Technology: World’s largest deep water standing wave to open in Pacific Northwest!

But where are all the Surf Ranches?

Chelan, Washington is a town of just over 4000 in the almost center of the Evergreen State. Its post office was built in 1890, its school in 1893 and its deep water standing wave, the largest in the whole world, is set to open in 2019.

The Lake Chelan Mirror writes:

Joining the world-wide manufactured wave craze, Slidewaters Waterpark will open the world’s largest and the first deep water stationary wave in the United States. The 52 ½ foot wide Citywave© can produce waves as high as 6 feet and can be surfed with standard ocean boards and fins. Slated to open to the public summer of 2019, Lakeside Surf is a stand-alone surf park that will operate both independently and in connection to the existing waterpark.

So basically a very big Flowrider. A contained and controllable Waimea river thing.

All fine and good, especially for our Pacific NorthPest but the reason we should discuss is the first phrase of the Mirror piece. “Joining the world-wide manufactured wave craze…” and there sure is a lot of smoke there but where the hell is the fire?

I mean, Surf Ranch premiered what, two years ago now? And what have we got to show for it. We’ve got Surf Ranch. We’ve got shuttered Waco. We’ve got shuttered Austin. We’ve got a Mad Max thing in Australia that makes epic 1 footers. We’ve got a Chinese knock-off and… am I missing any? I think that’s it. Oh, besides the world’s largest deep water stationary wave in Chelan, Washington.

And if “manufactured waves” were really moneymakers wouldn’t we be seeing franchises starting to pop up everywhere by now?

I mean… what’s the deal?


Rumor: World’s favorite gossip rag, the National Enquirer, acquires Surfer magazine!

Donald J. Trump approved!

This ain’t even a rumor. Maybe. It’s totally true. Probably. And totally epic. Whispers of Surfer magazine’s parent company TEN Media being on the block have been floating forever and ever. Of course we all know that media has run up on hard times with venture-backed companies like BuzzFeed and Vice failing to turn profits. Of course we all know the common sense un-sustainability of Stab, which once sold for a cool 10 million dollars, juicing their Facebook/Instagram “likes” and Youtube video views in an attempt to convince naive brand managers that it’s wildly popular.

But National Enquirer is a whole ‘nother level. The damned big leagues and let’s read a legit news source before we dig in. Boardistan writes:

American Media, the parent corporation of Men’s Journal, Radar, US Weekly and more famously the National Enquirer (you know, the company run by Donald Trump’s friend David Pecker) is reportedly purchasing TransWorld Skateboarding, Snowboarding, Snowboarder, and Surfer Magazine’s parent company The Enthusiast Network. Employees were apprently informed today (January 31, 2019) during an all-hands meeting at TEN’s headquarters in Carlsbad, California.

Things may not be looking all that bright for current TEN employees. As one media executive who is not involved with either company told us, “I would assume this is going to be brutal. American Media has tons of debt, so I doubt they’re going to invest in anything. They probably see synergies and cost-cutting as a quick way to shape up the bottom line.”

So there we have it and… Would it be rude at this point to be jealous? If there ever was a surf tabloid it was your little ol’ BeachGrit.

New rumors just floating through the phone suggest TransWorld Snow just died and Snowboarder is hot on its heels.

Good thing the world has LodgeGrit!

More as this story develops.


From the Having-cake-and-eating-too Dept: Australian scientists test shark-bite resistant wetsuit!

All fear is gone!

Who sang the mid-1980s banger “Didn’t We Almost Have it All?” Was it Madonna? No wait, it was totally Whitney Houston. “Didn’t we almost have it all? When love was all we had worth giving. The ride was worth the fall my friend…” etc. A fine enough song though filled with too much melancholy and one that surfers can forever erase because now we DO have it all… have it all in the form of a shark-bite resistant wetsuit.

Booya.

An Australian university is testing new materials designed to lessen the impact of shark bites, researchers said Tuesday (Jan 29), in a project aimed at reducing fatalities and easing the nerves of swimmers.

Researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide have received government funding to test a new neoprene – a synthetic rubber commonly used in wetsuits – against the force of a bite from several species, including the great white shark.

The new material – provided by manufacturers the university declined to identify – aims to reduce cuts and punctures from a shark attack, thus lessening blood loss for victims.

“We are cognisant that it will not prevent all injuries as it will not prevent fractures or crushing injuries,” associate professor Charlie Huveneers told AFP.

“However, most shark-bite fatalities are due to blood loss, and the ability to reduce such blood loss along with rapid emergency responses will hopefully decrease fatalities and injuries due to shark bites.”

Are you in for full pop? Is this the final bit of news you needed to build your dream home in Reunion?

Or are you filled with too much melancholy and a disbeliever?


nathan florence
"I've done three air reverses in my life," Nathan Florence said not very long ago. Now, two 540s in a session!

Miracle: Nathan Florence learns how to do airs!

"I need to get in on this," says wingless Conner Coffin.

Only a few years ago, the middle Florence bro, who has the Hebrew name Nathan (significant prophet, also son of King David), confessed to me, “Airs. I can’t do airs, surfing.”

I was shocked, natch, and pressed Nathan to be specific.

At what level, I said, can’t you do airs? Can you land a straight air, a little air rev or are you bereft of wings?

“I’ve landed three air reverses in my whole life,” he said.

I asked if this failure was a lack of desire or a mechanical issue?

“First, I never thought of them,” he said. “I didn’t care about ’em and then the way people started doing airs, like John, Matt and Albee, those things are actually nuts and then I started trying to do airs. And I just realised that I was a complete failure at them. The mechanics are foreign to me. I can get myself in the air but no matter what, when I land on my board, I’m eating shit.”

This changed earlier today when Nathan, who has climbed out of his shell on social media and has become the most popular of the three brothers, announced he’d been studying airs and that, oowee, maybe it wasn’t beyond his realm.

In the clip below, Nathan, stomps a swinging backside 540.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtRQV58gH2F/

The response was excellent.

His older brother John sent a picture of a rocket ship.

Surfer magazine used emojis to signal his journey from chick to hawk.

Meanwhile, Conner Coffin, a boy who also can’t fly, wrote, “I need to get in on this!”

True!


gabriel medina
It's all here: Mick Fanning's retirement, Mikey Wright's stunning wildcard run, Pro surfing's pivot away from the ocean to the technological u/dystopia of wavepools, the hostile takeover of pro surfing by adult learners, double World Champ John John Florence's (fatal) disillusionment and so on. | Photo: WSL

Buy: Longtom’s 2018 Pro Surfing Yearbook!

Marvel at real-time reportage of every moment that stunned the world in 2018 and set the World Surf League onto the path of destruction or triumph.

Please allow me, friends, to be your anti-depressant. An e-book is an electronic book that you can read on a screen. Pro surfing had it’s hugest, most world-historically vital year ever in 2018.

These two concepts have been combined into a product detailing Pro Surfing’s monumental 2018 titled “Pro Surfing 2018. The Year my Voice Broke”.

This e-book collects in one indispensable compendium every contest report as detailed by the excoriating, incorrigible, inscrutable eye of Steve ‘Longtom’ Shearer. Marvel at real-time reportage of every moment that stunned the world in 2018 and set the World Surf League onto the path of destruction or triumph.

“Everything that happens”, wrote Henry Miller in Tropic of Capricorn, “When it has significance, is in the nature of a contradiction.” 

Pro surfing’s 2018 being the ideal Exhibit A.

A crucible from which the sport will emerge transformed and transfigured.  

It’s all here: Mick Fanning’s retirement, Mikey Wright’s stunning wildcard run, Pro surfing’s pivot away from the ocean to the technological u/dystopia of wavepools, the hostile takeover of pro surfing by adult learners, double World Champ John John Florence’s (fatal) disillusionment , the Shakespearean drama of Kelly Slater’s continuing quest for relevance and control of the Sport he has dominated for decades, the Rise and Rise of the Brazilian Goofy-foot’s, Filipe Toledo’s magical back to back victory at J-Bay, the Facebook roll-out debacle, the retreat from Margaret River in the face of predatory disruption, the decline of (male) Australia as a Pro surfing nation and so much more!

It’s all here plus bonus passages containing nasty cheap shots at higher-ranked surf writers squashed by the iron fist (in a silk glove) of Editor D.Rielly. It aways does me a bit of good to criticize establishment surf writers.

“The only surf writer to focus on the writing.” D.Prodan (pers. Comm)

“A redneck in a bad mood!” Chas Smith.

“He covers the tour from his bedroom!” N. Carroll. 

“The only surf writer worth reading” D. Hynd.

Kinky Tits! Electric Pussy! Etc etc. D. Rielly.

This is an investment in your future happiness. An opportunity to look your Grandkiddies in the eye when they ask, “Gramps, what ever happened to pro surfing?” and say, “ Well, let’s go to the historical record of 2018 and see what went wrong”.

Who knows when a trivial pursuit contest might be decided by identifying the middle-aged but strangely attractive liberal party member for Vasse* who accused the World Surf League of cowardice for cancelling the Margaret River comp in 2018?

See, you’ve forgotten already.

Sophie G will be relaxing between sets on the tennis court marinating on the finer details of her fiefdom, Brodie Carr has pre-ordered, Backwards Fin Beth will be shoving it arse-about down the next Chrissie stocking, E-lo is committed to boning up on the minutiae while he takes on the Prez of content role, Francis Fukyama has signalled a desire to include a chapter in his next edition of The End of History.

Buy and put on ice or read a chapter before bed-time for sweet dreams.

How priced?

Seeing as it is a world first I have priced for the working gal. The same price as the cheapest six-pack at the Lennox Bottle-o: a sixer of XXXX Gold cans. $16.50. But marketing gurus tell me it needs to end in a nine, so $16.49.

Americans and Europeans enjoy the exchange rate of the greenback or Euro to the South Pacific peso. The once luxuriant British Pound still buys two Aussie dollars. South Americans can find solace in an undying love of the Brazilian goofy-foot.

The moon shot is for every one of the 250 million pro surfing “hand raisers” identified by 2013 WSL CMO Michael Lynch to get drastic with the plastic. If that transpires, I renounce class warfare immediately, save five acres of coastal Lennox Head from developers and restore back to rainforest. A Garden of Eden preserved for evermore. BeachGrit gets incorporated at a Ballina law firm and Chas and Derek get let loose with a major liquidity event.

The next rung down is squaring off the $700 excess from sideswiping a single Mum in a shitbox Subaru while the J-bay comp was on. That’s only 43 astute souls globally pouncing on a bargain.

One bar I’m pretty sure I can limbo is a single sale. A soothing sixpack on the verandah while the bulldozers circle.

Ben Marcus, you’re first. Pony up cunt. 

45,692 words. 152 pages. For a six pack. Insane value, although admittedly I am biased.

Buy here.

*Libby Mettam