"I'm convinced anyone of moderate skill level could wax this board up and ride it for the first time in hollow waves with total confidence."

Year ago, almost to the day, I wrote a Mentawai travelogue that was universally recognised for what it was, which was drug-fucked gibberish.

The rare bird that pisses off equally in all directions.

I do blame the xanax, which I’d never had before, and mixes poorly with booze, apparently. It was my mate, one of the world’s best prosthetists and who goes to Nepal on his own time and dime to make new limbs for kiddies who lost theirs in the earthquake etc, who recommended it.

So I did.

No biggie, ‘cept it left me sideways for days. What a (very nice) haze!

A year later, I regret negging out on the Mentawais. Matt Warshaw said after the unveiling of Kelly’s tub in 2015: why travel for surf? Which means, by implication, the Mentawais are called upon to justify themselves.

I wouldn’t swap one wave at Lemoore, not a hundred, a thousand for a sojourn in the Mentawais. Not a drag on a Gudam Gurang, a drunken piss off the back deck to the first call to Prayer, a warm Bintang that tastes like battery acid, a week of the squirts because the street Rendang was overloaded with E. Coli.

Not a damn thing.

Capische?

Now that is cleared up. I took a Lost Sabotaj to the Ments and have meant to review it. It is marketed as a one-board travel quiver for Indo and it does, largely, fulfil that spec.

It is the first Lost board I’ve ridden, which as we all know is a successful board building empire helmed by it’s founder Matt “Mayhem” Biolos.

Mayhem has very astutely managed an image from garage punk to GQ respectability and shown a genius for slicing and dicing the surfboard marketplace and developing models to suit those various micro-niches.

He uses pro surfers to sell the sizzle but his stock in trade is the domesticated high-performance board. The Sabotaj fits very neatly into this category.

The Sabotaj has a forward-weighted template, generous foil and the, by now ubiquitous, single-to-double-concave bottom contour. Sweet little elliptical round tail.

Inevitably, comparisons will be made with the Pyzel Ghost, justifiably so, and we may as well deal with them now. Head-to-head, the Sabotaj carries more foam for its length and has an easier rocker curve to negotiate.

The Ghost feels shorter than its length, is knifier and is a harder, more tuned ride than the Sabotaj. That’s no disrespect to the Sabotaj; you could ride it shorter in stock dims or whittle down the foam in a custom if you wanted to hot rod it.

One-board quiver for Indo or other tropical tubular destination? Much as I hate to agree with marketing blurbs, the answer is unequivocably yes.

I waxed mine pre-dawn and cracked the champagne on it at head-high Telescopes. It took…half… a wave for the Sabotaj to win my heart.

In ten days cruising the Ments, I did not head-butt the upper range, or get close to it, so the eight-foot call on the website seems fair enough.

It’s at the lower end of the spectrum that it feels slightly dull. It’ll get the job done, but a 5’6” Cymatic felt so much spicier at head-high Macaronis. A Stacey Wave Slave with its wider tail block was a lot more fun in onshore two-to-three-foot Scarecrows.

But if you were, say, an Aussie expat working finance in Singapore, or an editor in London, a contractor in California with a sudden window available for Indo, or Mex and you needed one board to make shit happen, the Sabotaj would see you through, no problemo.

I’m convinced anyone of moderate skill level could wax this board up and ride it for the first time in hollow waves with total confidence.

The clue is in the name but obvs, the board was developed in conjunction with retired CT’er Taj Burrow. Taj was/is a wizard who very often looked unbeatable in head-high, righthand Point or beachbreak surf, very much like Filipe Toledo.

Unlike Toledo, Burrow largely escaped the kind of withering character assassination due to his inability to perform in heavy reef lefts.

In 2011 and 2014, years when Teahupoo was big and heavy, Taj got knocked in rounds two and three respectively, yet history has a generous assessment of his career. A strange anomaly.

I’m not a one-board quiver guy, never have been, never will be. I took a three board quiver to the UK, including an eight-foot gun, just in case and cursed it wildly every time I humped it from pillar to post. Derek Rielly is right though, when he states that unless you be a CT pro one board is fine for 99% of the time.

A note on the build quality. This board was made by the Australian licencee at Ourimbah drive Tweed Heads, TC Glasshouse. Same cats who build the Pyzels. Like the Ghost I got off ’em, this thing is indestructible. Blank density, lamination schedule, it’s top notch. The Ghost, two years on, has still barely got a deck dent.

The Sabotaj is on a similar trajectory.

I wanted to give the last word to my Bribie pal, who has known me since we were kids, and is quite capable of ruthless objectivity. But he is working FIFO, I think a few hundred miles out in the bush from Kalgoorlie, dragging cables around prospecting for heavy metals.

All I could get out of him was a text, “ya fucking fell off too much”, which illustrates another truth for the non CT surfer.

No matter the arrow, the archer is 99% of the performance.

Evolution at work.

Great White sharks are thought to be sixteen-million-years old, first appearing in the Miocene era, while humans have only been on planet earth for a mere 200,000. With what we know about evolution, both micro and macro, it’s near impossible not to imagine the apex predators have been adapting, shifting, changing their behavior to become even more efficient killers.

Examining the recent Great White explosion off of Nantucket, a once peaceful community where the only thing lacking was the letter ‘R’ but now blood-soaked and paranoid, it appears the beasts are using their mystique to lure victims much like child molesters use candy.

As surfers, the most sought after treat by Great Whites, we have evolved to either not surf with them or to be generally fatalistic about it, assuming we may well lose a leg or friend. The general population, however, has less experience and, contrary to assumed logic, are not being repelled from Cape Cod but rather flocking, hoping to catch a glimpse of “Jaws” and let us turn to Mass Live for more on this disturbing trend.

Sue Koszela traveled more than 500 miles to enjoy the beaches along Cape Cod. Like many beachgoers she checked the beach conditions with an app on her phone prior leaving her timeshare.

She wasn’t checking the weather, though. Instead she was looking for shark activity.

“We’ve never seen a great white shark, so I think that’s where the fascination (comes from,)” Koszela said.

Using the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Sharktivity app, the Buffalo native calculated which beaches experienced the highest number of shark sightings. Her examintion led her to Head of Meadow Beach in Truro.

She narrowly predicted correctly. The park ranger at the entrance booth alerted Koszela and her family that the water was closed due to a shark sighting about 10 minutes ago.

“(Missing it) was somewhat devastating,” Koszela said.

Koszela isn’t alone.

“There’s been an absolute fascination with these creatures that has actually lured more people here than chased them away,” CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Wendy Northcross said. “People kind of have this huge curiosity. The most frequently asked questions here is, ‘Where can we go see the sharks?’”

Etc.

And I fear that Great Whites are a few thousand years away from manufacturing Rohypnol on a mass scale. I fear that we surfers will see it coming but that the general population will be decimated, more or less.

Is a huge media package right around the corner?

I read Sam George’s poetry last night and was so excited to write a rebuttal until this morning when I read each and every one of your comments and laughed until my sides hurt. There is nothing else to say on the matter except to wonder who BeachGrit’s “resident critic” is. A great and grand mystery that only Sam George truly knows. Sam? Will you ever reveal or will you take it to your grave?

Speaking of, what sort of “grave” do you think Sam George will choose when that time comes? Something rococo or understated? A plot in a historically important cemetery, like next to Jim Morrison in Paris, or will his ashes be taken to Sunset, on a big day, and windmilled in to a bomb?

While you are pondering, can we quickly discuss our World Surf League? Oh what a week it has been with sizzling rumors, sizzling rumors half-punctured then sizzling rumors resurrecting again. Santa Monica rarely reaches out directly, but when they did following the first sizzling rumor of a Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch-less future and my phone exploded I thought, “Something must be up.”

Could that something be a robust media deal worth tens and tens of millions of dollars that is currently being negotiated, pitting Facebook against Fox against ESPN for the grand prize?

Maybe.

And let us turn to Front Office Sports for more:

The sport of surfing will be part of the Olympic Games for the first time in Tokyo in 2020. The timing couldn’t be better for the World Surf League (WSL) to commence negotiations for future media deals, with an eye toward richer rights fees and greater visibility.

The surfing governing body currently has a linear TV deal with Fox Sports and a digital deal with Facebook. As the exclusive U.S. broadcaster for the WSL’s Men’s and Women’s Championship Tours as well as the Big Wave Tour, Fox and FS1 are expected to televise more than 500 hours of WSL programming this year.

But those deals expire after this year. WSL and Fox announced a one-year deal in February. Previously, WSL and Facebook announced a two-year deal in January, 2018. The league is expected to reap $30 million from that deal, according to Forbes.

Pri Shumate, the former Nike marketer who joined WSL as chief marketing officer earlier this year, confirmed the governing body has begun negotiating its future media deals.

“We can’t disclose a whole lot of what’s happening because we are having media rights conversations at the moment. But we have had incredible success with both Facebook and Fox,” Shumate said. “Facebook has expanded our audience in the digital universe in a huge way. Obviously, our linear audience has grown as well through Fox. Both of those have been incredible partnerships for us. We are in the process of figuring out how do we move forward for 2020 and beyond.”

Given ESPN’s global reach, they would seem to be a natural contender for WSL rights. But Shumate declined to name possible bidders outside the incumbents.

Etc.

On the piece goes with extremely bullish talk regarding the size and engagement of professional surfing’s audience and much business-speak from WSL CEO Sophie Goldschmidt but a sentence, near the end, caught my eye. Let’s read together.

With a young, funky and opinionated audience, sports insiders view WSL as a league with plenty of financial upside.

A young, funky and opinionated audience? That sounds a lot like us doesn’t it? And is Santa Monica selling itself to media partners based on the biggest little surf website in the world? I haven’t read or seen anything even close to “opinionated” anywhere but right here. Well before we pat ourselves on the back and head out to our mailboxes, awaiting royalty checks from that future financial upside let us read nouveau Backward Fin Beth Pri Shumate’s final quote:

“We’re expanding from competition to community. If before our goal was to have this amazing home for core surf fans, we’re expanding into creating a community through surfing. Those people don’t have to necessarily be surfers. They need to love what it is we represent.”

It’s a VAL world, baby. We’re just living in it.

But the corporate retreats are booming!

I knew it. I knew something smelled fishy in Lemoore, California which struck me as particularly odd seeing it is 100 miles from the nearest beach and surrounded by cow stink but my nose always knows (buy here).

Something real fishy.

I had heard a sizzling hot rumor from impeccable sources yesterday that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, halfway between an Indian casino and the sixth circle of hell, was being mothballed, employees laid off and canned future World Surf League Championship Tour events, including but not limited to the Founders Cup, the Surf Ranch Open and the Freshwater Pro.

The WSL’s Santa Monica headquarters came swinging in, almost directly, with an excoriating rebuttal, issuing a rare direct statement.”The Surf Ranch Lemoore facility continues to invest in new staff and experiences and the WSL is excited about the venue’s potential in 2020 and beyond.”

Solid, no? But that fishy scent still lingered and lingered so heavily, blowing out the dung and industrial farm waft, that it cocked my eye straight into my brain.

Something didn’t smell properly.

Well, my nose, which always knows, was right.

Maybe.

For today two other sources even more impeccable confirmed that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch will be dropped from future WSL Championship Tours because, “The pros hate it and are bored with it partly because the heat, partly because the location and partly because they have simply done everything they can on that wave.”

But, the sources added, “It’s supposedly doing great for corporate retreats and private buy outs.”

I also heard yesterday that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch is the one jewel in the World Surf League crown actually turning a profit.

A VAL bull market!

A VAL paradise!

Google, Facebook and Perdue Pharma employees splashing each other whilst straddling soft-tops while their hardcore co-workers gorilla squat five feet in front of a barrel (I can’t remember the genius that used this line in the comments but I tip my drink to you).

So that’s where we are. Surf Ranch, as a business model and place, may be healthy but as the high performance future of professional surfing it’s unofficially officially a wrap.

More after the World Surf League’s Santa Monica brass get furious and call me again.

Let's make pro surfing a safe space…

I know a little something about being scared in big surf. More than a little, as in one particular case my obvious trepidation was exposed to peers in the sport’s most public forum.

The year was 1982 and I was in Hawaii competing in the Pro Class Trials at Sunset Beach.

Back then the Pro Class Trials were a pretty big thing, a one-shot ‘QS of its day, through which pro hopefuls qualified for the prestigious Hawaiian events like the Pipeline Masters and Smirnoff Pro, when only the top-16 surfers on the IPS Tour were seeded.

Which meant that along with a bunch of hot young Hawaiians like Mark Liddell and Louie Ferriera and Aussie upstarts like Mike Newling and Steve Wilson, there were guys like me: pretty good surfers who had eked out enough marginal placings at various events throughout the year to earn a Pro Trials invite.

That year, I’d surfed my way through to the main event at the Stubbies at Burleigh, losing to Critta Byrne, and somehow finished fifth at the U.S. Pro at Malibu, seeing my name shoe-horned in among real surf stars like Rabbit, Dane and Shaun. Which is why, come that winter, I found myself standing on the sand at Sunset Beach, wet jersey in hand, shivering in the warm Hawaiian sun.

Like I said, though only a pretty good surfer at the time I had a distinct advantage over some of my more naturally talented competitors: I had Al Merrick’s first Thruster. As in, the first Thruster Al ever shaped, with other CI team riders like Tommy Curren, Davey Smith and Willy Morris all still riding twins. And I put it to good use on the first day of competition, held in four-to-six foot Sunset Point, actually winning a couple heats.

But on the next day Sunset got real, breaking at what everyone but me was calling clean, eight-to ten feet out of the northwest. Which, ignoring the bullshit Hawaiian scale, means the actual size was sixteen-to -wenty feet.

I call that big.

So, I’m ready to paddle out for my third round heat, and all I have to do is place second to get into the Show. I’ve got Al’s second Thruster under my arm, a 7’4” four-channel that Shaun kindly lent me, I’ve got Willy Morris as a caddy, paddling my 7’6” single fin, and, at the sight of those ferocious NW peaks unloading through the inside bowl, a belly full of snakes.

Big day at Rincon? Stoked!

Double overhead at the Lane? Bring it on.

Serious Sunset? Try serious gut wrench.

I was scared, and you could tell because I was uncharacteristically quiet. But I paddled out. Had to. And it went like this.

First wave on the unfamiliar 7’4”, I dropped into a medium-sized inside double-up, landed a bit further forward than I would’ve liked, leaned into the bottom turn, the board tracked straight and I flopped off the inside rail face-down. Rag-dolled until I thought my head was going to explode. Maybe it did. But the leash held, and I came up, dazed but still game.

Second wave, pretty good size with more north in it and an easier roll-in. I actually did a few good turns, racing under the inside curl all the way to the channel. Third wave smaller and fat but I zigged and zagged, imagining I was surfing like Mark Warren.

The answer came with a minute left in the heat. A big West Peak jacked up outside, the biggest set of the heat so far.

I was the only one in position. Except that to me this thing looked like a drive-in movie screen that was about to topple over and crush me, impossibly tall and steep and bearing down on me with what seemed like evil intent. I put my head down and stroked for the horizon as if my life depended on it, because at that point in my blind panic, I believed it did.

“Bradshaw’s winning,” yelled Willy as I paddled past him in the channel, “But one more good one and you’ll get through!” I distinctly remember thinking at the time, “Do I really want to get through? Am I really up to Second Reef Pipe, or worse, Waimea?”

The answer came with a minute left in the heat. A big West Peak jacked up outside, the biggest set of the heat so far.

I was the only one in position.

Except that to me this thing looked like a drive-in movie screen that was about to topple over and crush me, impossibly tall and steep and bearing down on me with what seemed like evil intent. I put my head down and stroked for the horizon as if my life depended on it, because at that point in my blind panic, I believed it did.

Willy broke the spell.

“It’s not going to break!” he screamed. “Take it! Take it!”

A veritable slap in the face. I sat up, spun around and paddled just as hard to catch the monster. I’ll get through the trials, goddammit, and I’ll surf Pipeline and Waimea, too, if that’s what it comes to.

Sure, I was scared, but I was out here, wasn’t I?

Too far, as it turned out.

Paddling again as if my life, or at least my pro career, depended on it, I wind-milled like crazy, but it was no good: my initial flight not fight response had already doomed my shot at the wave of the day. It rolled under me and peeled empty all the way to Vals Reef as the horn sounded, ending my heat and any chance I’d ever have to be taken seriously as a pro surfer.

Later on the beach the announcer read the results, and I don’t remember who it was, only what they said. “Third place, Sam George. Too bad, Sam, but you know what they say, no guts, no glory.” How’d you like that being said about you on the beach in Hawaii, in front of half the pro tour?

Later on the beach the announcer read the results, and I don’t remember who it was, only what they said.

“Third place, Sam George. Too bad, Sam, but you know what they say, no guts, no glory.”

How’d you like that being said about you on the beach in Hawaii, in front of half the pro tour? But, in fact, that’s exactly why I’m telling you this tale.

Because while following BeachGrit’s coverage of the Tahiti Pro I read where their resident Critic smugly called Willian Cardoso and Yago Dora cowards for not charging gnarly Teahupoo, but riding only one wave each, and tentatively.

Cowards.

And man, I thought my shaming at Sunset was bad.

At the same time, though, it brought to mind a quote a good friend recited after I told him what happened to me that day, paraphrasing Theodore Rooseveldt, no less:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Cowards? Scared, maybe. Probably.

But they paddled out anyway, a simple act of courage that those smug Critics, safe on shore, will never understand.