Listen: “Professional surfer Kolohe Andino’s management team makes strategic blunder certain to cost him millions!”

Mistakes were made.

So there David Lee Scales and I sat per the norm, talking about this and that. About how surf culture is a coal mine. A bleak, dark, unhealthy coal mine that has been thoroughly stripped leaving surf journalists in the deepest part, desperately searching for a vein, anything new, breathing in dust and getting black lung.

About how naming your dog after a surfer is lame unless you name your dog Wendy after Wendy Botha like Devon Howard did.

Then, in some inspired turn, we wondered about websites and which surfers owned their own URLs.

kellyslater.com was obviously taken as was gabrielmedina.com.

koloheandino.com?

Lo and behold available for $12 a year.

David Lee Scales instantly purchased.

What should koloheandino.com be?

What should it feature?

Exciting times ahead.

Listen here.

Oh damn it. David Lee Scales bought koholeandino.com.

Being always anti-depressive where mistakes become opportunity, what should koholeandino.com be?

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Two good ol boys Matthew Blew and Ryan Wetjen-Barry have created a thirty-five-foot electric motorboat with the “largest displacement wake surfing hull ever built which they say will create a continuous, head-height wave (that) matches the size and feel of ocean waves. It’s big, powerful, and clean; delivering a massive barrel that will take the sport to new levels.”

Miracle of ingenuity: Inventors claim ability to create head-high barrels on flat-water using specially designed $US600k boat with “wave manipulation hull”!

Cheaper than a wavepool; more expensive than using existing ocean…

Does the race toward wavepool superiority have an eerie Cold War arms race vibe? Each country frantically rezoning land and raising money to build the next three-storey plunger, hydrofoil, air powered system in order to cash in on the Heartlands desire to get wet the cool way. 

To push the country metaphor, we got the Soviet-like Surf Ranch, with its famine-like supply and unchangeable wave; the giant rusted plunger hammering madly into the earth like the dystopia of the US in 2020 and the nimble, easily customisable American Wave Machines and Surf Loch, mimicking perhaps the clever Japanese. 

Now, two good ol boys Matthew Blew and Ryan Wetjen-Barry have created a thirty-five-foot electric motorboat with the “largest displacement wake surfing hull ever built.” The pair say the hull will create a “continuous, head-height wave (that) matches the size and feel of ocean waves. It’s big, powerful, and clean; delivering a massive barrel that will take the sport to new levels.” 

(The sport referred to is wakesurfing. But, still…)

The Gigawave 350 GW-X creates its moving wave by putting three-and-a-half tonnes of ballast into the hull of a boat running two three-hundred horsepower electric motors. 

Cleverly, the lithium boat batteries form part of the ballast, and because the boat is open with the helm well forward, there’s room for twenty-eight passengers. 

Top speed will be 18-24 knots, with a surfing speed of 9-14 knots and a run time of 4-5 hours. Six hours plugged in to charge.

The hit is six-hundred thou’. 

Genius, yes?

(The clip below ain’t on the Gigawave 350 but it does show how wild y’can get even with a little boat and the parallels with ocean surfing etc.)

 

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New Jersey surfer Fabrizio Stabile, dead at twenty-nine.

BeachGrit Investigation (Part two of four): Former BSR employee alleges sewerage and trash in unfiltered Waco pool, “Hair and debris and nastiness”

“Because there was no filtration, and the pool was so cloudy, you couldn’t see it, but you’d be standing there and a big ball of hair and debris and nastiness would come across the pool when a wave went across."

Editor’s note: Was New Jersey surfer Fabrizio Stabile’s death at the celebrated Waco wavepool in 2018 caused by negligence and the matter covered up, as alleged by his family in their ongoing wrongful death lawsuit? Was the pool’s water, dyed a fabulous blue-green, coloured to cover “a pathogen soup” in which deadly bacteria thrived? Today, in part part two (read part one here), a former employee details a pool without filtration and awash with filth.

According to Stuart Parson Jr.’s deposition, he began buying the property that would later become BSR in 2004.

The park was bought in several sections.

Parsons transformed the property, building out a lake for barefoot skiing and installing pumps into the aquifer.

In 2012, Parsons began work on the commercial water park, known as the cable park.

In 2015, the Royal Flush, a vertical slide, and the Lazy River were added to the park.

Parsons began to consider the idea of the surf resort in 2016. Discussions with American Wave Machines began in 2017.

The surf resort was financed independently through a bank and American Wave Machines. The bank, according to Parson’s deposition, loaned him $2.5 million for the structure. AMW financed $3.3 million for the actual wave.

In November of 2019, Parsons testified that he still owed $2.2 million and $1.6 million, respectively.

The pool opened in 2018. Cheyne Magnusson, a former pro surfer, was tasked with working out the kinks.

BSR receives its water from a deep water well. According to a former BSR employee, the water comes out of the ground at about 120° Fahrenheit (49° Celsius). To address this, BSR built 30-foot-high mounds of dirt, called craters, to store the water. They were 45-to-50 feet deep and acted as cooling towers.

“The water goes in the top hot and comes out the bottom cold,”  said the employee.

Parsons testified that the craters operated as a water reservoir. They were lined to prevent mixing with the clay and provided water for all the water features in the park.

According to the former employee, the surf pool was designed “to be a constant flow through swimming lagoon.”

He said the pool was rarely circulated with fresh water.

He further stated that the pool was installed with a 30-inch drain, but it was never hooked up, as the cost was too high. Instead, the pool used a pump, but it was rarely used.

They would add more freshwater, “but [they] would never pump the old water out.”

The pool did not have a filtration system prior to Stabile’s death. Parsons testified that he was unaware that Texas law required certain water features to have filtration systems.

He also testified that the pool was treated through a “shock” of chlorine twice a week. An employee would monitor the chlorine levels through a pH test strip and add as needed, similar to how private pools are maintained.

BSR did not document or monitor the water quality and turbidity (transparency of the water) of the pool.

Because it was classified as a lake and not a swimming pool, by law, it didn’t have to comply to the same standards as a public pool.

The chlorine was the only method of treatment. Blue dye was added to the pool, but it was apparently purely cosmetic.

The former employee stated that the pool was often full of trash and other debris.

“Because there was no filtration, and the pool was so cloudy, you couldn’t see it, but you’d be standing there and a big ball of hair and debris and nastiness would come across the pool when a wave went across. So you’d be standing in the lineup and this nastiness would just come across your leg and you’d reach down and pull up and it’d be like wrist bands and hair and trash and just nastiness.”

He also stated that the pool was so poorly circulated, that “anytime you drop[ped] something in that pool, it was stuck in that pool.”

There were other issues with water quality too.

The former employee said that refuse from a septic holding tank often ran through the pool.

“When it would rain, or when they would leave the sprinklers on, the water would run off that big hill . . . directly through the septic holding tank [and] right into the pool.”

According to the former employee, the septic had overflowed and ran through the pool just days before Fabrizio visited the park in September.

BSR has since installed a filtration system “much like a swimming pool,” BSR said in press release.

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Super shaper Matt Biolos infuriated by California’s new mandatory holiday Covid-19 guidelines: “Mr. Newsom, do we now live in Communist Russia?”

American flag emoji.

Yesterday, whilst on the way home from buying an extra large rat trap, I heard a story on National Public Radio about how Canada is seeing a spike in Covid-19 cases and that it is being blamed on their recent celebration of Thanksgiving on October 12.

The rat, who lives in either the palm tree or the overgrown bird of paradise outside the bedroom window, makes much racket at night and I puzzled over which trap to get. The classic neck breaker? Modern poison? Worrying about my daughter’s chihuahua Thunderstruck in either case. She is small enough to get her own neck broken and has an adventurous enough palate to nibble a drugged carcass.

The only trap I was decidedly against was the humane catch-and-release sort as, a student of history, I am aware that rats were responsible for our last great human plague.

I eventually decided on the poison sort, drove home, and heard Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say, “This sucks…” regarding the spike while asking Canadians to not spend Christmas with one another.

Well, the United States of America celebrates its Thanksgiving the last Thursday in November, just around the corner, Christmas with everyone else and I wondered if our leaders would ask for sacrifice.

Lo and behold, California released very thorough new “mandatory requirements for all gatherings” including:

7. Rules for Singing, Chanting, and Shouting at Outdoor Gatherings

Singing, chanting, shouting, and physical exertion significantly increases the risk of COVID-19 transmission because these activities increase the release of respiratory droplets and fine aerosols into the air. Because of this, singing, chanting, and shouting are strongly discouraged, but if they occur, the following rules and recommendations apply:

All people who are singing or chanting should wear a face covering at all times while singing or chanting, including anyone who is leading a song or chant. Because these activities pose a very high risk of COVID-19 transmission, face coverings are essential to reduce the spread of respiratory droplets and fine aerosols;

People who are singing, shouting, chanting, or exercising are strongly encouraged to maintain physical distancing beyond 6 feet to further reduce risk.

People who are singing or chanting are strongly encouraged to do so quietly (at or below the volume of a normal speaking voice).

Instrumental music is allowed as long as the musicians maintain at least 6-foot physical distancing. Musicians must be from one of the three households. Playing of wind instruments (any instrument played by the mouth, such as a trumpet or clarinet) is strongly discouraged.

Super shaper Matt Biolos, who lives in San Clemente, was not happy asking California’s governor? “Mr. Newsom, do we now live in Communist Russia? Did this clown forget we live in (USA flag emoji)”

An interesting question.

If you had to live in a totalitarian state would you choose:

A) Russia (1922 -1991)

B) East Germany (1948 – 1990)

C) North Korea (1948 – present)

D) Italy (1922 – 1943)*

*This is a trick question as fascist Italy is not considered totalitarian.

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Breaking: Riverside County Board of Supervisors unanimously approves members-only luxury surf resort to be built on the shores of the Salton Sea!

Break out the checkbook!

The surf dystopia grows more gloriously dystopian every single day. Ocean filled to the very brim with adult learners bobbing on Costco surfboards. A rusty plunger straight off of Fury Road pump, pump, pumping waves in an inland corner of Australia. A Surf Ranch, fronted by Kelly Slater, in Lemoore.

And now, unanimously approved by Riverside County’s Board of Supervisors, a members-only luxury surf resort has just been approved to be built on the shores of the Salton Sea. A true post-apocalyptic tableau.

Supervisor Manuel Perez said, “I want to thank the community advocates and all involved in this project for getting us all to this point. This is unprecedented. This has never been done before in the County of Riverside. With our concerns for affordable housing needs, clean water, lack of infrastructure and basic amenities, we have to establish partnerships and relationships to advance improvements.”

And nothing says “affordable housing needs” like a members-only luxury surf resort.

The Thermal Beach Club is planning for 326 luxury housing units, along with a 22-acre lagoon featuring wave-making technology. Memberships will span from $175,000 to $1 million.

For those unaware, the Salton Sea was formed as a glorious accident when an irrigation ditch bringing water from the Colorado river overflowed and made California’s largest lake. Initially seen as a miracle, prospectors rushed to build gorgeous homes on the shore but then it turned gross, toxic, stinky etc. because it was not a miracle but rather an abomination and now it is a sulfurized circle of hell where dreams go to die.

Or surf.

Very exciting.

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