Yes or no?
You have by now, no doubt, read the heroic story of two professional surfers who saved three girls from drowning just ahead of their heat in the Belmar Pro in my third favorite state New Jersey. Oh it was heartwarming, so heartwarming, in fact, that it forced me to pause and reconsider my normally grouchy ways.
Were you too won over?
Some of you yes but our friend shootsthen took a more prosaic approach on the moment in the comments, writing, “For experienced water persons, ‘saving’ people from the ocean is like opening the door for old people, it’s an act of common decency, not a newsworthy headline.”
An interesting point, to be sure, though jaded. Grumpy even.
Now, have you ever saved a person from the ocean? A flailing child? A VAL with too much water up his nose? I, myself, have guided a few pre-teens to shore, them using my Album surfboard (buy here) as floatation, after a “big set” caused panic but I’m no hero, no co-Waterperson of the Year, which brings us to the owner of professional surfing and co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff.
Let us pretend that you are out in the water “over your head” and something goes terribly wrong. Would you feel safe if you knew that co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff was there? Would you trust his instincts to jump in and rescue you?
A serious question and I don’t know the answer.
On one hand he is co-Waterperson of the Year. On the other, I’ve never seen a picture of him out of a collared shirt. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m wearing a collared shirt even as I type, pink even, but there’s something about his shoulders that give me pause. Something about his shoulder to waist ratio.
What?
No.
And it is beyond the pale that you, even for one moment, would consider that’d I’d participate in body shaming.
Shame on you, in fact.
I just want to know if you have ever saved a person from the ocean?
And if you’d trust co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff in saving you?
Damn it, I’ve totally fallen back into the grouchy again, haven’t I.
Well, “Good News” had a good run, didn’t it?
when i coined the phrase waterperson a few months back,, i meant it as a joke.
I’m curious about this co-water person of the year, who did he share the “honour” with & who the fuck bestowed this dubious title? It reminds me of (apologies for getting political) former Australian PM receiving a humanitarian award when the mean bastard had built offshore detention centres to “process” refugees.
NO
not to mention the fact that if I ever “needed help” in the ocean, well, it must just be my time go, so no thank you.
even more photographic proof that Katie Holmes is one of the bigger tool magnets in the western hemi…
did you see Weinstein in the background! Creepy bastard
I’ve done 5 or so- 3 consecutive at the Outer Banks when I lived in NC. Most intense of those 3 was a father and son caught in a fast, powerful rip (headed to Bermuda from what I could tell)- dad was holding his kid up and getting weak real fast. I was asleep on the sand, but my wife noticed they were in trouble (she a former life guard). Smallish day at Nagshead, so I had a 10′ Harbour Wingpin- sprint paddled to them, got the kid on my back and had the dad hold on to the tail and paddled them in.
Definitely not heroics. I like the analogy of opening the door for an old lady.
If Dirk was my last hope, then I’m ready, Lord.
good that they were so calm. my experience “rescuing” people is that they will try to climb on top of your head. you sure you didnt dream it?
hard to put solid number on it.the number and intensity of the rescues increase in direct proportion to how many beers I have had and how many backpackers are listening.
15 years surfing is sydney and plenty of tourists helped back to the beach from places they shouldn’t have been.
night club toilets?
Haha. Nocturnal slsc.
Profound question with instinctual reply, No
You called?
Side note: who knows what happened to swellinfo?
wondering the same thing as I sit here not caring a bit about Dork Ziff and hoping he’d disappear from surfing…
supposedly bought by surfline . . . which blows
The most recent save I witnessed was a few weeks ago: a tourist couple brings a toddler to a surfing beach, dumb idea, they don’t know. They turn their backs and the rip snatches the baby, who’s suddenly sailing out to sea. A surfer paddling in grabs the baby. Lucky thing the baby had arm floaties on. Parents losing it, baby screaming. Another day in paradise. My most recent save was this past July. A tourist was too close to the reef; I went to help her out of the impending doom but I ended up giving her a hands on lesson on how to survive a thrashing over the reef without getting wana. We’re always saving tourists in Hawaii and only the most gnarly (and reported) saves make the news. Sadly, the Hawaii news acts as a constant reminder of how quickly tourists (and locals too) can die in the ocean and rivers, so we save them when we can (I love the adrenaline rush). I skimmed the article of the pros saving a few VALs and it didn’t seem noteworthy, ie, guiding a few VALs in. I felt like it would be more noteworthy if the pros didn’t help. Just my opinion. So, yeah, Chas is right, my comment was a thinly veiled “so what?” Finally, I’m not sure I’d trust a guy named Dirk Ziff to pump my gas, let alone save my life.
“I love the adrenaline rush” is the most bad-ass possible reason for helping someone. Props!
Does Dirk Ziff even surf anyway? DOES HE?
And if he did, who would he most resemble? At 5’8 (flatteringly) would he be a stodgy but unfalling ADS? A ball of pure lightening such as Felipe? Have a style as smooth as Ke11y but hampered by poor board choice? Perhaps he has the heart of Ciao, down on his luck but banging a hot chick so not too phased just yet and happy to go along for the ride? Or is he a black hole? A styleless void, sucking the marrow bones of “Sarf kultur” and staring unblinkingly through his slitlike reptilian overlord eyes?
Or maybe he’s just a kook like me. Haven’t met the guy tbh.
Ziff made money and bought a hobby to tinker with, realized it was not easy so he hired media pros to “fix” the hobby but the pros cant understand the product either so gave up and are fahioning it out of their own image
Not quite accurate. He inherited his money. He’s never “made” anything in his life.
Narp. No general duty to save another but if you do have a crack at it and cause them harm it could be construed as malfeasance, making you liable for the harm.
Damn that sucks. In oz, we have a Good Samaritan law, provided you act without recompense and are not criminally negligent in your actions.
It’s all about nipple shaming. Fuck Zirk Diff. He couldn’t save a fly off the top water. I saved a wave one time. Walked straight in and told the guy this spot isn’t for you. He walked to the parking lot. Wave winked at me as I paddled back out.
Katie: still would.
Yes.
Now will you send me some high thigh Beach Grit trunks?
sun bear that’s not how things like this work. a) what kind of idiot goes to war with a billionaire? b) the cream of the WSL would not jump. c) formats are not so easy. d) none of it is easy.
Pro contests of any kind require a lot of people being paid to put a lot of energy into an incredible amount of stuff. They also require a lot of partnerships with many many third parties. None of this shit falls from heaven. Tours do not fall from heaven. The current CT would have a price tag well in excess of $50 million, but the money’s just the start of it. Negotiating on the ground goodwill at the CT locations alone (not the Ranch obv) is a full time, year-round task.
It’s easy to be facetious about it, it’s even fun! But it’s also a little bit unmoored from what’s really going on.
The people on the sidelines here will never overtly go to war with the WSL. They will just wait and plan for a time when the billionaire decides enough is enough. And if he doesn’t decide that, they will be none the losers.
Interesting question? I have been a “volunteer safety lookout” in a certain toilet plunger style wave pool during testing, obviously no saving needed there as a certain 99 World Champ and his hoard of groms tore the place to pieces. But if whispers around the site are true that the Woozle has made contact with said Mad Max company over buying out their multiple wave technology would that mean I would have to be ready to save the “Co-waterman of the year” Ziff if his pool session went arry???? Where would that place me on the scale of Laird to Beth….?
About 4 toilet brushes.
(2 Hawaiian)
😂 good one cb. Hey Barnes that’s a good little tidbit there – I wonder if any surf journalist should read this site and investigate such things?
I think a Surfads coined the toilet brush scale.
I asked around if anyone knew DirkZiff
Just shrugs.
Porn star?
Was the only response
“The best trick the devil did is to convince cunts he doesn’t exist”
Or something like that.
Spacey, you fuckin creep.
I haven’t been called spacey since I lived up the north coast.
Artie Ziffs brother
(Marge Simpsons nerdy senior prom date who subsequently became a billionaire and attempted to woo her back from Homer)
Artie is the one with the wandering hands
Quite apt then, seeing as Weinstein’s putting it on the redhead on the left by the looks of it…
…and is that a less than usually well groomed E-Lo on the right, over the shoulder of the stripey dress lady? Button down Chambray collar guy?
Edit ++oh yeah, see below, already noted by others++
Apparently so
Guess that the child sex trafficking guy who (supposedly) killed himself in jail recently is somewhere there
Trump’s most probably just out of shot too