How grand it would be to praise a decisive action when the world's surfing population was most in need of what the WSL could offer.

,File under: never let a crisis go to waste.

The Tour is cooked for the year, that’s a serious bummer for everyone involved, but it ain’t the life and death scenario many are facing, especially our brothers and sisters in Europe.

Surfing is banned on the shores of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Puerto Rico, may be banned elsewhere.

God Help us all.

Please don’t come at me, but I won’t curtailing my coastal activities.

I found Elo’s video message on the impact of CoronaVirus on the Tour strangely soothing, definitely the most human, least corpo-robot transmission he has imparted to us through the WSL “enablement platform”.

He asked what we wanted to see, what possibly could be done by a League that is likely to remain shuttered for the year.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9z7DRvpkl6/

To preface my proposal, I know Elo has shifted the WSL focus to spoon-feed feel good pap to a non-surfing audience.

I know he is unlikely to listen, but he should.

I’ve watched every heat of the CT for the last two years, and a fair smattering of the QS.

In epidemiological terms, I’m a super-spreader of information on the Tour.

Massive disruption to the 2020 season offers a unique world-historical opportunity for a re-set, even if just for a moment in time.

No wheel needs re-inventing, the brain-storming has already been done by ex-CEO Sophie Goldschmidt. Her still-born idea of a “match play” season ender in the Mentawais could be activated, either as one-off or as prelude to the Hawaiian season, assuming we’re passed the worst of the pandemic by then.

It’ll have to be stripped down, what every surf fan has been baying for for years.

If the Ments are still off-line then alternative options exist.

Assuming the League has access to unlimited line of credit from it’s billionaire owners than private jet transport* could be employed to travel a skeleton crew, say the top 16 from last years tour to Martin Daly’s private island in the Marshalls.

Two-day comp.

The first, a leaderboard-style elimination.

The second, man-on-man to produce a winner.

The South Pacific, isolated by millions of square acres of open ocean, has a very low case load and is unlikely to experience pandemic.

An exhibition event could be held anywhere there, Fiji being the most likely alternative. Re-instating Cloudbreak, perhaps in the Olympic window if that is cancelled gives Elo the biggest opportunity of his presidency: the chance to reconnect with a core surfing audience who have become increasingly disillusioned by the direction of the Tour.

The embrace of the Tub, the wall of positive noise, the “nothing to see here” commentary.

All erased, all forgiven and forgotten if we get live action of the GOAT and a small crew back at ten-foot Cloudbreak.

Put a longer window on it, do whatever it takes.

There won’t be much that can salvaged from the year, but credibility could be one thing, if ELO throws us a bone, something to bite down on in these tremulous times.

It would be a sign, not just of good faith in the fans, but the survival of the League itself if it was prepared to invest in spectacle.

And, if there were to be some kind of global contraction in the Sport then a way forwards may have been already road tested.

I know, based on past performance we’ll probably get ten more ep’s of Transformed (Brilliant Corners is obvs dusted for the near future) but wouldn’t it be grand to see Kelly’s precious remaining time at the top not completely subsumed by a focus on psycho-babble.

We all lose in that scenario.

What say you Elo, have you got the balls to pick up the phone to Dirk and hit him up for the resources to make it happen?

History looks kindly on those who act boldly in a crisis.

At the current rate of WSL CEO churn we’ll be writing your Epitaph while the memory of 2020 remains fresh.

How grand it would be to praise a decisive action when the world’s surfing population was most in need of what the WSL could offer.

* Carbon intensive, yes. But nowhere near the carbon budget of the QS.

Experience the magic of déjà vu…

Earlier today, and shortly after rewarding my triceps with loving strokes for completing ten consecutive push-ups, I received, via text, an Instagram post announcing a world first: Julian Wilson, on skate rail, in wave pool.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B92dLGZn0X2/

The story, if you click through to sugar drink factory website, makes for compelling reading.

Growing up 100m from the beach in the Australian town of Coolum, Julian Wilson’s life revolved around two things: surfing and skateboarding. While other childhood pastimes came and went – golf, motocross and more – the two board sports had Wilson’s heart from day one.

Although the 2014 Pipe Master clearly found his true calling in the ocean and the occasional injury saw him put away his deck for a month or two here and there, he never turned his back on skating, and last year he started to imagine combining his two passions. That’s where the idea for The Rail Project, building and then riding a skate-style rail in the waves, first sprang from.

Here, I felt the sensation called, in French, déjà vu or, in English, already seen.

In 2010, Julian was in a Canary Islands wavepool when a skate rail with floats attached, laboriously transported from Australia for a Stab magazine photo shoot as well as to form part of Kai Neville’s Lost Atlas, was shoved into his, Kolohe Andino, Evan Geiselman and Adam Melling’s path

A pointless exercise, I thought at the time, although Adam Melling refused to let that bone go and lost his FCS fins in the process.

Later, so much cocaine was served at the hotel party (no pro surfers involved) doors were flung open at a local brothel and several stubbornly flaccid cocks were called to arms.

Of course, we weren’t the first to think of the rail grind.

Western Australian surfer Jame Catto, a contemporary of Taj Burrow, some say even better, set his up at a Perth beach in, when was it, 2002?

And noted commentator and troubadour Chris Coté mounted his own rail in the water a few years later for a Transworld Surf shoot.

“Ricky Whitlock did it first I’m pretty sure, me second, Kalani David third. Julian’s is different though ’cause it’s a moving rail, his line to get to the rail was insanely difficult.”

History is written by the victors, as they say.