Art: Comrade KVF
Art: Comrade KVF

Listen: Unsinkable Project Ibelli buoys weary Surf Journalist overcome by doubt, despair; Gives him the power to denounce iconic Gerry Lopez!

Faith, restored!

I will be very honest. Heck, I always am, with you. When Project Ibelli, launched just over a week ago, hit nearly half of its funding goal after only three days, I thought, “We’ve got this. We’ve actually got this.”

The audacious plan, if you recall, was to crowdfund a sticker, then a message, on the nose Comrade Caio Ibelli’s surfboard for the Newcastle Cup event in order to send a message to surfing’s vested interests. Its billionaire co-Waterpeople of the Year and private equity firms.

This is The People™’s game.

It belongs to us.

Except then, we got close to the beginning of that Newcastle Cup and still nearly half funded and then the hooter sounded and still only half funded.

An overwhelming depressing washed over me.

We had failed.

I had failed.

And carrying this profound sense of failure, I shuffled into Album Surfboard’s podcast studio.

David Lee Scales looked at me like I was dumb.

“What is your problem?” he asked.

“We lost.” I answered.

And then he went on a tear, preaching and prancing about how this is not just a one-off, how we will get Caio his money whether it be by Day 2 of the Newcastle Cup or Day 4 of the Margaret River Cup. That his is a movement and only the beginning of that movement.

Etc.

How could I have had such little faith.

So buoyed was I that I was able to denounce Gerry Lopez at the end of the episode.

Listen here.

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The skipper in happier days. | Photo: 9News

Australian fisherman loses livelihood and is fined $20,000 for taking selfies with two dead Great White sharks caught in his nets!

If further proof was necessary of the sanctity of the Great White Shark, and I doubt it is, well here y’go.

A little over a week ago, a Western Australian judge gave hell to an Albany deckhand who posted photos of himself surrounded by the carcasses of two Great Whites that had been caught in the boat he was crewing on’s nets.

Tyrone Leigh Harding, who is thirty four, pleaded guilty to one count of taking a protected fish in April 2019 after he and his skipper James Stewart Tindall pulled in the two Great Whites after they became tangled in their gill net in April, 2019.

The judge suspended Harding’s fishing license for one year and fined him twelve-and-a-half-gees. Magistrate Dianne Scaddan described the pair posing with the Great Whites as “barbaric” and “vulgar”, two hitherto unknown offences.

The skipper, James Tindall, who fronted court on April 1, has been fined twenty gees and had his fishing license suspended for his transgression; a little rich, I think, considering both animals were dead before they were pulled on deck.

Fisheries officers were put on the case after someone reported finding severed sharks in a nearby river one month later.

Cops got onto Harding, searched his joint, found the jaws, the photos and the videos.

Harding’s defence lawyer said Harding and Tindall were three-and-a-half clicks off the coast when the Great Whites got caught in the nets.

Cutting the net away from the Whites, he said, would’ve risked the crew’s safety and the net would’ve drifted into the ocean, environmental nightmare etc, so the pair dragged ‘em in, cut ‘em up, souvenired the fangs.

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Team Wright after another remarkable world title win. | Photo: @tylerwright

Woman charged with a staggering 749 counts of stealing for a total of $1.5 million from two-time world surfing champion Tyler Wright and brothers, Owen and Mikey.

Three-quarters of the loot spent on gambling and poker machines, “while the rest of it was wasted"

A fifty-tree-year-old woman from the NSW South Coast has been hit with 749 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception with police alleging she stole more than $1.5 million from Tyler Wright and brothers Owen and Mikey,

Shane Maree Hatton, a family friend of the Wrights, although one must now presume that friendship has become somewhat strained, was a bookkeeper for the Wright’s plumbing biz.

When the kids started to rake in the sponsor cash, Hatton took on their finances, too.

“There is a trend of family friends and relatives, who are less than qualified, managing large amounts of money and they can’t resist the temptation of taking some of the money for themselves,” the State Crime Command Director, Detective Chief Superintendent Darren Bennett told The Daily Telegraph.

Red flags went up when celeb agent Nick Fordham, who handles Tyler’s sponsorship deals, saw the books, and noticed the balance was a little lower than expected.

He called the cops, they got the fraud squad in, and the woman was arrested.

“They have a limited window for earning so they need to protect themselves,” Detective Bennett said. “The first thing they need to do is employ reputable companies, not family friends to handle their careers. They need to get contracts, and with legal advice. Then they need to take an interest in their money day to day and the movement of money in their bank accounts.”

Cops allege the woman spent $1.2 million on gambling and poker machines “while the rest of the money was wasted.”

Which brings to mind the wonderful George Best quote, “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

Bookkeepers, accountants, whatever you want to call ‘em, are notorious for sticking their fingers in the honey pot, although their lifespans can be shortened considerably depending on the victims.

One man who ripped off Andy and Bruce Irons for a mill, as well as another thirty or so people for a total of fifty-mill, ended up at the bottom of a canyon after a mysterious car accident.

Police said the day was “very windy.”

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Breaking: Mommy blogger, surfer, Gwyneth Paltrow approaches cancellation for providing inappropriate sunscreen advice!

Much trouble.

If there is one thing surfers know, it’s sunscreen. Or I guess should know. I generally don’t apply before paddling out, as one of my goals as a surf journalist, is to someday look like Nick Carroll but I see many in the lineup, much white covering nose, ears, etc. and legions more in the parking lot rubbing.

Very appropriate.

Sunscreen is our birthright though star actress and mommy blogger, surfer, Gwyneth Paltrow has just recently come very, very near to cancellation for advising her fans to put it on gently, like makeup.

Very inappropriate (apparently).

Dermatologists were horrified, calling for a severe retraction.

Barry D. Goldman, M.D., a clinical instructor at Cornell NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital said, “I do think it’s a bad message. 80-90% of all skin cancers are on the face and neck. I’ve seen many tumors on the eyelids or around the eyes, the forehead. Basically, the whole face should be covered… We think of the whole face as a high-risk area for skin cancer.”

Fans were outraged, calling for an execution.

Some lady on Twitter wrote, “Gwyenth Paltrow really made a video telling people to apply SPF like a highlighter to your face… That’s literally not how it works. It goes on the entire face, neck, & the back of hands.”

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly entirely pleased.

But what is your sunscreen advice?

Care to weigh in or are you sharpening your axe, heading to Goop HQ?

More as the story develops.

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New terror strikes San Diego beaches as lifeguards warn of bootleg surf camps ahead of summer: “The ocean is inherently dangerous and when you have non-permitted surf instructors providing instruction, you are just increasing the chance for a mishap!”

Trouble.

Bootleg booze can get you sick. Bootleg movies can provide an unfortunate cinematic experience not intended by the director. Bootleg music robs Aerosmith of much-deserved royalties but bootleg surf instruction? Well, bootleg surf instruction can get you killed.

San Diego lifeguards, bracing for an epidemic of bootleg surf instruction ahead of the Summer of VAL, issued a stern warning overnight.

“The ocean is inherently dangerous and when you have non-permitted surf instructors — who, again, are not really familiar with the area — that are providing instruction, you are just increasing the chance for a mishap.”

They suggested that VALs should sign up for a surf camp that has an actual storefront as opposed to a Brazilian man standing on the beach waving a flag reading “happy fun surf learn.”

Fines for that Brazilian man will range from $50 for his first offense up to $700 for his third.

Grumpy locals were not asked to paddle around lineups cursing VALs and chasing their instructors around issuing non-actionable but still serious threats, though it should be taken into consideration.

Or maybe we should gather a grumpy local version of The Untouchables, that Eliot Ness led band of misfits and outcasts that brought Al Capone and his bootlegging to heel in the 1930s.

We could call it “Da Hui.”

Very cool.

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