to Mexico for a video instructional series with Filipe Toledo and Lakey Peterson.

To record the event, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of RED cameras and their myriad accessories were loaded into large bags and dragged all over Manzanillo and throughout the radiant state of Colima. 

And these cameras were wonderful etc, but when the footage was returned for editing, it struck me how we could’ve shot the entire thing on the GoPro’s and Karma drone the Hawaiian filmer/surfer Anthony Walsh had brought.

A stabilisation gadget called a gimbal, which Anthony had affixed to the little POV cameras, meant he could get dramatic panning shots without camera shake or the need to sit a man on a dolly and track and push him around. 

It was revolutionary, I thought, and I recorded hours of silky footage of the house’s dancing chihuahua, panning back and forth across the tiled floor and from hind leg to pointed snout. 

Two years is a long time in the tech world and GoPro, who’ve been wonderfully kind to us, incidentally, including co-sponsoring our upcoming Toledo feature Part 3, have squeezed that gimbal into the HERO7 Black. 

Except it ain’t a gimbal.

It’s electronic stabilisation so it doesn’t go to pieces in high-wind, high-shock scenarios. HyperSmooth is its very prosaic name. You got a jerky hand or you’re bouncing around in the truck en route somewhere exotic? The sorta footage that gives your pals seasickness? Watch those tremulous frames disappear on screen. 

Next thing: TimeWarp. Squeeze a long part of the trip, the drive, the hike in, whatever, into a compressed vid. 

Live streaming: Be the next Gravy, Rothman, O’Brien. Stick your head in front of the hole, make funnies, caress shorebreaks on your softie. Transmit straight to Facebook Live and see if you can hit WSL numbers.

And when you gotta do a couple of stills for the promo packaging, press SuperPhoto. HDR and so forth.

Four hundred bucks means it’s gonna go to someone you deeply care for or the pal who never quite cut it in the water and, therefore, must be relegated to filming work.

Or shoot yourself, edit out the dregs, and emerge a star.

Here’s the HERO7 Black at work in the hands of Anthony Walsh, primary water shooter, with POV, for the Toledo movie.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq25qrPnwyA/

And a little big-wave crash with Kai Lenny.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrA5_vHnLR2/

Examine, buy here. 

Photo: Justin Jay/@justinjayphoto
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