Question: “Is this the second-coming of tow-in surfing?”

Or should every jet ski should be thrown off a high cliff and the b-grade pros who use them right on top of them, just like that beautiful scene in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls when they push the fascists off the cliff?

Australian writer Don Watson found, in the solitude of the bush, relief from the “din of predictable opinion, particularly one’s own opinion.”

You could easily make a similar argument for surf but it’d be hard to imagine a world where that applied to Laird Hamilton.

Before the superfood creamers and the celebrity workouts Laird found the sail, then the impeller and the throttle and found a world in thrall to his vision of motorised assist to ride the world’s biggest waves. Absolutely gaga over it. He scoffed at paddlers at Mavericks – the wipeouts! (he said) It looks like they are practising for wipeouts – or words to that effect. Paddling Jaws was just an unimagined realm, not even fantasy.

Within a lifetime, history pirouetted and marched back from whence it came.

It seemed our Laird and saviour was not just wrong to embrace the engine and eschew the human body as a device to paddle in to giant surf he was “howlingly, flat-earth, couldn’t-be-more-wrong wrong.”

The ski-assisted tow-in became a sideshow, openly derided. Christian Fletcher intro’d German windsurfer turned tow surfer Sebastien Steudtner for the biggest wave category at the 2010 Big Wave Awards as the “German who doesn’t paddle.”

And now look where we are. Paddling at Jaws, Nazare, Mullaghmore.

Did you hop on the sled? Tow-ats maybe? Step-offs at Kirra? I didn’t.

Fought it tooth and nail at my local break. And we won.

Tow-ins became popular every time Lennox Point got over four foot, just like the Goldy.

Madness. Infuriating. The fumes. Some cunt instantly a hundred metres deeper than the spot you’d just spent 40 minutes paddling too. A small crew of us, led by Greenough, got together and decided it had to stop.

It wasn’t that hard.

As an anarcho-primitivist who generally hates the suffocating rules of the modern nanny state I’m ashamed to say we simply used the power of NSW waterways (water cops) to shut them down. It’s called community organising in the States and if my reading of history is correct, how Barack Obama got his start.

Within weeks, no more jet skis at Lennox Point.

To this day, if you want to spend hours paddling against a river like current to paddle into a medium sized wave you will do it without the irritation of a B-grade pro being whipped in further up the Point. It’s magnificent. And yet an hour up the motorway the motorised chaos continues… for now.

How do you feel about the ski? Little bitch like me, or a bit more open-hearted?

I have to admit , something in me has shifted, slightly, but ever so surely. Maybe it has in you too.
Jaws on Nov 26 thrilled me like a round of electro-shock therapy. The gals, even if you thought it was a kook slam, made adrenalised entertainment.

Looked like a little kid – Kai Lenny – on a tiny black board, skittering down giant faces. Cartoonish. Took a while to realise it was happening live. Getting towed in. Because I was hate-watching so hard it took some time to take refuge from the force of my own opinion and open up to reality. Amazing, right? More amazing than anything ever. Wave after wave. He was playing with it. Playing all over it.

Then Billy Kemper coughing up blood, Twiggy Baker somehow making it to the bottom then getting inside it that… that thing. Hard to believe it was happening live. Even harder to believe they pulled the pin on it for “safety” reasons. It’s fucking big-wave surfing, it’s supposed to be unsafe. Thats why people watch it.

While the disappointment sunk in, something else happened. Looked like a little kid – Kai Lenny – on a tiny black board, skittering down giant faces. Cartoonish. Took a while to realise it was happening live. Getting towed in. Because I was hate-watching so hard it took some time to take refuge from the force of my own opinion and open up to reality. Amazing, right? More amazing than anything ever. Wave after wave. He was playing with it. Playing all over it.

Could Laird have been right, after all? Could this be a second coming of Tow?

Some time in the next 24 hours a giant swell is expected to infill on Hawaii’s north and west shores. A small cadre of tow surfers will surf an expression session. Not just Kai Lenny, but Doz (hasn’t held the rope for a decade), Billy Kemper (has called tow lame), Nathan Florence, Makua Rothman.

Is Tow cool again?

I hope not. But I’m biased.

I think every jet ski should be thrown off a high cliff and the b-grade pros who use them right on top of them, just like that beautiful scene in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls when they push the fascists off the cliff.

Of course, I’ll watch.

I’m not insane.

Load Comments

Introducing: The brand new World Surf League losers tour!

Welcome to the #eloera!

Change is always exciting and I’m sorry that I’m so late to the game here. I’ve been busy driving back from Santa Monica plus Nick Carroll already covered it better than I could ever dream. You should please read his take on the revamped World Surf League tour format.

Oh I don’t think this will last long unless the world gets attached to watching losers surf. As pointed out by Mr.Carroll, a professional surfer can lose his first heat, not win his second heat and end up winning the contest.

How?

I don’t know. That’s why you are supposed to read Nick.

But what do you think about it? You like?

Also, Erik “Elo” Logan has snuck a new hashtag into the #blurrV2 mix.

#Eloera

And what do you think about that?

Like?

Load Comments

@christysurfs
@christysurfs

Miracle: Man suffers heart attack in middle of Mavericks ride and survives!

Meet the real Waterman of the Year, Dirk and Natasha Ziff be damned!

What is the worst thing that has happened to you whilst surfing? A cramp? A nasty fin cut? Headache?

Maybe lots of water up the nose that uncomfortably squeezed the sinuses?

Well, Christy Davis, male surfer from the Bay Area, just had a heart attack while on a Mavericks wave, a full on heart attack, and lived to tell his story.

Amazing?

Yes. But before we read his heart-warming story, can I just say that I love his name is Christy? I do. It’s like a boy named Sue and I wonder if being named Christy made him want to surf Mavs in the first place?

Like, “I’ll show you bastards what a Christy can do!”

I want to meet him, but in the meantime, let’s curl up with some breakfast sausage and cinnamon French toast dipped in pure cream and read The San Francisco Chronicle together.

Christy Davis has been a fixture at Mavericks since the early 1990s. He’s among the few people in the world who find solace at that fearsome big-wave break, confident in his ability and prepared for the worst. The man is 66 years old and hasn’t shown his age — until Monday.

With waves pumping through in the 25-foot range — below contest-worthy size but still a formidable challenge — Davis was enjoying a productive session when he suddenly felt “serious pain” on the left side of his chest, then numbness in his left arm. He knew he had to get to a hospital as soon as possible, and a very concerned group of fellow surfers — including August Hidalgo, Frank Jimenez, Alex Martins, Manny Resano and Hide Minami — made certain he got to the beach.

It wasn’t long before Davis was rushed to a local hospital, and “they took me straight into surgery and put a stent in my heart,” he said. “My L.A.D. (left anterior descending artery) was 100 percent blocked. The doctors said it was a serious heart attack, and that if I wasn’t in such good shape, I most likely would have died.”

Christy is The Waterman of The Year, Dirk and Natasha Ziff be damned.

Load Comments

griffin colapinto
Griff Colapinto, Surf Ranch. "You don’t want a groveller. And you don’t want an epoxy, you don’t need an epoxy," says his shaper Matt Biolos. "You want a normal board that’s bit shorter to fit into that turn at the bottom.”

Pool Toys: How to shape surfboards for wave tank contest!

Surf Ranch is "flat-faced like a bad skateboard ramp that you’d build when you were a kid," says shaper to the stars, Matt Biolos. And, therefore, you must build accordingly.

At September’s Surf Ranch Pro, held in Lemoore, California, a place where the dust settles into every case of skin like a new layer of pigment, Matt ‘Mayhem’ Biolos built surfboards for ten of the… what do we call ‘em now… oh yeah, athletes: Carissa Moore, Kolohe Andino, Yago Dora, Griffin Colapinto, Malia Manuel, Joan Duru, Michael Rodrigues, Caroline Marks, Coco Ho and Macy Callaghan.

It would’ve been eleven if the reigning champ Tyler Wright hadn’t called in sick.

Ain’t a shaper more invested in the pool game than Mayhem.

And as it happens, when I call Biolos for one of his grandfatherly sermons about design, he’s just walked in the door from a weekend in Waco, Texas.

It was Mason Ho’s thirtieth birthday and Lost threw the company credit card down for two private sessions, at $US2500 a roll, including a three-hour night hit.

Matt knows pools. He’s ridden most of ‘em: Wavegarden and Cove in the Basque Country, American Wave Machines in Waco, but not, surprisingly, the KSWaveCo version called Surf Ranch.

“I was invited, I probably shoulda gone,” he says.

Biolos isn’t blind to the wave.

“It has really tight transition, an unnatural transition, at the bottom so that as it grows taller it gets flat-faced like a bad skateboard ramp that you’d build when you were a kid. They put all the transition at the bottom and flat as it goes up the wall. But it’s weird. You don’t want a groveller. And you don’t want an epoxy, you don’t need an epoxy. You want a normal board that’s bit shorter to fit into that turn at the bottom.” MATT BIOLOS.

He made the four-hour north-east to Lemoore for the Founders’ Cup where he stood and watched for three days. And his teamriders had been sending him clips of their waves during their practice sessions prior to the Surf Ranch Pro.

So he’s thought about it.

“It’s powerful,” he says. “It has really tight transition, an unnatural transition, at the bottom so that as it grows taller it gets flat-faced like a bad skateboard ramp that you’d build when you were a kid. They put all the transition at the bottom and flat as it goes up the wall. But it’s weird. You don’t want a groveller. And you don’t want an epoxy, you don’t need an epoxy. You want a normal board that’s bit shorter to fit into that turn at the bottom.”

Curve-wise, Biolos gives ‘em a flat entry and a kick in the ass or vice-versa.

“You definitely need some curve. One end has to be curvy, the other straight.”

To specifics, Yago Dora, rode his usual volume, but an inch shorter.

Kolohe chose a one-inch shorter grovel board with a round tail. He wanted the control of the round tail without the drift and lift of a square.

Griff was happy taking his usual sled.

“Progress will happen shockingly fast. Like all these soccer parents teaching eight year olds to do technical airs in giant halfpipes on snowboards and skateboards. The static playing field will drive radically fast progression. This is an undeniable fact.” MATT BIOLOS

“The most consistent feedback was to use a high-performance board but an inch shorter. Not flat. Not lighter. Not wider. The shortness is just to fit into that kink at the bottom. But, it’s just starting. The relentless repetition will advance design quickly but how those quick advancements directed at specific waves translates to varied ocean waves remains to be seen. That said, one afternoon at Cove last year allowed Kolohe, Carissa, Griffin and grom Winter Vincent, and me, to quickly ride close to 50 waves each. Once you’re over the novelty and laughing and playing, you could easily get a lot of work done testing boards and fins. Progress will happen shockingly fast. Like all these soccer parents teaching eight year olds to do technical airs in giant halfpipes on snowboards and skateboards. The static playing field will drive radically fast progression. This is an undeniable fact.”Which would play into the leathery ol paws of Kelly Slater, you would think. He created Surf Ranch and there isn’t a surfer alive, despite what he says, that has ridden as many Surf Ranch waves.
Obviously a pool-specific hunk of space-age material, yeah?

Not even…close. It was a surfboard made by San Diego’s Dan Mann in 2015 and that sat in Kelly’s shed for two years until he loaned it to a pal who came back, breathless, and said, You have to ride this thing.

“The pool didn’t even exist,” when I shaped it, says Dan, who learned his craft at Rusty Surfboards after morphing from teamrider to shaper. “So it’s…definitely… not a pool specific board.”

The board is 5’9” x 18 3/8” x 2 3/8” with a “really pulled in thumb-tail” and “a real subtle spot behind the front fins,” says Dan, also responsible for ten or so of the designs in the Firewire range including the popular Baked Potato.

Thumb tail?

“A blunt round pin.”

Got it.

Carry on.

“He surfs it at the wave a lot. Founders’ Cup. Surf Ranch Pro,” says Dan. “He says, and this is my interpretation on his many different theories on why it works, is that he doesn’t have to think about it when it’s under his feet. And you can see that. On his second wave in the qualifying round, the right, he rips right into a turn after the first barrel section and the confidence that he goes into the turn with is obvious. He rode it in the first round at J-Bay in 2017 and you can see that he’s surfing without thinking about his board. If you watch him surf a lot you can see when he’s having fun and playing, the subtleties in between the turns. When he’s really grooving on a board, he’s grooving because he doesn’t need to think about it.”

Ât Slater Designs, they call the design the FRK. Officially it’s the Flipped Rocker Kelly, which is what Dan named the CAD file, but some are calling it the Freak or, after a wave or two, an Australian might call it…FaaaaaRK!

“The best thing about the pool event was how it isolated the skill and athleticism of the athlete,” says Dan.

The Gold Coast shaper Jason Stevenson had world number three Julian Wilson, Joel Parkinson, Ace Buchan, Mikey Wright, the wildcard Hiroto Ohara and Jeremy Flores under his marquee. The consensus among his riders was they wanted a little more curve and a shorter board on the hollower, faster right and something a little straighter for the unpredictable left.

Again, nothing radical.

The world number six, Jordy Smith whose ninth in the pool might’ve felt a little unjust given his unbelted approach, rode a Daniel Thomson-shaped Slater Designs Sci-Fi. Yeah, the same model Stu Kennedy rode to fantastic acclaim a few years back at the Quiksilver Pro.

Jordy’s was a 5’11” x 19 1/2” x 2 9/16”, which amounts to a generous thirty-three litres, and set up as a thruster. At the Founders’ Cup a few months earlier, Jordy had jumped on a stock Slater Designs Omni and dug the feel of the shorter board on the pool’s tight curves, especially on the left. He asked Tomo to make a few changes to the outline of it, turning the round-nose into something a little easier on the (traditional) eye.

Tomo shaped Jordy four boards for the Surf Ranch Pro. A 6’1 and 1/2” and a 5’11” Sci-Fi, a Cymatic and an Omni, both blunt-noses sharpened.

But it was the 5’11” Sci-Fi Jordy threw at the Surf Ranch Pro. No man’s going to risk an aesthetic prejudice when a world title is, possibly, in the offering.

And he chose the Sci-Fi because he was constantly landing his airs on it and believed the contest was going to come down to tech airs.

So if you want a conclusion about Pool Toys it’s this: they don’t exist. Yet.

“They’re paranoid about their athleticism and yet they have so much confidence,” says Dan Mann. “They’re more, ‘Give me a board I’m used to and I’ll work out the wave.’’

At the highest end, a pro surfer wants something he can set and forget and just think about the wave.

“Surfers are conservative,” says Biolos.

“They’re paranoid about their athleticism and yet they have so much confidence,” says Dan Mann. “They’re more, ‘Give me a board I’m used to and I’ll work out the wave.’’

A couple of hours after the Surf Ranch Pro finished, Kelly and Dan were texting back and forth, Kelly wanting to know how the FRK looked on the wave and how it could work better in general.

“The thing is, Kelly hadn’t given me any indication to change his regular board for the pool,” says Dan.

“Because that’s what he wanted in the pool. He wanted it to be a real wave.”

(Editor’s note: This story first appeared in an issue of Surfing Life magazine. It is reprinted here because, what, it’s Saturday, there’s a little south swell and who needs to be hitting the phones when one could be, ostensibly, hitting lips or reading one’s newest book, in this case Zorba the Greek, in the shade of a tree.)

Load Comments

erik-logan-chas-smith
WSL President of contest etc, Erik Logan, left, and Chas Smith, BeachGrit, multi-shaka.

Chas Smith meets WSL’s Prez of content Erik Logan: “You’re a fucking Oprah Hollywood Laird Hamilton kook!”

And we need you…

(I drove up from bucolic Cardiff-by-the-Sea to Santa Monica yesterday and parked across the street from the World Surf League’s headquarters. It didn’t look like a High Castle at all. More like a Low Bungalow. It was impossible to find the entrance but when I finally did was let in and sat on a supple leather couch near a reclaimed metal coffee table. After a few minutes I was taken out back and severely beaten.

No, I was walked through a parking lot then to another back building which was, in fact, the High Castle. The WSL is full of tricks. I waited in a glass box conference room and then BOOM though the door strode Erik “ELo” Logan. We will chat soon on podcast and you will hear the answers to my questions (why the hell do you insist on SUP? etc.) but for now, I’d just like to write a letter to him if you don’t mind.)

Dear Erik Logan,

You had me at Opie and Anthony. I never listened to their radio show but was vaguely aware of their proto-shock jock antics and of course aware of Howard Stern, your other charge, the man who changed American media. The man who brought unfiltered steam-of-consciousness to the main mainstream.

And because of that, because of your dirty roots in naughty radio, I know you’ll understand.

Laird Hamilton is a kook.

Yes, he got very barreled at Teahupo’o, paddle not even able to reach cascading lip. Yes, he made the cover of Surfer magazine under the unfortunate “Oh My God” headline. Yes he owns Cloudbreak.

Yes, he is likely the greatest “surfer” to ever walk and/or surf the earth but he’s still a kook and that’s the beauty, the glory, of our little backwater.

Of surfing.

Talent, skill, ability, pedigree, strong jaws, epic tans aren’t what actually matter and, to be honest, I don’t know why. Laird should be our god but wiggolly’s paddling style is instead. Phat-wan kerr, dogsnuts, nug, ScottSanDiego are instead of Laird “Handsome” Hamilton with the legendary surf step-father and North Shore of Oahu classroom are and why?

Because surfers are shitbags. Surfers are incorrigible. Surfers don’t use paddles. Surfers are beastly and only looking for selfish fun and afterward an easy laugh.

To paraphrase Scott Bass, voice of surfing on San Diego’s local NPR affiliate, founder of The Boardroom Show, “surfers are the worst.”

But the damned Grumpy Local is your friend and you know it. Underneath all the Oprah, Hollywood executive, Power of Now rhetoric you are infected. Oh sure you ride a SUP and it’s as inexplicable as it is unforgivable but you left your legitimate job at a legitimate network, forsaking, no doubt, a hundred better jobs to come here.

To come to surfing.

Because you are diseased.

You are one of us, unfortunately for you, unfortunately for us. Your apple-cart-upsetting inclinations, your desire to smash the current product, is exactly right.

More opinion. More individuality. More fun. Less control.

More surfing (but not “more” as in longer competition windows… as you know).

You’re right and you’re a fucking Oprah Hollywood Laird Hamilton kook. Probably what we need, to be honest, because professional surfing don’t sell itself and begs for help. Because you feel it. Because you are deeply afflicted down the very core of your Oklahoma heart.

You are the first person from the World Surf League iteration of professional surfing to reach out, in any case, and your greatest inspiration is here.

Oh not me. I’m a kook from Oregon and not Derek, he’s from Perth, but from our Nick Carroll.

Just kidding and don’t worry, Erik. Nick knows he doesn’t belong to BeachGrit. He belongs to Kuuuurungba, or whatever shitbag blog he currently writes for but professional surfing is BeachGrit’s world and it’s time for the people who take time out of their workdays, who commit to damned professional surfing to own it.

What do they want to see? What do they want to read? Who do they want to cut from the roster?

I’m so happy we got to meet today but purely for them because, Scott Bass is a damned liar. Surfers are the best and will make this thing the thing you want.

And when we don’t?

Oh, no worries!

Fewer folk in the lineup!

Ain’t it hell to be part of a business where success counters success?

Welcome to surfing and I can’t wait to keep this conversation going.

Love,

Chas Smith

Load Comments