“Our whole wetsuit section was destroyed (over 400 units). We found out that neoprene melts when a truck burns rubber on the suits."

Kekoa Kinimaka, 20, is in police custody after allegedly driving his truck straight through the shop, back to front.

While the motive is still unclear, the damage is striking.

Surveillance video shows a black truck, carrying a couple of surfboards, plowing through the store then reversing before ripping through the merchandise again.

Hi-Tech Surf Sports’ back door, front window, and merchandise were destroyed.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSgIxTHjxQ9/

Whada mess.

Owner Kim Ball described the ruins,

“Our sunscreen and GoPro displays went for a ride. There was SPF 50 shot out of tubes like a bottle rocket on the 4th of July. Sunscreen cleared the Olukai and Reef racks and hit surfboards on the other side of the store.”

According to Maui Now, assistant manager Tyler Abbott was alone in the shop at approximately 4:30 p.m. sitting at the cash wrap station, when he heard the “screeching of tires,” which he said is not particularly unusual for that intersection.

The employee reportedly stood up to see what was happening, when he “heard a loud pop,” saw “glass fly everywhere,” and observed the taillights of a truck within the store.

Ball reports that Abbott narrowly missed a bruising and is said “to be slowly recovering from the emotional trauma of nearly being run over.”

(This might sound callous, but most of us would pay money for a front row seat to witness such a bull-in-china shop romp, no?)

Ball has, however, found some levity in the situation.

“Our whole wetsuit section was destroyed (over 400 units). We found out that neoprene melts when a truck burns rubber on the suits.”

Police discovered the truck on nearby Auhana Road and arrested Kinimaka shortly after.

Bail was originally set at a hundred K but has been since reduced by half.

Fitting bail?

And what about sentencing?

"I don’t believe there’s a finer competitive surfer in history than Gabriel Medina."

All it took was a line from a Chas Smith pixel filler, “Who is your money on, by the way?”

Honestly, I hadn’t even realised the finals were so soon.

Sometimes life is like that.

Everything’s going swimmingly, there’s money in the bank, food on the table, smiles in the bedroom…

Then crack, there it is. A splintered mess of a front door with a big fuckoff wolf’s head poking through it.

Oh well. Here we go again.

So here’s the brief…

Some of you will know me by now, though I’ve been away for some time. Here’s a reminder of my personal bents, should you decide to follow any advice.

I bet largely with the heart rather than the head. Call me masochistic. Of course I know better, and statistically I’m a failure. But I like higher highs and deeper lows. I like to really feeeeeeel.

I don’t believe there’s a finer competitive surfer in history than Gabriel Medina.

Despite these facts, I like some long shots. There’s always the chance you might hit the big one and convince yourself enough’s enough.

I’m still waiting.

So, the players.

Gabriel Medina

What is there left to say? Medina is a favourite anywhere in the world. You’re a bold man to bet against him, though of course we’re at Trestles. It’s akin to moving the Masters from Augusta to a nine-hole par three course.

But Gabby is Gabby, and even if Charlie’s not there perforating eardums, he’s still got Andy King.

He seems to be lacking a little mojo overall this year, but he’s likely keeping his powder dry. He seems a little more mellow than we’re used to and is likely dipping his wick between heats, and who could blame him?

But peel back a layer and there’s a vicious competitive beast underneath, laced through to the core like a stick of rock.

We’ll see the real Medina at Trestles.

No chance he’s letting a third title go begging. Put my house on it.

Italo Ferreira

I love Italo, but from a gambling perspective I’m still smarting from money lost in the early days when he wasn’t so in vogue. I was on his bandwagon early. I could see that he had the most electrifying backhand in the game and the potential to thrill from day one.

And my, how I pulled for him!

The bookies, of course, were slower to catch on, so Italo’s odds were just delicious. However, as is the way with pro surfing and shit judging, he was often underscored.

I could give you specific examples and figures, but honestly it’s too painful.

A couple of vague biggish ones spring out – a 22k accumulator payout scuppered by a heat loss to Ace bloody Buchan somewhere along the way. (Maybe Kolohe? I can’t remember). Eleven thousand missed at the first Surf Ranch event on one underscored left. And a whole fucking whack of cash gone at Bells in 2019 when he got that interference on Jordy.

Suffice to say, I’ve been through the mill with Italo, and as soon as I stopped making him the fulcrum of all my bets he started winning everything.

So I can’t go back, because you know what’ll happen.

Heart over head.

Filipe Toledo

Who doesn’t find Filipe’s surfing completely CHOKE electrifying when he’s on CHOKE point?

Trestles is not only custom designed CHOKE for his CHOKE surfing, but it’s virtually his CHOKE local spot, despite what the local groms think when they CHOKE send him in.

He could CHOKE win the whole thing, there’s no doubt about CHOKE that, but not for my money.

CHOKE, CHOKE. CHOKE, CHOKE.

CHOKE.

Conner Coffin

I’ve got a wee soft spot for Conner. Not only was he most gracious with his time when I peppered him with questions for something I was writing, but I love a natural footer raised on a right point. His aesthetic appeals to me.

His surfing I mean, not his lesbian chic haircut.

He won’t win, of course, not at Trestles.

However there’s one conditional I will add.

A slim chance that’s worth throwing some money Conner’s way.

A ghost of a rumour that could swing everything his way.

A glimmer of a shadow of a tantilising possibility that he could blow the doors off our perception when it comes to riding waves.

I am of course referring to THE TURN.

As prophesied (nay promised!) by Brad Gerlach somewhere along the way, Conner Coffin has in his locker a TURN the likes of which we’ve never seen. A TURN to spin the world on its axis. The ki to unlocking multiple world titles…

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

Come on, Conner. Do it for us!

THE TURN!

Morgan Ciblic

I’ll confess to being a bit in the dark with Morgs, such is my recent casting off of all things pro surfing and associated bankruptcy. I haven’t seen him surf that much.

However…I’m presuming he’s a massive underdog, in which case his odds are going to be TASTY, and in which case he’s probably MY NEW FAVOURITE SURFER! A classic heart bet with payout to match.

Plus, he’s Australian, and that’s alright with me. He’ll be getting a slice of my wife and kid’s future for sure.

So that’s that. I guess I’m back.

Fuck it, you are who you are.

"I start to swim as hard as I can and I'm not going anywhere and so I'm like, 'This is how I die...'"

The comedy superstar Jonah Hill, more famous, recently, for his ascension to the throne of King of Malibu, has revealed he nearly drowned at Bondi Beach while on a promo tour for 21 Jump Street in Australia. 

Hill, now thirty-seven, had to be rescued by the beach’s famous lifeguards after diving “blackout drunk” into one of the beach’s notorious rip-tides, the event captured in a series of dramatic photographs, which you can examine here. 

Speaking to late-night talkshow host Conan O’Brien, Hill said, 

“We got off the plane and immediately we’re like, ‘Let’s go swimming!’ and so we go to Bondi Beach… and there’s such a bad riptide there that dumb tourists get off the plane and go swimming and drown, and get rescued.

“We go in the ocean and I start swimming and then what feels like a second later I look back and Chan’s (Tatum) about a mile away from me … He’s, like, by the beach taking pictures with people and I’m literally, like, head bobbing out, like, ‘What’s going on? Where am I?’

“I start to swim as hard as I can and I’m not going anywhere and so I’m like, ‘This is how I die…’ I am a guy who died in the ocean in Australia … wasted.

“Finally a guy comes out on a jet-ski and he’s like, ‘Hey mate, we gotta pull you in; you can die out here!’ He kinda pulls me in and then I start swimming and what’s crazy is there was paparazzi on the beach. Rarely in life do you tell a story that sounds ridiculous and there’s a picture that’s even more ridiculous than the actual story.

“We’re there for a week doing press and I open the newspaper and on the front page was, ‘Jonah Hill, actor, almost drowns’ and that picture is on the cover for all of Australia to see. Every interview we did started off with, ‘Heard you went for a swim yesterday… Somebody needs to get some floaties’.”

Two years later, Tatum and Hill would reprise the near-fatal event in the sequel to 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, with Tatum pulling his co-star from the surf in Puerto Rico.