Construction on $50 million Sydney wavepool
starts in six weeks; waves to run six am to midnight!
By Derek Rielly
Very good news for Sydney's chlorine
shredders…
A few years later than expected, but better late than
never etc, Urbnsurf are loosing the bulldozers on their second
Australian wave pool, this time at Olympic Park, fourteen
clicks west of Sydney.
Yoga studio, skate ramps, a rooftop bar, a swingers hot tub, and
the place is going to be open in the pre-dawn all the way through
to midnight.
Two-fifty jobs during the build, one fifty when it’s open.
Gates open in the summer of 2022-23.
If you live in Sydney, and y’dig wave tanks, this is very good
news for several reasons.
One, it ain’t easy to get a seat in the Melbourne pool, it’s
been that popular, and if you want to get some chlorine turns,
tubs, you gotta coordinate cheap airfares with availability of
sessions. The current booking system is pretty clunky and does
y’head in when you’re hitting airfares/pool sessions
simultaneously.
The water temp in Melbourne is
insanely cold, a couple degrees less than the ocean. Summer is
bearable in a short-sleeved steamer, but winter, oowee, five-fours,
booties, little hats.
Watch: In moment of sublime dadaist
theater, Jordy Smith gives water birth to Wade Carmichael during
World Surf League heat!
By Chas Smith
Not a dry eye in the house.
Yesterday, I watched more professional surfing
than I have in years. North County, San Diego was locked under a
grey canopy, cold winds buffeting a flat ocean, and I thought to
myself, “Why not fully indulge the Rip Curl Rottnest Search
presented by Corona?”
And so I did, taking in most of heats one through eleven. And I
have come away from the binge thinking “The World Surf League has
just conducted one of the greatest pieces of dadaist theater in
professional sporting history” out loud to you.
The great Longtom already wrapped
beautifully, highlighting the nonsense, the
irrationality of Taj Burrow sitting for an entire heat before
putting up a score Mark Zuckerberg could best. The anti-bourgeois
protest of Professor Lenny Collard talking about the brave
Aboriginals who fought, died, were imprisoned in mass graves facing
the “invasion of ocean-borne forces.”
Joe Turpel responding, “Very cool stories, Uncle.”
“Uncle” telling the World Surf League that it would not be
invited back.
My favorite moment, though, came nearly two hours in when the
World Surf League’s production team made a conscious decision to
film what can only be described as Jordy Smith giving water birth
to Wade Carmichael in the midst of their heat with Stu Kennedy.
Slo-motion.
Tell me this was not done on purpose, an avant-garde moment, a
riff on our current state of affairs.
Something about gender, maybe.
Or not.
Very cool indeed.
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Rip Curl Rottnest Search, day one analysis:
“Strickland Bay challenges the world’s best, brings forth alarming
levels of Kookiness; Day saved, as per norm, by Brazilian
goofyfooters!”
By Longtom
And performative activism backfires on WSL!
WSL played a strong indigenous hand on opening day at
Rotto, or Wadjemup as it is known to the
Nyungar/Whadjuk/Bibbulmun crew who had a thirty-thousand year reign
over the Island before, what Professor Lenny Collard termed
“invasion from ocean-borne forces”.
Which I guess would be the white man from post-Enlightenment
Europe.
Lenny was in the booth with Bugs and Joe for heat two of the
day. It was one of the most deeply weird scenes I’ve ever seen in
pro surfing. I want to take the charitable view that this marks a
new chapter of support of the WSL for indigenous surfing and a
movement towards reconciliation in the most ancient country on
earth. It seems so hard to avoid the cynical view that the WSL
wants to be at the vanguard of companies practising what journalist
Matt Taibbi calls “performative activism”.
Lenny got himself on a king hell roll in the booth.
Wadjemup served as an Aboriginal prison between 1834 and 1904
becoming in the process the “biggest deaths in custody site in
Australia”. Lenny made the argument that these people were
“patriots” who were “defending the homeland” against the
aforementioned ocean-borne invaders.
True.
He asked why we remembered Gallipoli*, why we refused to
remember mass sites of Aboriginal death like Wadjemup and advocated
for the site to be granted the status of “war graves” so it could
be appropriately commemorated as part of the Australian history of
“dark deeds in a sunny land”.
It was one of the most stunning and powerful pieces of oratory
I’ve ever heard.
Joe seemed to sense the same sort of existential danger that the
Fanning shark attack posed.
His response to Prof Collard’s soliloquy?
“Sixteen thirty on the clock, we’ve got some numbers to talk
about”.
The segueway from Prof Collard to the “numbers” to Mikey
Wright’s presser, where he said he was “ready to kick it in the
guts and eff it off” in relation to the last place finishes, was
sublime.
The peak at Strickland Bay was challenging the world’s best,
bringing forth an at times alarming level of Kookiness. The left
lurches along at an uneven pace causing many mis-reads and flubbed
turns, ending with a gurgled out closeout section.
Two turns and a closeout; it feels like the entire Aussie leg
has been two turns and a closeout reo.
Peak kookiness was supplied by wildcard Taj Burrow.
Following on from the hype of Fanning’s wildcard at Narrabeen,
where Getting Heated unironically posed the question, Who will stop
Mick Fanning? , expectations for Burrow’s return to the jersey were
very much hosed down.
He expressed a clear message that winning was off the table as a
motivation, it was all about connecting with old pals and showing
his family what he used to do. Which I found oddly self-indulgent
as a reason to slot him in the draw.
Either he is in with a shot of winning, or at least pushing the
envelope, or he gets his back slapped in the competitors’ area and
entertains us in the booth.
Tuning in to watch Teeb’s heat offered up as reward a curious
blend of schadenfreude and awkwardness. For twenty minutes Taj sat
there grinning inanely.
Happy to be there. Great.
Taj paddles for a closeout and aborts the take-off, a ride so
abysmal judges deign not to have even considered it a score.
Five minutes to go, Taj is on zero.
Three minutes. Taj on zero.
Ninety seconds to go, Taj paddles into a close-out, falls on a
reo for a 0.7.
The hooter sounds. A sub-one point heat for the wildcard.
I know this sounds crazy, but I feel confident I could have
beaten Taj in that heat.
Two waves, with cutting across the green face and a cut down on
each, surely would have been a point each?
Apart from Jordy Smith’s one delectable power hack on a right,
scored as part of a trio of turns for a 7.33 it was the lefts that
proved the more high perf. Brazilian goofy foots, it will surprise
nobody, were the standouts. Aussie goofies, led by Ryan Callinan
and Connor O’Leary were a half step behind. A faux-hawked and Sam
George-earringed Medina was the pace-setter. It took him a wave to
get his specs in, once he figured out the rhythm he went nuts.
If you’re of limited time, watch his waves.
His heat marked a turning point and a slow, inexorable rise in
global performance levels, with the kookiness of earlier heats
dissipating. O’Leary and Callinan both swung hard at the lefts.
Flores, Pupo and Moniz in heat 10 fought a pitched battle that
ended in the final exchange with Pupo in front by a bee’s dick.
The next heat with Bourez, Dora and Peoples Champ Ibelli was
also a cracker. As the Main Break right can dish up a rare tube,
the Stricko’s left delivered a length of ride barrel for Bourez.
Ibelli was strong but Dora seemed more in tune with the lefts than
anyone bar Medina.
I like the way reality is now, so, so slowly and incrementally,
working its way into the booth. I believe as a result of our
efforts here on BG.
Ronnie Blakey finally broke the “everyone can beat everyone”
myth of equality at Margs by drily noting that backmarkers were
going to have to lift substantially to upset Medina/Toledo/Italo et
al. Reality dawned on Bugs today when, despite a massive four-leg
Aussie Tour with a massive home advantage in the offing for
Aussies, it was now looking likely we would not have a surfer in
the Top Five Title showdown Day.
Deivid Silva drove the nail into the coffin by manufacturing an
interference call against Morgan Cibilic. Paddled right, straight
into him, on a left. It caused the normally conservative Richie
Lovett to proclaim, “I’m not sure they’ve called that
correctly”.
But, who judges the judges?
Thirty years ago, as noted by guest commentator Scott (sorry
name illegible in notes), there were indigenous surfing events in
Australia, possibly a far more robust application of the
“inclusive” surfing concepts the Woz loves to trumpet.
With the fracturing of the QS, now might be the opportune time
for the Woz to put it’s money where its mouth is if they want to
build on the good will of the Nyungar elders who have put the
welcome mat out at Wadjemup.
*Disastrous World War One battleground for ANZAC forces in
Turkey that has become a defining event in national
self-identity.
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Comment live, Rip Curl Rottnest Search, Day
one!
By Derek Rielly
Surf fans go wild!
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros