A fate worse than death.
Let’s be honest. Each of us here are extremely fragile when it comes to our surfing and surfing-adjacent lifestyle choices. Oh we can, each of us here, front that we don’t care. That surfing is a fun-but-stupid thing we do, and talk about, and watch, and listen to, and think about but it doesn’t define us.
That “…in the water, I’m just out there for me and who cares what anyone thinks because I don’t care and especially don’t care what anyone on the dumb internet thinks because only weak-willed turkeys care about that sort of nonsense.”
But we all care.
Not only do we surf, talk about surfing, watch surfing, listen to surfing (when we can’t watch) or podcasts, think non-stop about but it also, and more importantly, defines us.
Our tombstones engraved with the scarlet S.
I hate mid length surfboards.
Hate the egg, the fun board, the long fish, the peckerwood.
Hate and have hated my entire life.
Then one day, a year ago, Devon Howard drifted into my life all smart and handsome and stylish on a damned mid length surfboard.
Devon fucking Howard.
I wanted to hate him but it was very difficult and his surfing…. ugh …. so gorgeous.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7FOXSCHP8V/
Anyhow, I somehow lost a surf trivia game with David Lee Scales, at the very beginning of this Coronavirus Apocalypse, and thereby won a Channel Islands MID.
Custom.
Today, maybe not coincidentally The Grit!’s 69th episode, I received it from Devon fucking Howard’s very hand.
It felt good under my arm.
Shit.
Listen here and I surf it tomorrow.
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A 6’9 used to be called a step-up. Here’s my spakin’ new CI. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Sexy!
Can’t wait for Devon’s new documentary, ‘On the edge of a mid-length’
Mini mal.
I started surfing seriously ’71, so longboards were just heavy big things, guns were 8′ pintails, shortboards were 7′-8′ and anything under that was considered experimental. That probably lasted a year or two, and then the Short Board Revolution got going in full swing and the nomenclature changed. My time at the points in SB, having a 7’6″ that worked in any condition was the ideal board. Preferably 2x 12 oz rails for toughness as leashes were kind of a no no. I think the surf was big alot too, but maybe thats memory playing tricks!! haha…Triple overhead once a week!! haha
well, either you can surf cleanly and increase your wave count and still perform. Or you can look like mutton dressed up like lamb and bounce to the beach on an epoxy carbon wrap and look like even more of a kook,
such a conundrum
Those rails are gonna get so many shatters.
Single or thruster ok. 2 plus one gagg.
I’ll listen to it later
Hey Devon, when people say ‘horses for courses’, none of them are comparing surfing to golf.
I hope you understand that the mid length won’t really solve any of your style and technique dilemmas. It will merely mask them. Long enough perhaps for you to grow old and surrender all pretence to super-competence. But that’s OK! Only a small fraction of the world’s surfing population ever get very good at it. Who needs to be part of that?
Maybe, but masking and solving style issues aren’t so different
Yeah and nah mate, not to be facetious but relying on a mid length to mask your technical issues is like thinking Grammarly will make you a better writer. You can fix the underlying structure or you can hand it off to the board … for a while.
I love many things about Australia. And the “yeah, nah” thing is at the top of the list.
I reckon it’s good for your normal short board surfing, though.
Coming out of lockdown we had tiny tiny but perfect waves, so was forced to ride my log for two weeks.
Then came two good swells, so straight to my 6’10 Desert Storm, which I could now throw around like a shortie. Perfect HH/OH waves the other day on my 5’10, and it felt better than ever.
Would hate to be on a 6’0 HP all the time.
Since the mid eighties when I got my first 7’er for bigger surf when my normal size was 5’10 or so I’d take it out in all waves big or small for a few weeks a few times a year and found that when I got back on my regular board my surfing had improved as I’d become used to having to push all that extra foam around and once back on a shorty was surfing better.
Haven’t you ever done that ?
It helps iron out the wik-wak style that many young blokes have and some never lose and then have shitty disjointed ‘unko’ styles even as they get old and grey enough to surely know better. Why do a half dozen lame as slashes when you can do three big full rail carves…
I think you’re right Mads and Beef, short bursts on slower less sensitive craft can totally help shake the wik wak thing. Indeed! one of the first things I torment various of my victims with is a big ol’ log, heavy and blunt. Learn to cross walk on one of those things and everything you do on a better board is immediately cleaner and smoother. It pushes you to soften and relax the upper body, which is the single biggest key to ease of movement on a surfboard.
But that’s different from surfing on one of those things day in day out.
I dunno, maybe I posted out of line, I was in a dark mood yesterday. One of those “what the fuck did I just do with my life?” things. My forebears were farmers, doctors, gold miners, land speculators, convicts sent halfway around the world on a magisterial whim who dug in and made lives for themselves out of nothing. My Dad was one of Australia’s greatest ever newspapermen who used his time to make the primary case for all of the nation’s key economic reforms of the past 50 years. The way I’ve spent my life so far, I’m not fit to lick their bootlaces. Surfing! Wow!! Writing about surfing!!! jesus christ.
jeez….I was gonna say something about aging, shortboards, midlengths and longboards ….now I have surf guilt.
No no I dont…I think I’m better because of surfing!! Maybe it saved me.
Paths untaken etc.
I like your writng Nick….so there. Keep it going..
Hear hear
And I too think a lot of us ‘bums’ haha have a lot to thank our forebears for
but reading last couple posts of the nuances of surfing skill set and … Is much appreciated even if its a sentence.
Nick, your Dad was most likely a great newspaperman because he enjoyed being that. Do what you like doing, and you’ll do it well and be an asset to your community.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s not like you ran a poisonous-waste depot in central Sydney.
I rest my case.
Well he got you your first step into surf journalism, how you chose to self gratify after that has been your choice champ , you and your brother might try reflecting on that.
I used to be a big fan of that theory, but find the older I get, the more I adapt quickly to whatever is under my feet without the feeling of freedom so much. Still will try to ride the horse for the course though.
Yeah, I reckon it’s cos your personal skill level has progressed to the extent that your muscle memory etc is already automatically used to adapting to the differences in equipment because in the past you did subscribe to that theory, hence not needing to anymore.
But I often see older guys who didn’t try it in their formative years and are still quite kooky on whatever they ride…
Why do three big full rail carves when you can bust one perfectly miss-timed off-the-back?
Because three big full rail carves are a far preferable part of the surfing experience than messing up a whole wave for the sake of blowing it on a kooky mis-timed attempt and then being caught inside…
Why else ?
Cos in my opinion, perfectly timed and mis-timed are two very different things, and three perfectly timed busts off the back would be better than mis-timing them.
But being old, unfashionable and not familiar with some surf manouver descriptions, for all I know you could make multiple of your “perfectly miss-timed” busts without blowing the rest of a perfectly good wave…
I’d beg to differ on that Nick. By having more space and less rocker you can adjust easier to then reposition your feet without fucking up the flow. Hence you wave isn’t over from a takeoff error of foot placement. What really is super competence anyway? Super shortboard competence ? Or is super wave and self reading competence perhaps more attainable
Again I wonder yeah but nah, those boards do not like late takeoffs of any description, so there’s an entire world of wave reading and positioning that’s kinda lost to ya. Super competence, yeah we all know what that looks like.
fail. industry stooge found to know nada….
Fuck you. Useless fucking troll kook.
aaawww. sell me something, nick! tell me about andy’s brave battle with dengue fever! riding your drunken brother’s coat tails. a pair of tiny little men.
fix yourself a couple of dozen scotches and calm down.
NC , interesting thought process, i suppose the difference i see is that when im surfing im the judge of my compentency no one elses judgements mean anything to me , and i guess thats why i have never been a slave to surf fashion either board desgin nor the pro thingy.
well you want to be cautious about judging your competence, you can’t watch yourself without video, and often when you do, it isn’t what you expected.
Plus nobody really invented surfing, we’re all just kind of recycling skills developed by other people and trying to mix them into a stew of our own making. It’s not a question of fashion as much as it is a question of skills. What works and what doesn’t, it’s pretty consistent across the range.
chas don’t claim “super-competence”! he’s the guy who dislocated his shoulder at the wave pool
Hi nick,
Obviously you were one of the lucky ones who got really good at it but may I ask what dims was the first board you ever surfed on?
I was a grommet in the late 80s and my first board was a 5’9″ insight quad and my second was a 6’0″ thruster.
A lot of guys of my vintage learned to surf on way too small, trigger happy boards and progressed to the thin 90s era boards that only really work if you’re a good surfer or live where there’s good waves. I always think a mid length board forces you to get the basics dialed, just bottom turning and trimming.
For me a mid length is great when I’m out of shape due to life getting in the way of surfing and once I get the fitness back I take off the training wheels and drop about a foot in length.
I don’t see a mid length as being the equivalent of a fat bastard riding a mini mal and taking all the waves but maybe that’s how they are being ridden elsewhere.
For me, riding a mid length has really helped my surfing technique even though I’m 20 years older than I’d want to be.
First board, 5’8″ x 19″ squash tail single fin, 1971-2. I saw a pic of its outline a few months ago, pretty modern looking thing really. By 1974 it was all 6’10” pintails, then by 1975-6 it was 6’0″ roundtails and second generation twins. It was a pretty hectic era for boards, the first mad rush to the head of tiny shortboards had mostly passed and the Hawaiian gun outline was the thing, which was pretty messed up if you were riding 3′ Sydney beach breaks. Luckily for us grommets, 1973-75 was possibly the best and biggest three years of surf in Sydney’s history! So the 6’10″s didn’t feel too out of place. I think luck plays a big part in surf skill development, are you in the right place at the right time? All my friends and I had opportunities fall at our feet at those times.
As above mate, if the mid length is helping clean out your style a bit and keeping you in the water, more power to ya.
I want Longtom to review it.
“Who we are in our minds, may not actually be who we are.” This.
Mikki and the SUP, very funny story! Can you get him as a guest next podcast?
Also just listened, Devon fucking Howard could read a cook book or IKEA instruction manual to me and it would still sound as smooth as a dry martini being poured over a granite bust of Miles Davis.
Duck no problem!
Aren’t you a little young yet for a mid-lenght, I thought most guys got on one of those maybe in their fifties, if at all………..
You ain’t gonna duck dive that motherfucka. Not with your wimpy arse profile !
That shovel nose gonna laugh at you !
You gotta get off that vodka skinny bitch and on to full carbo beer !
Those lady boy drinks ain’t yo frenz, no mo.
video, please. your scrawny ass trying to duck dive that would be hilarious.
I could duck it and my wimpy-ass profile is whimpier-assed than yours. They still haven’t grasped the vodka&kelapa muda with lime longevity theorum, have they?
Like a toothpick stuck in a slice of cucumber I’m guessing..
And surely he’ll have a tale or two to tell about the tail too…
Are you going to learn to turtle roll?
Who really gives a fuck what someone is riding?
(SUPs and bodyboards excluded)
Boogies are the punkest thing going in the surf world these days. Against the grain! Kneeboarding is right there in the mix. We recently lost a life long boogie guy in our town. When asked if I new him, I replied, “Oh yeah! He and his brother lived in the apartment complex down the street, you could cut through a trail around the houses to get too. Not enough room in the apartment for their dad’s quiver so it was stacked up on the back porch. Never went inside but can remember the boards leaning against the rail. During games of “smear the queer” he never dropped the ball out of fear against us older bigger guys, little brother treated it like hot potato. He played hard! We bumped into each other at the Honolulu airport on his first trip to the North Shore he just landed and I was picking my parents up for my own dad’s first experience. No social media proclaiming look at me. He was just there with two other die hards who went to school with. His childhood tenacity lead him to dredging tubes of Puerto and beyond, don’t think any of us older guys can say we created his inner strength it was always there. If Brian had decided to stand up and ride waves, I wonder if everyone here would have known his name. He was built like TC. His younger brother left bodyboarding to stand up on a thruster. Gracing the cover of Transworld in the early 2000’s. Point it was in Brian’s DNA. Although he chose to go against the grain!
After a lifelong hatred of boogs, I have oddly come to respect the hardcore guys. They charge gnarly shorepound and/or paddle into a pack of guys who despise them and will burn them.
That’s the point. I see a lot of guys with stickers on their cars, but can only think of one you ever see in the water…
In the past, all the hot chicks rode boogs and just us dumbasses tried to surf. The hot boogey-chicks scored harder, I reckon.
What da fuk is smear the queer? Sounds wholesome..
Riding a mid length is the equivalent of running a podcast. Everyone’s doing it and it’s painful to observe but it’s not without its guilty pleasures.
And like mid-lengths, podcasts are a step backwards in cultural evolution. Cutting and editing got invented for a reason.