An important discussion regarding big waves and
their measurement.
Our Hawaiian brothers and sisters, God bless
each and every one, pioneered the absolutely confounding “back of
the wave” measurement scale. Our Australian wave plunger brothers
and sisters, God bless them slightly less, pioneered a miraculous 8
foot measurement using bodyboarders as perspective. But, I feel, as
both an artist and Caucasian male, that the mainstream media
delivers the most compelling system, measuring waves using
“storeys” of buildings/houses.
Headlines began screaming, a few days ago, that “two-story” surf
was headed to the Bay Area and let’s read before
discussing.
The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory
as a brewing storm in the Gulf of Alaska is expected to deliver
waves up to 22 feet tall to Northern California beaches.
“The high winds associated with that storm are generating
the swell that should get there by Thursday,” said Spencer Tangen,
a forecaster with the NWS office in Monterey.
In effect 3 p.m. Thursday through 3 a.m. Saturday, the
advisory warns of strong rip currents, beach erosion and large
waves running far up beaches and washing over large rocks and
jetties.
“Use extra caution near the surf zone as these large waves
will be capable of sweeping people into the frigid and turbulent
ocean water,” warns the Weather Service. “Cold water shock may
cause cardiac arrest, and it also can cause an involuntary gasp
reflex causing drowning, even for a good swimmer.”
So, quickly, can our San Fransisco adjacent sisters and brothers
first let us know that they’re ok? No cold water born cardiac
arrests? Gasp reflexed drowning?
And now, “storeys” for waves. Are with me? Best way to measure
them? I feel it combines the smoke throw of the Hawaiian system
with the nonsense of the plunger system. Who amongst us hasn’t
jumped from a second story into a swimming pool?
We’re all big wave surfers!
But also should be employed more broadly. “I just surfed some
pretty fun wainscotting this morning…” etc.
No?
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A performance twin for good feels.
Panda Dolly Dagger Review: “A comfort zone
for the non-pro. Very seductive bottom contour. Very easy speed,
nice flow.”
The success of this modern performance twin fin
design is as a bridge between the hard-core shred and the
anyone-can-ride alternative “crutch” board. A certain type of shred
lord for whom the thruster is too jock and the quad too macho will
find solace in the twin fin.
You ride a twin fin, your Mom rides a twin-fin, your
Mom’s girlfriend rides a twin-fin. The twin-fin is the
ubiquitous piece of surfing equipment at this juncture: December
twenty-nineteen.
To that formula, the Dolly Dagger adds a modern
(neutral) rail, compared to the hard down rail with tucked edge of
the Richards Twin and a very dynamic bottom contour. Single concave
under the front foot with a pronounced vee through the aft area
housing concaved panels either side.
I got mine at 5’8”, coming in just under 30 litres, and the very
first sensation, after coming off the
Slater FRK was one of sweet relief. This is a very
fine paddling surfboard, both from A to B in the line-up and into
waves. Width under the chest and a relaxed forward rocker means
this board moves through the water very nicely.
Do you get trapped by the rigidity of your own thought patterns?
I sure do.
For example, I thought I hated twin-fins, and everything about
them. My very first wave, in crumbly but longish period high-tide
runners, like Bells Beach, so therefore perfect for a twin, ended
badly. Squirrely pieces of shit, I thought.
A regular surfing pal on a mid-length twin went straight past,
with that release/glide off the top. I always thought twins exerted
too much rotational force on the hull, compared to the more
hull-centric single or thruster feeling, where there is less
rotational force from the side fins. Less pivot around a
hypothetical fulcrum. It’s that pivot that always bugged me on the
twin.
I was very, very lucky, in that a solution to the problem
presented itself.
Chatting to an American chap who had paddled off the rocks and
was sitting inside me on a soft-top and I was thinking there was no
way he would have the hide to think he was going to paddle straight
up the inside and have the next set wave, but he did.
That creates a comfort zone for the non-pro. Not having the back
foot placement so critical as a thruster while maintaining the
engagement of the fin cluster during turns. Parko copped heat for
safety swoops but for a rec surfer not much feels better, and that
greased soap around the bath tub high-line is a stoker. Both of
which the Dolly Dagger does supremely well. It’s a very relaxing
surfboard to ride. Lots of good feels. Compared to the FRK, it does
not demand much to be ridden well.
So I took it. Sorry pal, if you are reading.
Which means I had to haul ass, as they say, and in that process
I got two big pumps in that were more like top-to-bottom swoops and
generated an insane amount of speed. My back foot was a little
further forwards than a thruster placement.
That creates a comfort zone for the non-pro. Not having the back
foot placement so critical as a thruster while maintaining the
engagement of the fin cluster during turns. Parko copped heat for
safety swoops but for a rec surfer not much feels better, and that
greased soap around the bath tub high-line is a stoker. Both of
which the Dolly Dagger does supremely well. It’s a very relaxing
surfboard to ride. Lots of good feels. Compared to the FRK, it does
not demand much to be ridden well.
I rode it mostly in crappy surf but just as Eskimos have lots of
words for snow, Arabs for sand and Polynesian navigators for ocean
there an infinite number of types of crap surf, rarely categorised.
The type I rode mostly was a seasonal variety consisting of small
mid-long period swell, point surf with a counter-vailing devil
wind. Hard to ride. Hard to maintain speed, join the dots, find
clean corners and do turns. Hence derided and uncrowded.
This Dolly Dagger ate it up. You get
the speed and the safety swoops going and crack the corners; the
flattish rocker keeps the glide going and the short hull and fin
set-up gets the pivot. I think, a lot of waves break like that in
the world with, what in ecology is termed, an unexploited
niche.
I also rode little beachbreak wedges at Coolum and had a ball
smashing closeouts, more typical beachbreak and could glide between
sections. Rail-to-rail movements get water flowing through the
concaves either side of the vee. It’s a very seductive bottom
contour. Very easy speed, nice flow.
The marketing blurb says twin fin, one look at it and I thought
twin fin but some minds- Derek Rielly, for example, saw three fin
plugs and thought: thruster. I did put some JJF Alphas in the plugs but
the board instantly lacked the drive of the big twins.
Back to the OG set-up, which was the Merrick AM-T’s. A big upright
twin, with a small trailer.
The trailer might be considered cheating by some, but as a way
of softening the rotation on my backhand it worked a charm. My beef
with the AM-T’s was the Soviet grey colour. Twins need a beautiful
fin. My Irish ranga pal at the Byron Equinor protest rocked a
rainbow set in his twin and that looked amazing. Don’t snort Nick
Carroll, you’re as prone to petty vanity as the rest of us.
Cons? Some shred will be left on the table in good waves. A
local breakwall turned on a rare day (for this time of year) of
overhead wedges. There was resistance from the wider nose to going
straight up into the bowl at speed. Hard to lever off the fin
cluster to get really vertical.
Don’t get me wrong, still fun, but maybe just a tad restrictive,
more lateral. I might add, most of this was backside surfing.
Forehand, I think the control and placement of vertical surfing
would be much easier, especially for those of an advanced skill
set.
The success of this modern performance twin fin design, I
believe, is as a bridge between the hard-core shred and the
anyone-can-ride alternative “crutch” board. A certain type of shred
lord for whom the thruster is too jock and the quad too macho will
find solace in the twin fin.
There are many fine examples from Dave Rastovich to Asher Pacey
to Torryn Martyn. The non-pro intermediate finds larger margins for
error in foot placement, very nice feeling speed swoops and easy
pivot surfing that feels better than it looks, in most cases.
Deferring to Dane Reynolds dictum that for the non-pro, if it
feels good it is good, is a fair enough punctuation point.
PS. I rode a board with three plugs but the Dolly Dagger has options to fin
as a twinzer, which is an enormously appealing prospect.
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Heartbreaking: Thousands of desperate
“pulsating” Penis Fish wash up, unloved and unsatisfied, on a
Northern California beach!
We here at BeachGrit promise to be
anti-depressive. Strive to be each and every day. To lift
your spirits from the murky mire. To free your soul from bondage
but some stories are simply heartbreaking yet must be reported.
This is one of them.
For thousands of Fat Innkeeper Worms, also inexplicably called
“Penis Fish,” have washed up, unloved and unsatisfied, on a
Northern California beach usually famous for Great White sharks
dismembering surfers and let us turn to Aunty for more but
not before grabbing a box of tissue with which to dry our eyes.
It may just be the most bizarre thing seen all
week.
Thousands of pulsating penis-shaped fish have mysteriously
washed up on a California shoreline following a series of winter
storms.
The underwater creatures are fat innkeeper worms, or Urechis
caupo. Although the worms are technically neither penises nor fish,
they are widely referred to as a “penis fish.”
In a jarring photo posted to Instagram, thousands of the
pink 10-inch marine worms are seen covering the shore of Drakes
Beach in northern California, about 30 miles northwest of San
Francisco.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B58did9BbBA/
Well, one man’s “most bizarre thing” is another man’s deep,
profound tragedy.
Will you weep with me?
Mourn, quietly, the unfulfilled fate of the mighty Penis
Fish?
Great White shark.
The End.
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Listen: “With hair braided to corral and
hold all the power of the islands, Gabriel Medina cannot be beat at
Pipeline!”
Italo vs. Gabe is a heavyweight bout for the
ages.
Hair is an important, if sometimes overlooked,
source of male strength. Who could ever forget Sampson in the Bible
with his flowing locks that held much power. All was lost when the
temptress Delilah lopped them off but they grew back in time for a
picturesque murder/suicide.
The Native Americans have famously kept their hair long and
according to the Awakening Times, “It has been proven
scientifically that people who have long hair tend to be less
tired, more energetic and less likely to become depressed. People
who have long hair also conserve energy and don’t feel the cold of
winter the same as people with short hair. A person who has short
hair wastes his body’s energy. A person who cuts his hair over his
lifetime forces the body to grow 22 meters of replacement hair. A
person who keeps his hair only produces 1.5 meters of hair over his
lifetime.”
Fascinating, no?
Which brings us to our current Men’s Championship Tour World
Title heavyweight bout between Italo and Gabe.
My heart so so so so wants Italo to win, to be chaired up the
beach draped in Order and Progress.
My head says “Gabriel Medina will win. Look at him above, hair
braided to corral and hold all the power of the islands. All of its
mana. Italo became like the ancient, evil Haole, cooking his hair
to white. Gabriel has transcended to the place only nymphettes with
bracelets of friendship, hands of henna and hearts of pure
gold/patchouli oil dare tread.”
I hope my head is wrong but… oh, what do you think? While
weighing out various scenarios come listen to David Lee Scales and
I chat about Jaws, Joe Turpel and the Jabbawockeez.
I am sitting in the airport on my way to work a bike
event in Seattle. No lie, I checked a bag filled entirely
with Goretex. I love my bike people, but their choice of weather is
not always my favorite. Somehow, I will survive this
experience.
Even through the shitty airport wifi — and really, in 2019, why
is airport wifi still so shitty? — I can hear you. I can hear you
yelling at me, like, Jen, Jen, what the fuck, what is up with the
women’s big wave event at Jaws. Help us understand. Well in truth,
I think some of you just want me to post up as a target for your
comment section shenanigans. Well, someone has to do it, so here I
am.
My foundational belief about women’s sports is the following: I
believe that women athletes should have agency over their sports.
They should be able to determine how and where they compete and
what they earn. They should be able to progress their sports at the
speed they want to progress them. They should have events that
reflect their priorities, their ambitions, their values, and their
dreams.
The women who compete in big wave surfing have made their
priorities very clear, I think. Based on what we know from Daniel
Duane’s reporting (among others), the women in big wave surfing
want equity. They have set as their goal to achieve the same
opportunities to compete that men enjoy. They’ve sought equal prize
money and they have made it their priority to build their sport on
these values.
That means, if the men paddle out at ginormous Jaws, the women
are going to paddle out, too. That means if there’s an event for
men at Mavericks, the women are going to demand entrance, too. And
they will take the hold-downs and the criticism that comes with
their determination to chase the biggest possible waves and the
biggest possible goals. They would not thank anyone who tried to
hold them back, who tried to tell them that it’s too big or who
tried to tell them that they aren’t ready.
By contrast, I think it’s fair to say that the women on the CT
are following a somewhat different path. When I asked Steph Gilmore
and Carissa Moore about surfing Teahupoo, they were open to it, but
they want to take it step by step. On the question of prize money
equity, Gilmore says it wasn’t a priority for her. She only came
late to understanding the symbolic importance it has in inspiring
other women. Of course, Gilmore doesn’t speak for the entire CT —
Fitzgibbons and Conlogue both told me they would go, right now
today, if an event happened in Tahiti.
Shortboard surfing is a different sport from its big-wave sister
and it makes sense that the women who do it are searching for
different things. They want opportunities to showcase their style,
their meticulously crafted turns. They want space for
self-expression. It’s not that they’re ignoring the men’s side of
the sport and it’s not that they aren’t looking at how the men are
pushing what’s possible. Moore, in particular, says she’s aware of
the gap in the performance levels between men and women — and
perhaps more than anyone, wants to change it. But exact parity does
not appear to be how they are thinking about their sport.
But, and read this slowly my people, both approaches are equally
valid, as long as they reflect what the women doing the sport
actually want their sport to look like. It doesn’t matter what I
think, or what a bunch of men yelling in the comments section
think. What matters is what women want their sports to be and what
goals they set for themselves as athletes. That’s it.
To support women’s sports, in truth, requires coming to it on
its own terms and engaging it based on the goals that women
athletes have set for themselves. What it doesn’t mean is setting
men’s sports as the norm, and constantly measuring the ways that
women fall short of this imagined ideal.
Sure, the women competing at Jaws were not on the same level as
surfers as the men. That’s true. But on their own terms, they have
already succeeded. They paddled out in the same event, on the same
day. That is the goal that they’ve set for themselves. And they’re
evolving their sport steadily and determinedly in the direction
they want it to go. Nothing is ever built in an instant.
The thing about elite athletes is, they are never willing to
settle. They are always pushing, always chasing, never content with
average or normal. In this, women athletes are no different from
men. That process is not always pretty and it doesn’t always run
smoothly.
Stand or fall, the women in big wave surfing have my respect for
their determination to paddle out and their refusal to back down.
There is, eventually, something inspiring in that — which is maybe
the point of watching sports at all.
