Breaking: World Surf League to “come off suspension” imminently and the Pipe Masters will resume as soon as today!

Happy days are here again!

An anonymous message was just forwarded to BeachGrit’s Pipe Masters Covid-19 desk, an internal World Surf League memo, and let’s get straight to it without pomp nor circumstance.

Good morning everyone! I have an important update for us:

We gave been making good progress with the State of Hawaii, DOH and the other departments.

Please advised that we could come off suspension at some point today, and then go ON HOLD for a call today.

Depending on when we can go on hold will determine how fast we can run.

Just want everybody to be be prepared. We’ll update you as soon as possible.

The typos have been dutifully preserved which suggest very much excitement.

Remember, yesterday, when I said the contest would be up and running today?

Very prescient.

More as the story develops.


Logan (pictured) standing alone like he will be for a few weeks.
Logan (pictured) standing alone like he will be for a few weeks.

Aggrieved professional surf fans demand to know if the suspended Pipe Masters will be included in the Apple TV+ six-part doco series examining the “aspirations, failures and accomplishments” of the world title chase!

Mostly the failures.

In what seems like an eternity ago, but was really just two weeks, the World Surf League trumpeted an extremely exciting six-part documentary series to be aired on Apple TV+. The presser promised, “…a behind-the-scenes look at the ‘aspirations, failures and accomplishments’ of the world’s best surfers as they strive for the World Surf League Title.” And “…a ‘rich exploration’ of the people who make up the 2021 World Surf League Men and Women’s Championship Tour, bringing viewers along on a journey to some of the most incredible surf spots in the world. The first episode will take place in Hawaii, with the Championship Tour kicking off on December 4.”

With World Surf League CEO Erik Logan contracting Covid-19, along with five of his helpers, and forcing a “suspension” of “production” aggrieved professional surf fans demand to know if there will be a “rich exploration” of his “failures.”

The League has been extremely tight-lipped since its inception in 2015, mirroring billionaire owner, and co-Waterperson of the Year, Dirk Ziff’s penchant for privacy. The Santa Monica headquarters coming to symbolize secrecy on a scale not seen since The International Order of Saint Hubertus.

And yet, as the calls for Logan’s resignation grow louder, a small but growing cadre of enthusiasts wonder if “bringing viewers along on a journey” of botched protocols, wasted surf, enraged surfers, internal despair and Joe Turpel silently weeping while eating take-away escargot from Lei Lei’s in his room might provide enough entertainment for the chief executive to hold on to his job.

It would be must-see-TV+, certainly, and the most compellingly watchable story.

Popcorn-worthy.

Will Logan provide the necessary access or is the production crew loathe to get within even twelve feet of the potential super spreader?

Much to ponder.

More as the story develops.


Surfing’s Olympic head likens sport to longterm lover, demands cut of Games’ revenue: “We are not a one night stand!”

Typical.

You, seriously, cannot take surfing anywhere. She will, inevitably, drink all the booze, become verbally abusive, march around outside shouting about various conspiracy theories, pass out and remember nothing of her bad behavior the next morning.

Take, for example, The President of the International Surfing Association Fernando Aguerre who, yesterday, demanded a portion of the Games’ revenue because surfing is “not a one night stand” even though the sport has yet to make its debut.

Per Olympic rules, permanent fixtures get a cut of the monies while specialty events get treated like the trollops they are.

In a wide ranging interview with Reuters, Aguerre said, “We get nothing for Tokyo from the revenue sharing of the Games. But we need to have that discussion now, to have a review. Because we are not a sport of one Games. We had accepted that for Tokyo. But now it is a different situation with likely three Games. All indications are that it could be part of LA 2028. LA is the epicentre of modern day surfing. With the likelihood of three Games… surfing will be a permanent Olympic sport. We are not a one-night stand.”

Wait, LA is the epicenter of modern day surfing?

Whoa.

But also, so typical surfing being all high-maintenance and demandy.

Ugh.


WSL CEO Erik Logan.

Calls mount for COVID-positive WSL CEO Erik “Elo” Logan to resign after Pipe Masters suspended: “I hate to kick the man when he down, but in this case he’s lightly symptomed!”

"We knew you were a Flim-Flam man whose stock in trade was smoke and mirrors but all could have been forgiven and forgotten if you'd given us something. Anything."

I hate to kick the man when he down, but in this case he’s lightly symptomed and well, I know it’s being said all over the internets, but I think it’s passed time for someone to come out in print and say: “Time to go Elo”.

When you announced the Tour restructure I said I was all in, a true believer.

And I was.

It was great to see a blueprint for bold action on a moribund Tour. When the schedule was released and it was disappointing, allowances were made.

Even the Ikea Finals Day at Trestles could have been approached with an open mind.

Yeah, the corpo-speak meant we had to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it came to summoning up the goodwill to give your leadership a fair go. We knew you were a Flim-Flam man whose stock in trade was smoke and mirrors but all could have been forgiven and forgotten if you’d given us something.

Anything.

But you blew it, cuz.

Big time.

And when you blow it big-time and can’t make it right it’s time to exit stage left. Give someone else a go. Give Starkey a go, while there’s still something there for him to salvage from the burning building.

We finally realised the key(s) to understanding the relentless corpo-speak. Well, for one, it was a smokescreen to cover your lack of understanding.

But more importantly, it was never really meant for us, was it?

It was all communication meant to placate Dirk Ziff. Because that is all money-men hear all day long. And you needed him far more than you needed us. Still do. You needed him soothed, that strong sense of responsibility is to him, not us. The Tour had no income, no assets; only a money bags with incredibly deep pockets.

No doubt the times have been challenging for you. Incredibly challenging, yes. That remains the truest thing you ever said.

Maybe the only true thing you’ve said.

But in a sense, if this does prove to be the fatal blow, these times have saved you from an even more agonising and drawn-out failure. The pivot to story, which you staked your leadership on was a failed gambit, almost from day one.

You served us up a bland gruel. Mighty thin. So thin, you could read a newspaper through it, as your fellow Okie Woody Guthrie sang on Dustbowl Blues.

Covid killed the story pivot and forced the hand back to the core business of deciding world champs. Even allowing for the fact that in the ensuing nine months you couldn’t come up with maybe the easiest mark in World Sport – getting together a bunch of top surfing talent on an island with surf and filming the result- the response was weak.

A Pacific Ocean filled with Islands and surf and zero Covid beckoned. That could have set the tone for a generation, maybe the masterstroke the sport has craved since the first Man on Man event at the Stubbies in ’77.

Instead we got drivel at Cabarita, a series of comps so boring and low consequence that even hard-core fans could barely be bothered tuning in.

For an Organisation that has played the “abundance of caution” card so long and so hard and made so much of it’s prepared-ness to resume top-line sport in times of the Covid it’s very, very hard not to trade in schadenfreude.

Literally, what the fuck?

How, Elo?

Did you break protocol?

Come clean man, for once.

You’ve got to give us a little more. Suspending production?

Until when?

Whats the story?

Is there a plan to get competition back on?

What is it? Is there X process that takes Y amount of time? Then give us X and Y.

Dribbling out info to the useful idiots at Stab ain’t gunna cut it, no matter how much positive spin they give you. The Whole World is watching, you need to come up with more than a goose egg day after day when people know Pipe is pumping.

If you don’t know what is going on, if the paperwork really is screwed beyond belief then you got to say something.

You have to. Silence and self-pity won’t make the grade.

Every minute this drags on without a resolution after you crowed about this Covid plan just makes the sport look worse and worse. It makes us feel like the proverbial half-sucked cock at a wedding, if I could be so base.

And that’s fine by me.

Ziff’s famous rising tide speech at the Watermans Ball has been over-taken by events. We can tell stories better than the Wozzle, Vlog better and if Ziff dumps the Woz in the incinerator someone will pick up the ashes and, phoenix-like, something new will emerge.

This plan of yours, to start the Tour off in North America with the ‘rona running as rampant as methed up stormtroopers across the Russian steppes. It seems, um, reckless.

And you found a loophole by retro-fitting the permits for the Pipe Masters as a film shoot, not a sporting event.

That could have come across as a masterstroke, but I doubt we would have ever found out because this new found zeal for transparency is only skin deep. Instead it looks sneaky and what precious little trust we had in you has been discounted.

Doesn’t sound like there was a great deal of excess goodwill to count on on the part of the Honolulu pen pushers either. They sound pissed Eric.

You wouldn’t be the first Haole run out of the Islands, and you wont be the last.

These are proud people and this is their culture you are whoring out.

To be fair, we all whore it out.

At the least, you have to make a decent fist of it.

You blew it Elo.

Time to get off the bus, Gus. Make a new plan, Stan. Drop off the key, Lee, and set yourself, and us, free.


"Oh fuck! I've done me-self a mischief here!" he says. "So this is how the Powerfish ends, I didn't picture like this, fuck me! What a dog of a cunt… . 'Oh god, this is it! Think about all the blokes I've fucked. I've got to get out of here."

Instagram influencer and philanthropist Willem Powerfish who “smashed surfing’s entrenched homophobia and patriarchal hierarchy” faces one-million dollar fine and seven years jail for sinking car and boat in river!

And tells cops, "My gumboot slipped and I accidentally hit the accelerator."

Two months ago, BeachGrit reported on Instagram influencer Willem “Powerfish” Ungermann’s brave attempt to smash surfing’s “entrenched homophobia and patriarchal power structures” via beach theatre and Jackass-style pranks.

Willem terrorised a D-Bah line-up on his bodyboard, at one point accepting a beach fight only to drop to his knees and tell his surprised fellow duellist, “I’ll suck you dry, mate.”

Between waves, he said to one surfer “I fucked a bloke like you once”, another, “You’re lucky my dad Rex isn’t here, he’d smash your pelvis”, another, “Heard of the Bra Boys? We’re the Flatty Boys. Instead of going around bashing cunts, we fuck ’em”, another, “You know why I like surfing? When guys wear wetties and I can see their dick”, another he asks if he’s seen Ross Clarke-Jones’ cock and says, “I’ve fucking sucked it dry.”

(William is also known for his philanthropy, recently delivering five thousand dollars to shoppers at a regional supermarket. Watch here.)

Terrific fun and many important messages.

Now, Willem faces a fine of up to one-million dollars and seven years in jail for sinking a car and a boat in the Tweed River.

“Oh fuck! I’ve done me-self a mischief here!” he says. “So this is how the Powerfish ends, I didn’t picture it like this, fuck me! What a dog of a cunt. Oh god, this is it! Think about all the blokes I’ve fucked. I’ve got to get out of here.”

According to court documents, when questioned by police, Willem said, “My gumboot slipped and I accidentally hit the accelerator” although he has since pleaded guilty to five charges including negligently disposing of waste causing environmental harm.