How many sub-10 point heats against better credentialed opponents before Kelly's legacy is chipped away at? Probably an infinite number seeing as WSL controls the narrative and the new media partnerships with RedBull Media House will mean a mountain of content burying any dissenting viewpoint.Judgement withheld on the new format, though Pottz' logic that it somehow puts “more pressure on round one” is hard to fathom. More likely it depressurises round two and puts the first level of interest at round three. Advantage Kelly. | Photo: WSL

Live: 2019 Tour Opens at small, onshore D-Bah! Kelly gets “spit-roasted!”

Windy three-foot Bah is fun to watch. No?

Strange to see Kelly, twenty-seven years into it , scratching around windy, scrappy little peaks like a seagull after a chip. Spit-roasted by Brazilian goofyfooters with vastly updated arsenals.

The patented carving 360, state of the art when Yago was not a twitch in his old mans nut-sack, awarded a lowly four points.

I know the WSL was caught flat-footed with the late D-Bah start but I was still very excited by the venue change. Brazilian goofy-foots throwing tails into the wind was my vision and that transpired from both Yago and Italo.

Kelly relegated to the new round two.

Judgement withheld on the new format, though Pottz’ logic that it somehow puts “more pressure on round one” is hard to fathom. More likely it depressurises round two and puts the first level of interest at round three. Advantage Kelly.

How many sub-10 point heats against better credentialed opponents before Kelly’s legacy is chipped away at? Probably an infinite number seeing as WSL controls the narrative and the new media partnerships with RedBull Media House will mean a mountain of content burying any dissenting viewpoint.

Judgement withheld on the new format, though Pottz’ logic that it somehow puts “more pressure on round one” is hard to fathom. More likely it depressurises round two and puts the first level of interest at round three. Advantage Kelly.

We are back… with Kieren at the helm. That was comforting. Ronnie, Pete, Joe, Pottz. It’s incredible the stability the WSL has maintained at the coal face of the production. More CEO’s than commentary team changes. The only discernible difference in the production was a fridge full of RedBull cans placed subtly in a corner of the location room.

Where are the VIP ticket holders holed up? The Atlas Pass. $1300 for the event. $300 for the day. Did you buy? Know a friend who did?

Don’t be embarrassed, come on in and share the experience. Tell us about the goodies in the freeby bag.

Well, all in all WSL look like geniuses waiting a month to hold Snapper this year.

March has been deady bones and windy three-foot Bah is fun to watch. No?

How about a Soli Bailey-Italo Ferreira Final.

Does that excite?

I think it is on the cards.


keala kennelly
"There is a rewrite of history that is being attempted right now in the annals of professional surfing. It's frustrating to see this happening. Not only are openly gay professional surfers who remained on tour being erased (I knew them when I was young, and while I was on tour), but the world is also being told by the World Surf League and Keala Kennelly that professional surfing just crowned its first openly gay world surfing champion." Cori Schumacher

LGBTQ v WSL: War of acronyms as Gay surfers “erased” and “history rewritten!”

Also, what's more important? Gay rights or world titles that matter?

A few nights ago, at a presentation ceremony in an old Gold Coast casino where your correspondent used to sling cards and occasionally tool horny punters, the Hawaiian Keala Kennelly spoke about being surfing’s first openly gay world champ.

“I hated myself because I didn’t think you could be World Champion and gay at the same time… I get to be proud of who I am and I get to love myself exactly as I am, not as people would want me to be,” said forty-year-old Kennelly.

It must be noted that the world championship was decided after one event, the Women’s Jaws Challenge, and that Kennelly won the event and the title despite not making a takeoff on her two waves.

A world title?

It’s a stretch, I think, and it’s correct that the WSL says it takes a tour to make a title.

Anyway, in response, the “three-time longboard champ” Cori Schumacher surfaced on Facebook to challenge the first openly gay world champ claim.

There is a rewrite of history that is being attempted right now in the annals of professional surfing. It’s frustrating to see this happening. Not only are openly gay professional surfers who remained on tour being erased (I knew them when I was young, and while I was on tour), but the world is also being told by the World Surf League and Keala Kennelly that professional surfing just crowned its first openly gay world surfing champion.

This is incorrect and there are documentaries (OUT in the line-up) and news stories (see below) that prove it’s false.

A huge congratulations to Keala for her Big Wave Tour win, but the record needs to be corrected. She is not the first openly gay surfing champion, nor is she the first openly gay professional surfer.

In 2010, pro surfing crowned its first openly gay world champion. I was not sent an invite to the awards ceremony, so there was no opportunity for me to make a grand statement from the stage, nor did the organization at the time (the Association of Surfing Professionals) recognize the landmark.

I was silenced, erased, and today, professional surfing is attempting to rewrite the past in a way that shows how effective past efforts of erasure are.
In our support of LGBTQ athletes, we need to be aware that there was (and still is) an effort to silence and make invisible LGBTQ folks from the past and women who have fought to make change across history.

We need to do a better job at remembering our history, especially women’s surf history.

“Schumacher, who in 2008 wed her longtime partner, Maria Cerda,… has a history of advocacy… raised awareness for gay rights in surfing…” March 26, 2011 (printed in the New York Times, 3/27, front page of the sports section).

Keala, all class, wrote back:

I would like to make a correction in my acceptance speech. It has been brought to my attention that Cori Schumacher is actually the first professional surfer that came out to the media while holding a world title.
I was completely unaware of the timeline.
I want to give her the respect and recognition she deserves. #womenupliftingotherwomen
I’m completely elated that I can be a World Champion without having to compromise who I am.
For me it’s not about getting the credit for being the first one. My only goal in making that very public statement in front of the entire surfing world at the WSL Awards was to raise awareness about LGBT athletes and the struggle we have gone through so that future LGBT athletes don’t have to go through that.
The @wsl is at the moment really trying to make positive changes in regards to discrimination of LGBT athletes and they have my full support.

Boom. Gavel hits. Matter settled.

The last item on the agenda is the validity of single-event world titles.

From what I can tell, two of Schumacher’s titles, 2000 and 2001, came from winning single events, not sure about the 2010 crown.

Kennelly’s, as we’ve discussed, from two wipeouts.

I think it’s a little rich, personally, to claim a title after one contest, let alone not making a wave.

The gay thing is wonderful, however.

Some of my best friends etc.


The great Steve Pezman... courtesy of Encyclopedia of Surfing.
The great Steve Pezman... courtesy of Encyclopedia of Surfing.

Listen: “Surfing’s anti-commercial essence deserves to be venerated and celebrated!”

Live, laugh, love.

I began professional surfing’s opening day all grumpy, scribbling a quick laugh at Florida’s Space Coast for spending $422,000 on a lightly attended WQS contest and then drove to San Clemente to sit at the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center’s handsome conference table across from David Lee Scales.

He has been in Australia for nearly a month and I’ve missed our chats. I’ve missed popping off half-cocked and grumpy about this or that.

And there I was, popping off half-cocked, when in waltzed the iconic Steve Pezman, big and tall.

Now, if you don’t know Steve Pezman than I insist you subscribe to the Encyclopedia of Surfing where the august Matt Warshaw will teach you that Steve published Surfer before co-founding The Surfer’s Journal alongside his wife Debbee.

It was such great fortune and David Lee and I demanded that he sit down and play. A rare joyous drop in.

What did Steve say?

Oh.

Only words that completely restored my faith in surfing’s beating heart. Only words that chased my grumpy and replaced it with a profound sense of awe.

Want some too? Here you go!


girl fight
My source, a long-term worker in the surfboard industry who has a tendency to fish too light on the beaches when sharks and jewfish come in after floods, reported a local lass getting dropped in on by a French longboarding gal. It is reported a dunking/holddown ensued. Blows were exchanged.The skirmish moved to the beach where several more females became involved.

Girl Fight: Surf Rage Jumps the Gender Gap!

Drop-in followed by dunking then all-girl beach fight!

I’m no moral philosopher but on reflection I lean on the side of localism. Education and deterrence, not violence of course.

Not kiddies getting slapped or gals getting dunked.

As my friend, the dearly departed David “Baddy” Treloar would say “learn respect to earn respect.”

“No-one owns the ocean,” says the VAL as rebuttal.

Well, of course they do.

Countries have exclusive economic and territorial zones extending out from their shores. Pacific countries claim “reef rights” and ownership of inshore assets including surf breaks.

The mighty US Pacific Fleet under Chester Nimitz laid down the “most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare” against the Japanese fleet under Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku at the Battle of Midway, effectively owning the Pacific Ocean for the next 50 years and allowing a pissant nation like Australia to develop a surfing culture on the back of it.

Long bow, but true.

The stability of localism works, by and large. When stability breaks down chaos ensues.

Despite the image of country soul that the town still trades on a quiet war is being waged periodically around the perimeter of Byron Bay – not in the Bay itself – that has been overrun.It is the most chaotic collection of surf breaks on the planet.

No, the war is happening on on the pointbreaks that border it. Mark “Carcass” Thomson faces court on Friday over a “ surf rage” incident against Jodie Cooper at Lennox head. That will be framed by the media as a #metoo moment but it’s better understood in the context of local order breaking down under the impact of crowds.

Another skirmish has broken out, this time jumping the gender gap, at Broken Head. My source, a long-term worker in the surfboard industry who has a tendency to fish too light on the beaches when sharks and jewfish come in after floods, reported a local lass getting dropped in on by a French longboarding gal. It is reported a dunking/holddown ensued. Blows were exchanged.The skirmish moved to the beach where several more females became involved.

The vibe has changed amongst the local surfing community following an epicly bad six months of surf and a major shift in the surf demographic. Estimates of around 500’000 overseas students in Australia. 499 000 of them now live between Suffolk Park and Burleigh. Safety in numbers seems to be the motto.

Chaos is in their self interest. Failing the emergence of a kind of local wolfpak or another global financial crisis the Bondi-fication of the area will be complete by 2020.

I spent the day calling Byron Bay cop shop.

I can say there are two Keoghs there. A Detective Sergeant and an Inspector. Both very friendly. Inspector Keogh kindly fetched the file for me and confirmed the incident had occurred, was under investigation and witnesses were being sought. No charges had been laid and he declined to name the names of the alleged perp or victim.

If you feel like snitching ask for the Inspector. I got a feeling this won’t be the last surf rage case he’ll be fielding this year.

How’s localism in California going these days?

Is the war over?


Florida officials declare: “Tax spending on surfing event has gotten out of hand!”

"It's just unbelievable that that much was spent on something very few people attended — and it has to stop."

Today is professional surfing’s official opening day and can’t you just feel the crackle of excitement? Can’t you just smell the surf-starved masses breath? A mix of nail polish and rotten fruit? The people have been deprived of their surfing for too long but today, finally, it ends.

Oh our diet is an expensive one though. The World Surf League pours our millions of dollars so we can dine like mad fools and local municipalities empty their coffers too because surf is great and surf is good. It brings masses of tourists and if you throw a surf contest they will come and etc.

Right?

Well, it appears that Florida’s Space Coast tourist department, home to the Florida Pro, spent lots more on that Florida Pro than city councillors and elected officials were comfortable with. Let’s read their gripes. Let’s catch the argument full swing.

New financial documents show that the Space Coast Office of Tourism spent more than $400,000 of tax money on a surf competition at Sebastian Inlet State Park, far more than previously cited.

Largely because of that, the office’s new executive director, Peter Cranis, said he will recommend that the agency no longer directly oversee events such as the Florida Pro Surf competition and a companion music festival.

“I don’t believe we should be in the business of producing events,” Cranis said.

Cranis said the office’s marketing director, who oversaw the events, is resigning to pursue other interests.

Cranis joined the Office of Tourism staff on March 4, and was not at the agency when the spending took place.

The $422,000 far exceeds what the office previously said was spent on the surf competition:

• On Feb. 27, Office of Tourism Marketing Director Tiffany Minton told members of the advisory Tourist Development Council that the agency spent about $280,000 for event costs and marketing.

• On March 5, she sent a follow-up email to Tourist Development Council Chairman Tim Deratany, indicating that $259,557 was spent on event support and marketing for the two events, plus approximately $75,000 for production of video and other materials related to the event. That total equals $334,557.

• On Friday — a day after FLORIDA TODAY made an additional inquiry to Minton about the spending — Cranis provided a spreadsheet indicating that $421,991 was allocated to the account tied to the Florida Pro event.

Both Cranis and Tourist Development Council Chairman Tim Deratany on Monday said they were concerned about the amount the Office of Tourism spent on the event.

“It’s just unbelievable that that much was spent on something very few people attended — and it has to stop,” Deratany said. “It’s very, very frustrating to me to have something like that happening.”

Jerks. $422,000 ain’t nothing when it comes to producing surf contests. Live a little! Those old folks who mostly populate Florida’s Space Coast won’t even know its gone!