Testosterone-squirting big-wave surf icon lambasts Hawaiian contest organisers for calling off prized Triple Crown event in building swell, “If you want extraordinary surfers to be extraordinary, you put them in extraordinary waves!”

"I bet John John Florence and Jack Robinson wanted to go back out!"

If you know surfing, you’ll know the name Ian “Kanga” Cairns, a man with the physique of a comic-book hero who ruled big waves, who was pivotal in the creation of a world tour, who would launch the ASP after tearing the game off the IPS’s Fred Hemmings and whose thin-eyed stare could give a man stomach cramps.

Cairns, sixty-nine, came out swinging today after the first event in the Triple  Crown, the Michelob ULTRA Pure Gold Haleiwa Challenger, was put on hold before the quarter-finals, which included John John Florence and Jack Robinson, because of a building swell. 

“The @wsl Haleiwa contest was on today and they called off the Quarter Finals because the swell was coming up. @fredhemmings never called it off. I won the World Cup twice at Haleiwa in way bigger surf,” wrote Kanga. “There would have been a lot of squawking but I bet @john_john_florence and @jackrobinson72 wanted to go back out. In fact, I bet they went out after the contest ended. If you want extraordinary surfers to be extraordinary, you put them in extraordinary waves.”

 

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A post shared by Ian Cairns (@iancairns)

Response from fans was unanimous in favour of Kanga’s position, 

“(Three clap emojis) yep! Why did they all it all? Strange,” wrote women’s tour pioneer Lynne Boyer, famous for riding big Sunset etc.

From the legendary surf photographer Tom Servais, “Great point, and great photo of you showing your power and why you were such an important surfer in surfing’s history!”

Hawaiian power surfer Pancho Sullivan noted his approval by posting four muscle arm emojis and two flames. 

Terry Terukina added, “FYI: I surfed in close-out Hale’iwa back in the late 70s early 80s during our Annual Mabo Royal AMATEUR contest. Ten years later and for about a ten year period…as the Director of that same contest (renamed the current Hale’iwa International Open), more times than not we had the AMATEUR contest in the same monstrous conditions. That’s why the North Shore crew has always bred “riders of the storm”…contest or no contest! And Ian was my and many Hale’iwa OGs inspiration!!”

Kanga, of course, ain’t afraid of holding an unpopular opinion.

“Everyone in some sense is concerned about what people think of them,” he told me a while back. “But I wake up in the morning and I think, what am I going to today?” says Cairns. “How can I do all these things that are crazy and cool and how can it benefit my family, my friends and all of this? The moment you start to think about these things you move forward and all those criticisms, which are about what you did yesterday, don’t matter. If you’re thinking about the future, you’re already one step ahead of the critics. Do I want to be disliked? No! Do I want to be focussed on coming up with some awesome idea tomorrow?  That’s what I want to do.”