Florida man shatters record by surfing unthinkable 638 waves over marathon 31-hours: “I need to get some carbs, some protein and some other things in me!”
Kurtis Loftus, hailing from Jacksonville Beach, Florida achieved the unthinkable, yesterday, and shattered what has long been held an unbreakable record by surfing a whopping 638 waves during a 31-hour marathon session.
The 60-year-old goofy foot, wearing what appeared to be a 3/2 wetsuit, gloves and Vans surf boots, surfed all day, all night, and six hours of the next day ending sometime in the afternoon, getting bathed in cheers from family, friends and amazed onlookers.
“I need to get some carbs, some protein and some other things in me, but rest, family and just be grateful,” Loftus told Jacksonville’s NBC affiliate after his last wave. “I mean, what we had, it was extraordinary. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, better support, and I have just enough stubbornness in me to make sure that I’m going to meet these goals.”
The ostensible reason for shredding so hard, so long, was to raise money for the non-profit Deck the Chairs which “promotes the arts and fosters community pride and involvement through a creative display of public art featuring lighted iconic lifeguard chairs” every holiday season in Jacksonville.
Imagine the fitness gains after surfing 638 waves.
The strain meter pinned to the ceiling.
Very satisfying.
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Kelly Slater mauled in brutal opinion piece read by millions, “He not only won the world surfing championship 11 times – so he should know a lot about medicine, I think? – but is supported by some doctor friends! So I guess it’s all a hoax after all!”
"I can't stand repeating any more of his staggering hubris."
Five days ago, the Australian Press rounded on Kelly Slater for being sceptical of COVID-19 vaccines after the champ lit up on a little-known website popular with ocean athletes.
Now, Peter FitzSimons, a star columnist for broadsheet The Sydney Morning Herald, has mauled Slater in a brutal opinion piece, published yesterday.
A few of the choicest cuts,
Ummm, Kelly. Do you get this is not just about you, but about the community you are a part of? That getting the vaccine is not just about keeping yourself safer, but also limiting the likelihood of you passing it on to those less healthy than you.
You don’t get that? OK, if you must, do go on.
“If something happens to me it’s on me, not someone else.”
(See above. You risk passing it on! Seriously, how hard is this?)
The next bit from Slater is all about how 99.7 per cent of all people who get COVID are fine, so what is the big deal, particularly when “this is clearly a disease of obese, unhealthy, and elderly”.
This is too obvious a nonsense to spend any time on it. The healthy people who go down to COVID are too myriad to dwell on. And as to 99.7 per cent being fine, that is just – what that’s word again? – bullshit. In fact, globally, a little over two per cent of those who contract COVID die from it – so you’re about 700 per cent out. But it is not just those who die that count. What about those, having survived, who are still suffering from it, including fatigue, foggy brain, and difficulty in breathing!
Anyway, let’s get back to Kelly Slater so he can unload this pearl.
“And for people saying listen to the doctors, I’m positive I know more about being healthy than 99% of doctors, but I wouldn’t trust me. But most of my COVID info comes directly from doctor friends, many of them in disagreement with the official ‘science’.”
Hello, United Nations? World Health Organisation? The medical establishment around the world?
Yeah, look. Call off the jam. Despite the 735,000 now dead in America from COVID and the millions around the world, turns out it’s no big deal at all! Yes, you heard me! Kelly Slater the surfer knows more than 99 per cent of all of you, and he not only won the world surfing championship 11 times – so he should know a lot about medicine, I think? – but is supported by some doctor friends! So I guess it’s all a hoax after all!
I know. Go figure.
Enough. I am not sure I can stand repeating any more of his staggering hubris.
Kauai's Koa Smith, runner up to Zeke Lau in the Ulto Surfer.
The Ultimate Surfer runner-up Koa Smith goes on scorched earth campaign to win World Surf League wildcards recently vacated by Hawaii’s Zeke Lau! “Let’s storm WSL!”
"LFG. Let’s foxing go. This would be a dream come true. Oh my gosh."
Oh but The Ultimate Surfer is a gift that certainly keeps on giving. Most recently, winner on the men’s side Hawaiian Zeke Lau has officially qualified for the 2022 World Surf League Championship Tour with a fair finish at the just-wrapped Quiksilver Pro, France.
Many bravos but you will certainly recall that the present for becoming The Ultimate Surfer was three wildcards into the aforementioned tour.
The selfsame Lau no longer needs.
Though what to do with them?
The Ultimate Surfer runner-up, or Penultimate Surfer, Koa Smith has decided, by right, that they belong to him and is going on a scorched earth campaign in order to take and hold.
In an attempt to shame Santa Monica’s WSL into submission, the blonde Hawaiian took to Instagram and declared, “Ok Zeke requalified for the Championship Tour. That means his Ultimate Surfer wildcards are just floating in the air, up for grabs. Should I get them as runner-up to The Ultimate Surfer? If you think so, repost this story and @ the WSL. LFG. Let’s foxing go. This would be a dream come true. Oh my gosh. Let’s storm WSL.”
A potent mix of common sense, shame and heartfelt-ness.
Burning the potential competition to the ground.
Smith has 261,000 followers on Instagram, a fine amount, and no doubt they are doing their very best to help him reach his dream but I think Alejandro Moreda should be gifted one. He only has 14,000 followers but is a wonderful boy.
Surf Journalist realizes road to greatness filled with many kinks, unexpected bends, takes role of iconic “Mother Ginger” in famed Nutcracker ballet in order to push fitness goals to heretofore never-imagined levels!
It was a mere three weeks ago I made the uncomfortable realization that I had fallen into a morass of mental, physical inertia and purposed to fight toward greatness once again. The impetus? Watching my young daughter toil under the heavy yoke of classical ballet, the greatest artform ever gifted our undeserving world.
Tendu, arabesque, rombe de jambe, pirouette.
Unlike our surfing, there’s no “almost good enough” in ballet.
No “close.”
Ain’t horseshoes nor hand grenades in the greatest artform ever gifted us from Italy, France, Russia.
Every sinew is either properly aligned or else it is properly not and if it is properly not then angry barks rain down from unrelenting masters.
Perfection demanded.
I watched her grit, felt my deep shame, purposed to knock Ashton Goggans out in the greatest trilogy fight of the decade but a funny thing happened on the way to the octagon.
Originally choreographed by the legendary Marius Ivanovich Petipa and scored by the even more legendary Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker has become one of the most iconic ballets ever.
And there I was, taking young daughter to days’ long rehearsals, endless classes, watching her reach levels of talent that I had never even sniffed when the call came in.
“Would you be Mother Ginger?”
For the boorish, uninformed, Mother Ginger is a pivotal character in The Nutcracker. She shuffles on stage, garishly, in the second act during the “Land of Sweets” arrangement. She is pure divertissement, enjoyable diversion, entering stage with a host of Bon Bons, or tiny dancers, under the broad folds of her skirt whom emerge, dance, get scolded, slide back under her dress while she shuffles off to rapturous burst of applause.
Historically, Mother Ginger has been played by a tall man in drag as it takes a tall man to support the skirt folds necessary to hide many Bon Bons, and it was my destiny to be this tall man… in drag.
Sensing the important kink in my road to greatness, I accepted at once showing up to my first rehearsal with ever-present WHOOP strap affixed, twenty-odd Bon Bons scrambling, giggling, choreographer exhausted, me, in skeleton of broad skirt, trying not to step on them, trying to vamp appropriately.
Artistically.
Perfectly.
In my premier, and much-loved, WHOOP missive telegraphing that pivot to greatness, the august Travis Edgar suggested, “Maybe just do ballet with the kid” instead of training to fight.
He had no idea how stressful, how taxing, how completely impossible the whole business is.
Sweating.
I was sweating profusely whilst trying not to step on Bon Bons whilst attempting to remember my choreography whilst waving my arms, garishly, fabulously, whilst hoisting my skirt skeleton.
A fitness bonanza.
My WHOOP measured a heretofore record 9.8 of strain.
Rumour to hand via the miracle of inside sources is that Vans has taken the legal sword to Quiksilver for that company’s re-release of their trunks, The Original, which feature a checkered stripe running down each femur.
Sorta ‘cause even though they told ‘em checkers “do not function as a trademark to indicate the source of applicant’s clothing” the USPTO granted ‘em the registration to use it on “apparel, namely, bottoms.”
Ten days after that, Nike, a company with a thousand times more legal heft that Vans, said hell no, arguing that since the eighties it “has sold and continues to sell” apparel products that include “checkerboard patterns of various sizes, shapes, and colors placed in various locations on shirts and pants, such as the front, side, back, and inside thereof.”
Anyway, our Quiksilver source, hunkered over their (note use of pronoun) machine in Huntington Beach there, ears popping, says Vans came after ‘em, hard, following The Originals campaign.
Tried to take ‘em to court but lost ‘cause Quiksilver has been running that same print for forty years.
And, says our source, allegedly, Vans told ‘em they will not sponsor any Quiksilver surfer with shoes and that Quik can’t use any Vans products in shoots or marketing.
Good to see a lil fire between companies now that Quik and Billabong, once the most vicious of enemies, sit cheek by jowl in the same Huntington Beach office, same masters etc.
