Paige Alms, winner of $20,000. $80,000 less than her short wave brothers and sisters.
Paige Alms, winner of $20,000. $80,000 less than her short wave brothers and sisters.

Opinion: “The World Surf League’s bald-faced hypocrisy regarding ‘equality’ mocks the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Paine, Susan B. Anthony etc!”

Disgusting.

Oh how Santa Monica pounded its chest in announcing that its World Surf League was the world’s first, first, sporting organizational body to provide equal pay for both men and women. That it represented the largest civil rights shift since Russia freed her serfs. But do you not remember? Do you not recall the breathless press release? Let’s practice retroactive journalism together here and now.

The World Surf League (WSL) today announced that it will award equal prize money to male and female athletes for every WSL-controlled event in the 2019 season and beyond, becoming the first and only US based global sports league, and among the first internationally, to achieve prize money equality. The WSL is proud of its commitment to gender equality, and proud to join other organizations beyond the world of sport reaching this important milestone.

Of course the WSL’s public relations busy bees, trapped in reclaimed cubicles, slaving under the ominous glare of Erik “ELo” Logan’s pearly whites, pushed the narrative out to the mainstream media.

Equal.

Equal.

First in equal.

Except it’s all a damned lie. An absolutely egregious display of bald-faced hypocrisy not seen since… since… Mark Zuckerberg.

For how much did our big wave brother and sister make after surfing heart-stopping Jaws?

$20,000.

And how much does the winner of every Championship Tour surfer make?

$100,000.

This discrepancy sickens me as it should sicken you.

#EqualityForWaveSize

No?

Obviously yes, troglodyte.

Shame.

Shame.

Shame.


National Weather Service declares: Extremely dangerous “two-story” waves arrive in Bay Area!

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?


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.

The Dolly Dagger by Panda surfboards gets filed under performance twin, to distinguish from the traditional twin-keeled San Diegan fish and it’s offspring. The performance twin is almost always a direct replica in outline to the Mark Richards twins he rode to four World Titles 79-82. Balanced outline with width in both the chest area and tail block and a single flyer, which both breaks the outline curve at the point of primary fin engagement and helps to reduce planing area in the pod behind the back foot. Swallow-tail mandatory.

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.

The Mayhem Evil Twin set would also work fine, with a nicer aesthetic.

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.


Heartbreaking: Thousands of desperate “pulsating” Penis Fish wash up, unloved and unsatisfied, on a Northern California beach!

Weep with me.

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.


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.

Have you seen them? In Las Vegas?

Me neither.