Question: How long is a surfer allowed to
jaw in the lineup, post infraction, before the altercation must be
taken to the beach?
By Chas Smith
Help wanted.
There I was, this morning, enjoying southern
California’s ridiculous run of swell. Head high-plus with very long
walls just begging for the sort of slow-motion arcing turns that
have become my specialty. If there was a World Slow-Motion Arcing
Turn League, I would be threat-adjacent on the QS.
In any case, there I was, slow-motion arcing one peak when out
of the corner of my ear I heard an altercation at the next peak
over.
“BRO. THAT IS THE SECOND TIME YOU HAVE DROPPED IN ON ME. SECOND.
THE FIRST WAS NOT COOL BUT I LET IT GO. THIS ONE WAS OVER THE
LINE…”
The aggrieved surfer was speaking very loudly and continued.
“I HAVE SURFED HERE MY ENTIRE LIFE AND NEVER SEEN YOU…”
His grammar had issues but grammar should never be judged in the
heat of a moment. Or ever, for that matter.
“MY DAD HAS SURFED HERE HIS ENTIRE LIFE TOO AND HE’S SIXTY-FIVE.
NEVER SAW YOU…”
And on it went from there, passing the five minute mark then the
ten minute mark.
Ten honest-to-goodness minutes of loud jawing which made me
wonder. How long can one surfer holler at another in the lineup
before everyone else insists they take it to the sand?
I’ll open with three minutes but await your input.
Important for us to define the rules of engagement seeing that
every other person in the water has only been surfing for three
months.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
The New Yorker mytho-poetically rhapsodizes
over Montauk man who surfed for nine hours, fifteen minutes on the
winter solstice: “He had been moved to tears … by the merging
awareness of the beauty around him and the suffering of the
world.”
By Derek Rielly
Includes bonus appearance by twenty-foot Great
White shark!
The Pulitzer-Prize snatching surf pioneer and New
Yorker staff writer Billy Finnegan aside,the once venerable
magazine has dissolved into a hissy finger-pointer following
leftist obsessions, race, Trump, “whiteness” as
a synonym for evil etc.
Where it works, still, is in those little side pieces that
provide a window into New York life, although even here political
bunting still hangs over its railings.
In the January 18, 2021, issue, we find Jeremy Grosvenor, a
fifty-year-old surfer, who decides to surf at Montauk for the
entire daylight window of the winter solstice, 7:07 in the morning
to 4:26 in the afternoon, to raise money for a local food bank.
Highlights.
Grosvenor exudes boyish, buoyant good nature, but he can get
quasi-mystical when he describes “having faith in the sea as a
sanctuary.” Known for his ability to ride waves on pretty much
anything, from standard surfboards to a nylon mat, he had chosen,
for the solstice, a twelve-foot foam board, on the bottom of which
he had written “food.” He had also brought along an old red canoe,
which he loaded with jugs of water, trail mix, a thermos of miso
soup, and tinned sardines, and anchored just beyond the breakers.
“So I can eat like a seagull,” he said.
Soon, Grosvenor’s big-haired, twenty-five-year-old son,
Mamoun, arrived, an audiobook of Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth”
blaring from his car’s speakers. He had brought some doughnuts for
his father, one of which he took along as he paddled out to join
him. Grosvenor’s wife, Saskia Friedrich, an artist, showed up in
painted jeans, a puffer coat, and a purple beanie, with their
Australian shepherds, Vishnu and Blinky. She recalled how, when
Grosvenor took her ocean kayaking years ago, they noticed a large
shadow pass under their boat, and it turned out to be a
twenty-foot-long white shark. “Jeremy’s got this almost yogic
thing, allowing him to enjoy activities that would require us to
overcome our natural discomfort or terror,” she said.
Later, as the sun seemed to be giving up the ghost,
Grosvenor told a floating correspondent that the day had been
mostly easy and pleasant. Despite all the hours in the elements,
things had never become hallucinatory, although he had been moved
to tears once, he said, by the merging awareness of the beauty
around him and the suffering of the world. He had managed to keep
warm, except in three of his toes, through physical motion and deep
breathing, he said, “like a stellar sea cow.”
As dusk fell, a handful of spectators greeted Grosvenor’s
landfall with cheers. Mamoun, wearing a “Free Palestine” hoodie,
threw his arms around his father and, handing him the last of the
doughnuts, said, “All right! Free doughnut! Black lives
matter!”
Read the piece, written by New Yorker contributing
editor and Vogue theatre critic, Adam Green,
here.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
Valiant Oahu lifeguards save over 80 people
from Davey Jones’ Locker in one historic day: “The monstrous waves
were indiscriminately grabbing the young and old alike!”
By Chas Smith
"And you, you can be mean. And I, I'll drink all
the time."
But oooooee the northern Pacific has seen a run
of swell only whispered about in tales of old. Day after day after
day of waves so glorious, so magnificent, in California that famed
surf photographer James “Cane” Wilson declared, “Every day I think
it can’t get any better, and then it does. Craziest run of swell
I’ve seen in 12 years living here.”
Day after day after day of waves so large, so ominous, in Hawaii
that Oahu’s lifeguards saved over 80 souls in one historic day
alone with a further 5000 “preventative actions” to boot.
Amongst the highlights, per the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser, was the rescue of a 16-year-old boy
and 64-year-old man fishing at Monuments who were dragged into the
sea, a 37-year-old man riding his PWC at Himalayas, a surfer who
became injured at the famed Makaha, a teenager surfing
I-Don’t-Knows and 76 others.
And just imagine that World Surf League CEO had not contracted
Covid-19, single-handedly destroying professional surfing as we
know it. Imagine that the powers-that-be could have stretched the
Sunset Pro waiting period forward by three days and sent our heroes
into the raging vortex.
Would it have been the greatest single day in our shared
history?
Likely.
Also, who would you have tabbed for the win?
Jack Robinson? John John Florence?
I was planning to dark horse and throw my ownership stake of
BeachGrit on Jadson Andre.
Loading comments...
Load Comments
0
EOS
Obituary: Surf historian Matt Warshaw
weighs in on Ben Aipa’s legacy, “If the wave had enough power his
mechanics were so perfect that he didn’t have to really flex or
push, just lean and hold and release. He was a beautiful
surfer”
By Derek Rielly
"It was like Dumbo the Elephant, where at first
you're almost laughing, kind of "Oh, look at the fat guy surfing."
And then very quickly you realize he's amazingly graceful and
fluid."
As reported earlier today, the iconic Hawaiian shaper
Ben Aipa has died, aged seventy-eight, after a hellish
battle with multiple illnesses. His son, the noted shaper and
former pro Akila Aipa, described Ben as a “humble colossus.”
Ben didn’t start surfing until he was 21 or 22. Every time I
think of him, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I don’t
think any surfer of note began that late in the game, and the
determination it took for him to get so good, so fast—I think that
stayed with him for the rest of his life. I’m guessing here, but
part of why he was always pushing on to the next thing in surfing,
in terms of design, had something to do with him never forgetting
how it felt like to be so far behind.
Did you know him at all?
No, but for a few years we moved in the same surf-comp circles.
Ben came over to California all the time in the late ’70s and early
’80s, for the contests and the trade shows, and probably to shape
boards. Any little two-bit pro contest, Ben was there. It was a
little unsettling. He was 20 years older than the rest of us, huge
and quiet and totally unapproachable. And full-on surfing to win,
even if the winner’s check was like $250. Again, just a fierce
level of determination.
It was like Dumbo the Elephant, where at first you’re almost
laughing, kind of “Oh, look at the fat guy surfing.” And then very
quickly you realize he’s amazingly graceful and fluid. If the wave
had enough push—big Haleiwa, say, or Sunday—his mechanics were so
perfect that he didn’t have to really flex or push, just lean and
hold and release. He was a beautiful surfer.
You wrote about his bulldozer-like surfing in a list of
surfing’s 15 best power surfers. You described him so, “(Ben) rode
Sunset Beach like Jim Brown on a broken-field run. Power and
finesse. Rudely underappreciated at a longboard
surfer.”
He’s more famous now as a shaper, but for about eight years,
starting in 1966, he was one of the best surfers in the world in
powerful waves. Ben weighed something like 250, and he put all that
mass to good use, but his surfing was also incredibly balanced and
precise. It was like Dumbo the Elephant, where at first you’re
almost laughing, kind of “Oh, look at the fat guy surfing.” And
then very quickly you realize he’s amazingly graceful and fluid. If
the wave had enough push—big Haleiwa, say, or Sunset—his mechanics
were so perfect that he didn’t have to really flex or push, just
lean and hold and release. He was a beautiful surfer.
You knew Ben was sick? Hell of a thing, blood
infections, heart problems, diabetes, multiple strokes, dementia.
Hard to square a man of his strength with the usual problems of
aging.
At my age, you start rating people’s deaths. My mom had a good
one year before last. Went in for knee surgery happy and active as
could be at age 87, complication during recovery, she thumbs-downed
a proposed series of long-shot operations and died five days later,
at home, peaceful, on her terms. Ben’s last act was difficult. Luck
of the draw, I guess. If you have a good death, that for sure
should be something you’re remembered for. If you don’t, it just
means you drew the short straw; it doesn’t reflect on your life or
who you were as a person.
As a shaper he sure did go his own way. Let’s talk the
double swallow and, later, the Stinger. That was, literally, a
pivotal surfboard design. It gave Marky Richards, who would win a
then-unprecedented four world titles, a rocket underfoot in the
famous winter of 1975. You ever ride a stinger?
The Stinger came along right when I was hitting my surfing
stride as a teen, and it changed my game completely. I rode the
shit out of those boards for a year or two, until the twin-fin came
long.
Of Ben’s era, who’s left?
He belonged to a couple of eras. At first it was Ben and Eddie
Aikau, the two hot young-gun Hawaiians. The Stinger deal was 10
years later, when he was making those flamed-out hot-rod boards for
Buttons and Mark Liddell, and surfing with them at Kaisers and Ala
Mona. In-between, he shaped the board Fred Hemming’s rode in the
’68 world titles. Then I think he did some coaching or mentoring
for some Hawaiian pros in the 1990s. So I don’t know exactly what
era Ben belonged to. To me, he always seemed kind of removed from
it all, not part of any group or period. Ben was a one-man era.
Ben was the creator of the stinger design that
gave ol Marky Richards, later a four-time world champ, a rocket
underfoot in the winter of ’75, and, according to
Matt Warshaw’s list of 15 Best Power Surfers, Ben
“rode Sunset Beach like Jim Brown on a broken-field run. Power
and finesse. Rudely underappreciated at a longboard surfer.”
EOS
Iconic Hawaiian surfboard shaper and power
surfing bulldozer Ben Aipa, dead at seventy-eight: “A man from a
poor sugar cane plantation who would change the face of
surfing!”
By Derek Rielly
"A humble colossus whose impact echoed thru the
decades."
Ben Aipa is dead.
The legendary Hawaiian shaper, creator of myriad surfboard
innovations and a man so fierce-looking Gerry Lopez described
him thus, “When you see Ben coming, don’t think, just get out of
the way” has died of multiple illnesses.
Ben was the creator of the stinger design that gave ol Marky
Richards, later a four-time world champ, a rocket underfoot in the
winter of ’75, and, according to Matt Warshaw’s list
of 15 Best Power Surfers,Ben “rode Sunset
Beach like Jim Brown on a broken-field run. Power and finesse.
Rudely underappreciated at a longboard surfer.”
His two sons, Duke and Akila, carried the shaper-surfer flame
into the twenty-first century, both arch-craftsman, Akila you’ll
know already as the man who built the board Kelly lit Keramas up on
in 2019.
Ben, who turned seventy-eight in August, was terribly ill, heart
issues, diabetes, dementia and had been hit by myriad strokes.
At no time in my life would I ever be ready to share with
the world my fathers final day…. The passing of the greatest man I
know.
SO…Instead….I am going to tell you the story about a boy,
from a poor sugar cane plantation family…whose determination was
unmeasurable….that literally carved out his legacy one board at a
time .
A man from the simplest of backgrounds who would change the
face of surfing…
A humble colossus whose impact echoed thru the
decades…masterfully mentoring generations of champions…in and out
of the water…in competition and life….and somehow in all
this…finding the time to stoke out tens of thousands of surfers
with the best shaped boards all around the world along the
way…..
Most of you know Ben Aipa, the surfer, the shaper,the coach
or the legend…but to me he’s just my dad and I’m so very proud of
him and I’ll Miss him dearly.
Dad…I hope you enjoy the next part of your journey .
@akila_aipa and I have this from here and we’ll make you proud
.