In stunning move that throws professional
surfing into disarray, defending World Title holder Gabriel Medina
withdraws from Billabong Pro Pipeline Masters!
By Chas Smith
BeachGrit prescient.
In a move that will reverberate through the
beginning of the World Surf League’s 2022 season, it has just been
announced that 2021’s defending champion, Brazilian Gabriel Medina,
has officially withdrawn from the Billabong Pro Pipeline Masters
which opens in mere days.
“The past few months have been a difficult time for me
personally and it has taken a toll,” said Medina. “As such, I’ve
decided to withdraw from the start of the 2022 WSL Championship
Tour. I had every intention of competing for the full season, had
made all the preparations medically (I took my COVID vaccination
during my holidays) and mentally and physically, but I’m not in a
place where I believe I can perform against the world’s best
surfers right now and I need to focus on my well-being. I don’t
know how long it will take, but I aim to return to the Championship
Tour as soon as I am ready. I very much appreciate everyone’s
ongoing love and support. I’ll be back when I am able.
Love.”
“The health and safety of our athletes is of the utmost
importance, and we fully support Gabriel’s decision to prioritize
his well-being,” said Erik Logan, WSL CEO. “We want to put the
world’s best surfers in front of our fans to start the season, but
we certainly respect his decision. We’ll obviously miss having our
reigning World Champion at the 2022 CT kick-off at the Billabong
Pro Pipeline, and we will be here to welcome him back when he’s
ready.”
“Gabriel is our number one surfer and we will do anything to
help him return to his best personally and professionally,” said
Rip Curl Chief Marketing Officer, Neil Ridgway. “For many world
champion sportspeople the pressures of winning at the highest level
are great and the Olympics and WSL Championship Tour are tough
crucibles to thrive in. We have seen the ups and downs with many of
our finest World Champion surfers and we support Gabriel 100% in
his plan to recover in full and be ready to rumble later in the WSL
season. We would also like to say to his many fans that it’s ok to
reach out for help if you are struggling physically and mentally
and seek help from the many organizations across the world, which
have really come into focus during the pandemic. The other thing to
do is surf more. The ocean is a great healer and we know Gabriel
will be out in the lineup as part of his recovery. We wish him
well.”
Medina will be replaced by Caio Ibelli (BRA) at the 2022
Billabong Pro Pipeline.
Logan and co. could have planned better for this outcome had
they listened to the advice of BeachGrit’s Derek Rielly who, four
months ago, declared that Medina was likely to sit out
for the whole season.
How does this make you feel, the defending champ taking a
potential year off at the height of his prowess?
Caio Ibelli back for more?
Interesting days.
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North Shore lifeguards superhumanly busy
over weekend of pounding surf, save 53 lives and warn a further
7000 vulnerable adults to look but not touch!
By Chas Smith
When the wave breaks here... be back in Tulsa.
I am currently in Jackson Hole, Wyoming ahead
of Natural Selection, the snowboard competition that the World Surf
League should copy forthwith. More on that later, but regarding our
WSL, extremely large surf has been pounding Oahu’s North Shore
ahead of the Billabong Pro Pipeline Masters kickoff keeping the
local lifeguards extremely busy.
Honolulu Ocean Safety Lt. Kerry Atwood told KHON News,
“We’ve been busy. We’ve had multiple surfers at Waimea Bay needing
assistance from our rescue unit and had to be brought back to the
beach. And we did have a jet ski that got into some trouble earlier
in the day in the Laniakea area.”
The outlet reported that as of 4:30 yesterday afternoon,
lifeguards had saved 53 souls from drowning and made a further,
whopping, 7000 “preventative actions” such as telling vulnerable
adults to look but not touch etc.
“We’re not taking any chances today. We have caution tape up,
signs posted, we have mobile patrols, lifeguards on ATVS, two
rescue units actively patrolling the surf, one on land and
lieutenants in trucks,” Lt. Atwood continued.
7000 warnings.
Could you imagine issuing 7000 warnings to befuddled Logans
fresh off the plane from Oklahoma, eyes wide, bodies sheathed in
neoprene suits of
armor, ready to meet their destiny?
7000 warnings.
Wow.
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Bombshell: WSL pulls hall-of-famer and
former world champ Barton Lynch from Pipeline Masters commentary
team!
By Derek Rielly
The tour's opening gambit just dulled a little with
the dumping of the sport's most popular broadcaster…
In a surprise turn, the 1988 world champion Barton Lynch, who
cinched his title at perfect eight-to-twelve-foot Pipeline but is
now more famous for his oratorical gymkhanas on WSL broadcasts,
has been pulled from the commentary team for the 2022 Pipeline
Masters.
Lynch, who is fifty-eight and lives at Sunset Beach in Hawaii,
was shifted sideways to the Hurley Sunset Beach event to make room
for, we believe, Ross Williams and Makua Rothman.
Matt Warshaw in his Encylopedia of Surfing
(subscribe here) says Lynch developed a
reputation as “one of the sport’s wittiest and most articulate
figures, and for his willingness to express views outside what he
correctly viewed as a narrow surf world orthodoxy. Surfing, he
said in a 1989 interview, was nothing more than ‘another outlet for
making yourself feel good,’ and shouldn’t serve as ‘the be-all and
end-all of your life.’ Surfers, he continued, were on the
whole the most ‘self-righteous, cocky and judgmental group of
people you’ll find anywhere in the world.'”
One of the sport’s most popular broadcasters, there was
conjecture the dumping was linked to Lynch’s role in the activist
group Voices4Choices, which questions vaccine mandates and the role
of government during the continuing COVID pandemic.
A recent Voices4Choices webinar was a who’s who of the sporting
world, tennis stars, surfers (Taj Burrow), doctors etc,
Huge Great White shark filmed metres from
surfers and swimmers in chillingly similar scenario to shallow
water fatal attack on bodyboarder at same beach!
By Derek Rielly
Ignorance is bliss, mostly.
Back in 2012, bodyboarder DaveyLilienfeldwas
killed by a Great White in front of his brother at Koel Bay, an
idyllic and real consistent beachbreak in Cape Town, South
Africa.
Lilienfeld, who was twenty, was hit by a Great White estimated
to be between fifteen and eighteen feet long.
Yeah, real big.
Usual story, bitten on the leg, bled out.
Plenty of people on the beach saw it unfold, some taking
photos.
“I saw the shark circle this guy. The brother was on his way out
to catch a wave, and his brother called out to him. We just saw
blood all over. The brother wanted to go in and help, but he
couldn’t because the shark still had his brother. The second time
the shark took him, it took the boy down with him. A few
minutes later the bodyboard surfaced. And then the body was washed
on to the rocks. It was terrible to witness. I’m still shaking (six
hours later). I felt so helpless – I can still hear him shouting
for help…”
Another,
“I saw this big dorsal fin and after that I saw him getting
attacked. He was off his board and in the water. Then the shark
turned around and attacked him again. Just before it attacked him,
he tried to put his board between him and the shark. He was pushing
the shark’s head with his board. But within two seconds the
water turned from turquoise to red.”
Now, in a chillingly similar scenario, footage shared to Twitter
shows a twleve-ish footer patrolling the waters near surfers and
swimmers.
One, Whites are always around, ain’t no reason to get freaked
out or, two, every day could be your last and the odds getting
shorter and shorter now that Whites are protected pretty much
everywhere.
I tend to favour the former.
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Ain't much left of Burling's beachfront
resort.
Iconic South Pacific surf resort destroyed
by tsunami following Krakatoa-like undersea volcanic eruption!
By Ben Marcus
Steve Burling’s Ha’atafu Beach Resort in Tonga no
longer exists.
A long time ago, in a decade far far away, during a time
called “The Nineties” SURFER Magazine did a boat trip to Tonga with
Tom Carroll, Kelly Slater and your humble
narrator.
At the time, Kelly Slater and Tom Carroll were two of the best
surfers in the world, if not the two best surfers in the world.
Incredibly, phenomenally Tiger Woods-skilled and athletic.
The crew enjoyed the hospitality of a local surf resort owner,
Australian Steve Burling and his family. If memory serves he had a
Tongan wife and at least three tall, lean daughters who looked
destined to grow up into super models.
So what?
So it was a little shocking when that volcano went off somewhere
in the Tongan archipelago and it was identified as the Hunga
Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano.
The Ha’apai part caught the eye and sure enough that volcano
went off about 40 miles southwest of where TVC and Kelly went off,
way back in the 1990s.
A massive volcano. Visible from space. The air disruption was
measured in Miami Fricking Florida: More than 7000 miles away.
When Krakatoa went off way back in 1883 it released an estimated
200 megatonnes of energy – that’s 2000 pounds x 1,000,000 x 200 =
400,000,000,000 pounds of TNT.
The Hunga-Tonga Ha’apai volcano was possibly even bigger than
Krakatoa.
And it shook up the world.
A displaced Californian named Tony Stincelli who lives on Vanua
Levu island in Fiji “on the south side 10 kilometers west of
Savusavu town, which is in the bay,” heard the rumbling from 500
miles away.
On Facebook, Stincelli said:
I’ll tell you ….. we’re 500 miles away and you wouldn’t
believe the hour long explosions and shaking from it here. It was
roaring thunderous ground shaking explosions for over an hour ….
lots of small tsunami waves breaking across the lagoon out in
front.
Displaced California surfer/coastal engineering PhD Jose Borrero
was in Gisborne with his family when he thought he heard a distant
thunder:
I didn’t hear the booms, but people around here did. I am in
Gisborne on the east coast at the moment.
When the booms were happening I was trying to get my kids to
stop talking and eat their dinner. Also, we were in a beach front
house at the time and there was a lot of wind and a pretty big
swell running, so there was a lot of white noise around. The people
I know that heard it were a few km inland in a quiet forest area
and they heard it over top of polite dinner conversation. They
thought it was fireworks from a nearby speedway that does them on
Saturday nights, but it was still daylight, so it didn’t make
sense.
The next day we had a cyclone (Cody) spin by the coast about
200 km off shore and the swell got real big for a while (still too
big now for the beaches out back). Maybe this afternoon or tomorrow
morning the swell will clean up back to surfably fun
levels.
But in all of that, the few people who have actually been to
Tonga or know Tonga were concerned about the effect a 200 megatonne
explosion 40 miles from the main island would have on the life and
ecosystems of that distant archipelago.
A few days after the explosion, photos and news leaked out,
showing the main island of Nuku’alofa covered in smoke and ash, and
reports that the main communications cable linking Tonga to Fiji
had been damaged or severed.
Your Humble Narrator was under the impression that Steve
Burling’s Ha’atafu Resort was on the southwest end of the main
island and so protected from the tsunami that washed ashore after
the explosion.
I was wrong. Ha’atafu is/was located on the northwest peninsula
of the main island, absolutely exposed to anything and everything
thrown up by air and sea from Hunga Tonga.
An email to the Burling camp went out soon after, not expecting
an answer because of the wrecked communications cable, but on
Tuesday, January 18, an email showed up late in the PM:
Ha’atafu Beach Resort
Tue, Jan 18, 9:21 PM (13 hours ago)
G’day Ben,
Yes, I remember the Ha’apai trip with the crew from Surfer
Magazine. Seems like yesterday.
Unfortunately our resort no longer exists. Totally wiped out
by the tsunami. My daughter Moana and her family have been managing
the resort in recent years and only barely escaped with their lives
…. only got out with the clothes on their backs after risking their
lives ensuring all guests were alerted to the impending danger and
ushering them out of the resort. They didn’t even have time to jump
in one of the 3 resort vehicles to drive to safety as the first
waves hit the resort only 5 minutes after they heard the first
explosion.
The volcano is located just 20 nautical miles (40km) off the
Ha’atafu coast. All resorts and homes along the western coastline
have been completely obliterated …. Only some foundations remain.
The waves washed right across the peninsula and also wiped out two
nearby villages. The western district of Tongatapu has been
declared a disaster area.
All international telephone and internet communications are
down due to the submarine cable between Fiji and Tonga being
severed in two places by the eruption. Repairs are expected to take
another 2 weeks (at the earliest).
I’ll include you in all future email updates.
Best regards,
Steve
So another tragedy from the explosion. After close to three
decades and a lot of hard work and sweat equity and memories and
good times, the Ha’atafu Beach Resort is no more.
All reduced to smoke and ash.
Steve Burling described the evolution and trials and tribulation
and slings and arrows of Ha’atafu in an email:
Malo e lelei Ben,
The resort was established in 1979. We had a total of 12
accommodation fales. Category 5 tropical cyclones (hurricanes)
seriously damaged our resort on 3 occasions … March 1982, January
1993 and the most recent was April 2020 …. but we always managed to
pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and rebuild.
All our family and friends are supportive of any effort we
make to rebuild (again). However there are many hurdles we
currently face …. the biggest being Tonga’s border closure due to
covid. No international travel in or out of Tonga has been
permitted for almost 2 years. Only Tongan seasonal workers in
Australia and New Zealand have been allowed to travel on chartered
flights. This makes any short-medium term planning very difficult
as Moana and Hola will be overwhelmed at facing the challenge of
rebuilding the resort by themselves …. especially after the
traumatic experience they’ve just been through.
Another major issue is the state of Tonga’s tourism sector
as there has been no international tourism for the past 2 years.
Moana and Hola have done an amazing job of diversifying our resort
operation to cater 100% to the Tongan domestic market. This has
meant that we have been able to keep all 20 of our staff employed
through this covid b/s …. we haven’t had to put any staff off
which, for me, is the most important thing.
Our staff are the backbone of our business. They’re all
dedicated hard workers and I’m absolutely gutted that they’re now
facing unemployment because of this disaster.
We managed to speak by phone to Moana for the first time
last night and she said that she had spoken to most of the other
resort owners and people who had homes along the western coast.
Like us, they too lost absolutely everything. Moana said that none
of them are planning to rebuild. Given that volcanic activity at
Hunga has been increasing in the past 15 years, it’s little wonder
that people are reluctant to reinvest.
Tonga’s recovery? The seriousness of the
disaster means Tonga will require a major foreign relief effort …
this is already underway with both Australia and New Zealand
sending military aircraft and naval vessels with emergency supplies
of temporary shelter, fresh water, medical supplies and heavy
equipment. This will be followed by aid programs to provide more
permanent housing …. similar to aid that has been forthcoming in
the past following damages from serious tropical cyclones.
All gone in 60 minutes. Mother Nature can’t be sued for
damages.