Tomson, left, (photo Bustin Down the Door), Deane, (D'Blanc sunglasses.)

Blood feud: Surfing great Shaun Tomson slams marquee Volcom surfer in wild harangue, “Noa Deane, he’s a big mouth, I want to see that dude get a wildcard at ten-foot Pipe against Gabriel Medina. He’ll be crying! His body will be flayed!”

"The guy’s got a big mouth and never stops whining about the WSL. Let’s see that dude step up!"

The great Shaun Tomson, a man who redefined backside tuberiding at Pipeline in 1975 and who won a world title at twenty-two, has hit out at the Australian surfer Noa Deane for his since redacted anti-WSL stance.

In a wild harangue on podcast The Boardroom, which is oiled by Surfer’s former online editor Scott Bass, Tomson, now sixty-six, is led into a discussion about the WSL, wildcards, and so on.

Tomson is a a clean-skin with a fiery anti-drugs stance and was once described by Kelly Slater as the “ultimate pro”.

Fifty-three minute in he fumes.

“I’d love to see these wildcards, you know, the big mouths like Noa Deane, big mouth, I want to see that dude, give him a wildcard at ten-foot Pipe. I want to see Noa Deane with his big mouth come up against Italo Ferreira and let’s see what happens.”

A theatrical pause.

“Let me tell you, the dude will be savaged! He will be cryyyyying… with his body… he will be flayed. The guy’s got a big mouth and never stops whining about the WSL. Let’s see that dude step up! People just let these dudes chirp. Step up and put up or shut up!”

It’s a pretty good effort to get a little emotion out of Shaun, he ain’t one for stepping out of his usual boundary lines of positivity, surfing-for-everyone etc.

Sadly for Shaun, ol Noa set his anti-WSL trip aside two days after the Surfer Poll awards in 2014 when he described his “fuck the WSL” moment as “incredibly stupid… I’m meant to be a role model in surfing and my actions on the night were not appropriate and that was not the time or place to voice that opinion.”

Wildcards at Pipe?

Three years ago, he took down world champ John John Florence at the Volcom Pipe Pro… at ten-foot Pipeline.


Mainstream Media credits forecasting website Surfline with “guaranteeing waves” for surfing’s Olympic debut!

Bullish.

In an exceptionally bullish claim, forecasting website Surfline has gone on record stating that there will be quality waves on tap for surfing’s grand Olympic debut. An exceptionally bullish claim that the mainstream media, not generally known for trading on nuance, has taken as a “guarantee.”

Surfline’s forecasting director, Kevin Wallis, told Yahoo! Sports, “Once surfing was officially in the Olympics, we started thinking about where the event might be held. We wanted consistent waves and decent-quality surf close to Tokyo.”

Shidashita Beach, in the Chiba prefecture, was chosen after combing “40 years’ worth of historical records” but also because, “There’s a huge parking area, which on a summer weekend with waves will see hundreds of surfers hanging out between surfs in specially equipped vans and cars complete with shower systems, barbecue grills, and small refrigerators stocked with cold beer.”

Wallis predicted 2-3+ weeks ago but is now confident that the surf will reach the 5-7 ft. range on Monday.

Yahoo! Sports, amazed, declared “mystery solved” as to how the “Olympics guarantees that surfing — which makes its Olympic debut at Tokyo — actually takes place during the Olympics” but also couched, slightly, by revealing the waves don’t have to be in the 10-15 ft. range for the event to be fun to watch as, “Surfers in the Olympics will be using five- to six-foot shortboards, as opposed to eight-to-10-foot longboards, meaning the waves don’t need to be as big for competition purposes.”

Devon Howard is, currently, very angry.

But back to the main thrust, here. If your loved ones’ lives were dependent upon a Surfline forecast would you sleep easy or go out back and start digging graves, tears streaming down cheeks?

It is rarely the wrong call to get a jump on things.


Here, Jon, at left, demonstrates a tourniquet on a pretend severed limb for Yalls board riders. Note former Pipeline Master Jackie Paterson at bottom right.

Sign of the times: Shark bite kits installed in beach car parks along stretch of iconic Western Australian surf spots!

A triumph of pragmatism.

A Western Australian boardriders club, pragmatic as hell and who ain’t afraid to mention the unmentionable, has organised a chain of shark bite kits and defibrillator machines at five iconic beaches in the state’s south-west. 

The kits stretch from the accessible-only-by-four-wheeler, Bears, to just out the front of Taj Burrow’s (former) pussy palace at Rabbits, Yallingup main break, Smiths and Injidup Car Park, 

Yallingup Boardriders raised the money for the heart-starters and “slam kits” featuring Ukranian-made, combat proven crank-handle tourniquets and infographics on what to do when your pal is de-limbed by a Great White, something that ain’t so rare in these parts, and organised workshops with the ER doctor who makes the kits, Jon Cohen. 

Jon Cohen, you’ve heard of. 

Each time there’s a negative interaction (see, I’m learning) with a Great White, I give Jon a call, ask him to break down the latest attack and the response from other surfers and first-responders. 

He’s made it his life work to get tourniquets in the hands of Australian surfers who, for the first time in the sport’s history, have to seriously confront the possibility of interacting in a negative fashion with the suddenly everywhere Great White. 

Still, and this is real important, a shark attack, even by a monster White isn’t necessarily a death sentence.

According to Cohen, who is forty and who grew up in Canada and got into surfing while at college in Hawaii, if you can get the de-limbed person to the beach and apply a tourniquet above the wound so no blood can spurt out the hole you’re good.

He say that once you’ve stopped the blood flow you’ve got four hours before the leg, or arm, is choked off and dies. It means if you’re at a remote beach with no phone redemption, you can tourniquet the wound and take off for an ambulance or chopper without your buddy dying.

“It’s the same principle as a car crash, someone falling off a building or getting hit by a bullet in Iraq,” says Cohen. “Stop the bleeding and get the surfer to shore. In thirty seconds, using a tourniquet, you’ve saved a friend’s life.”

The kits in West Oz are the basic slam kit, one hundred and twenty dollars. Someone gets hit, you go to the defibrillator box, call emergency (triple zero in Australia), and the lock opens. 

That ain’t perfect, says Jon.

Like, he’s thrilled his kits are there at the beach but he knows someone could bleed out in the time it takes to get the kit unlocked. 

And, at a lot of places n the south-west, only one telephone network, the most expensive one, works.

Jon wants stand-alone shark kits, unlocked, and containing not just the standard tourniquets but advanced equipment in case any doctors or paramedics are around. 

Jon wants a network of these stand-alone shark bite kits along Australian beaches.

This’d include junctional tourniquets, for “absolutely horrible wounds, the arm or leg completely gone” and a device that acts like a little balloon. You stick it into the hole, blow it up and staple skin over the hole to keep pressure on it. Other tactics include trying to sew over a bleeding artery if you can see it.

Advanced, yeah, but it’s surprising how many docs surf.

“We don’t wanna confuse anyone but this would give ambos, police, doctors, nurses, extra equipment to play with.” 

As well, you open the box and it automatically calls the police, and even Jon, so he can monitor the situation, help where he can.

It’s ironic that Jon has just taken a gig as the director of emergency at Manning Base hospital, a short-ish drive from Tuncurry, where a surfer was killed a couple of months back, and a short chopper run from Crescent Head, where a surfer had his arm destroyed by a White a few weeks back. 

Get your shark kits here. 


Jeff Bezos organ The Washington Post describes Olympic surfing with never-before-seen flourish: “It’s big enough for her to barrel – riding through a cascading tunnel of water!”

Get barrel.

I watched the Tokyo Olympic opening ceremony, this morning, and thrilled at the pomp, the circumstance, the gorgeous tinged with melancholy performance. Empty seats, apocalyptic overtones but gorgeous because of more than in spite of.

As much frustration as there is in Japan, over hosting an international spectacle in the teeth of pandemic, the proud island nation owned the moment and none other could do it better so here we are. Surfing’s grand Olympic debut set against a rich backdrop it may not even deserve.

There is much interest in our Sport of Kings and Jeff Bezos organ, The Washington Post, is here to explain the nuances, the li’l bits. In an interactive feature titled S U R F I N G, the Post uses Florida’s Caroline Marks as proxy. Shall we read one nib?

It’s big enough for her to barrel – riding through a cascading tunnel of water – but also easy to navigate, allowing Marks to build speed and use the wave lip like a ramp, launching her and her board into the air for twirling tricks. The mere idea of this mythical wave makes her smile.

I’ve made it part of my life’s work to make the world “barrel” a verb, as it relates to surfing, and you don’t know how proud I am at this moment.

This isn’t about me, though, it’s about all of us and we should, each and every one, keep scrap books of our favorite grand Olympic debut moments.

Let’s barrel.


Wresting “mantle of cool” back from equestrian showjumping, Olympic surfers “gleeful” about approaching destructive typhoon!

And we're back.

World media was shocked, days ago, when it was revealed that an Australian Olympic equestrian showjumper would be forbidden from attending the Tokyo Games after testing positive for cocaine thereby ceding the “mantle of rebelliousness” from heretofore derelict surfers.

Victoria’s Jamie Kermond declared the result came from “a single use of the drug” and was very remorseful but the damage was done.

Kermond, pictured, throwing shakas and grabbing surfing's cool. (Courtesy Facebook)
Kermond, pictured, throwing shakas and grabbing surfing’s cool. (Courtesy Facebook)

Surfers, now cast as “goodie-two-shoes” and “mamas-children,” reeled and none more than Australia’s Irukandjis whose motto remains “Deadly in the Water™.”

Hours ahead of surfing’s grand Olympic debut, though, surfers are attempting to wrest pronouns like “thoughtless” and “irresponsible” back from showjumpers by greeting a potential destructive hurricane with wanton joy.

As reported by Reuters:

Japanese residents may be worried about the prospect of a typhoon forming off the coast next week, but the surfers taking part in the Olympic Games are welcoming the possibility of some big waves with open arms.

Reports of a possible typhoon off the coast were greeted with glee by some competitors. “It’s small but there is swell on the way! Let’s go,” wrote Australian surfer Owen Wright on Instagram following his first practice session at Tsurigasaki Surf Beach, where competition begins on Sunday.

No matter how rough the weather gets, New Zealander Ella Williams said competitors would take it as it comes.

“We’re prepared for that, we’ve been preparing for a while. It brought us here and we’ll be fine,” she said.

And we are back.