Put on your thinking cap.
News of the World Surf League returning to Lower Trestles in order to crown its 2022 champion was met with much excitement by its Global Chief Revenue Officer and Advisor but there was little fanfare elsewhere. Typical reactions ranged from sighs to guffaws, all completely benign of course, toothless, but it does make me wonder how this epoch of surfing will be marked one hundred, one thousand, years on.
Will it be a belle époque? A gorgeously progressive era when surfing had a true and generous benefactor, co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff, who showered this Sport of Kings with such riches as to mark it forever?
Will it be a dark age? A time when feudal lord, co-Waterperson of the Year Dirk Ziff, ignorantly and arrogantly subjected serfs to dismal lives of toil, actively retarding opportunity and vision?
To be honest, I don’t know. I ain’t no rose glassed Ben Marcus. I’m also not a global chief revenue officer nor advisor.
David Lee Scales, in any case, feels things are rotten in the state of surfing because there should only be one focus. Woman/Man vs. Nature. Do you agree? We discuss and also provide wonderful advice to dog owners.
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so much talent oozing from ya….
He’s having fun while Ke11y is thinking about his IG posts.
Bonga Perkins comes to mind, on Karl Schaper boards.
I wasted a year with 17″ wide hyper rockers.
Every now and then i pick up an ex pro board in a surf shop just to feel the dims.
I reckon I’d have to shed 20kg just to be able to catch a wave on it. Well one of them did belong to keanu asing and hes tiny but even one of gabes ex-bells boards left me scratching my head how he can stop the bastard from sinking if he ever got caught behind a section.
But yeah at least they arent bent like a banana anymore!
What did you think because KS was riding a speccific board it would work for you as well ,says more about your lack of surfcraft knowledge and your surfing ability versus the actual design.
We were young and those were the boards everyone was making. Sorry that at 20 in 1990 you were so advanced w your surf craft knowledge.
Mate i was closer to 40 in 1990 than 20 , that aside i have always ridden what works for me rather whats under someone elses feet.
He and Ho make the sport fun like we have in our lives… or had.
Progression in surfing?
More tricks?
More tube time?
Better boards?
I’m just trying to stick with the basics–paddle out–have fun–that could already maybe be perfection.
Yes, kinda true, but he needs to please loose da pink board.
Ps
who is the “this user” is blocked– that Neg keeps blocking?
Why Sam? What have you got against it?
I can remember a time when vetea david used to ride a “mars bar” board that was “way too wide” and the other pros cracked the sads because he would beat them on it when the waves were small and shit. They would sink and he’d float. They even partitioned the ASP to regulate mandatory maximum dims so he’d be forbidden from riding it.
For most of the 80s 90s pro era there was one guy riding quads (winton), a handful experimenting with bonzers (elkerton and a few others), and that was it.
Rusty and al sent surfing forward until they sent it backwards. Well greg webber probably didn’t help either.
Cough, coughing. Kneeboarders embrace four fins first and have never gone missing.
I accept the fact they never sold out like the standup commercial crew.
Much like the body board crew
Can’t support the half-man or speed bumps unless it’s barreling.
Who partitioned the ASP about that? Was it fucken Jeff Booth?
If i remember correctly around about 1991 or 92 the ASP re wrote the judging criteria and asked for surfer feedback.
Poto said there was a push to ban his board (by a group of other pros) and the way they were going to do it was put in width/length/thickness specs on boards surfed in competition. This was when the banana boards were all the rage and before everyone realised there was such a thing as too much rocker.
I do seem to remember other pros being a bit pissy about it, but no official complaint. I was very young at this time though.
Facts.
Give us a tour in the backdoor shootout format with teams bidding for a berth. Way more waves ridden in comparable time, and guys actually pushing it.
“Sport of Kings”? Ha!
Well, someone sure came up with a good marketing slogan with that one.
Actually, the Kings were kinda like the first ass-hole locals.
“My Beach, my waves, go home”!–or get killed.
While the common people were still out surfing da kine waves with each other and just having fun.
“It is said, for example, that “Queen’s Surf” in Waikiki was reserved for royal sliders, and strictly kapu, or forbidden, to commoners, under penalty of death by strangulation. This would make paddling out at V-Land today seem like a snap.”
Well, it *was* the sport of kings, was it not? In that the king was the only guy who was allowed to ride a longboard and the plebs had to gut slide. I think that was the story, wasn’t it?
I think da King just had a ‘special’ slider only he could use–while da rest of da tribe were riding garage shapes by backyard shapers.
But you couldn’t surf some breaks reserved for da King or you could be killed I believe– thus the original A-hole local.
Jack London called it a “royal sport for the natural kings of earth”, not some kook from the WSL’s marketing department
Uhhh, never heard Dat one….
Ok, maybe, so we’re all natural kings?
I’m content just to be a wave slider.
If those clowns at Fort Point approached me with that passive-aggressive bullshit veiled as a compliment or some recognition of my respectful distance hopefully I would smile and paddle away but on the right day I might laugh out maniacally and then just sit on them and stuff them relentlessly, on my 11’2″.
Question: Is surfing progression in this new millennia being actively retarded by the retarded World Surf League?
Retard responds, retardedly – Final 5, Lowers. Yup, the answer got to be Yup.
That’s the question that should be asked. Of course, we all know the answer.
These kooks running it need to get their head around the fact that the quest for mainstream acceptance is a lost cause. Once they realise that, they can make the changes needed to “crown a legitimate world champion”, which should be the raison d’etre of the whole fucking circus.
It will be seen as fuckfest of misaligned commercial objectives that the bulk of surfers cared not one fuck about.
I heard a rumour that Medina will not be World surf leaguing anymore.
He’s definitely in no hurry to get to Hawaii.
Surfs it for a few days a year and is a Pipe master.
Incredible!!
Laughs at “you have to put the time in at Pipe.”
Didn’t he say he was going to take this year off?
I hope he joins the ISF, that would be the best.
Rip Curl will throw him on a Search film series and he will kill it. Trips w Mason. Then Mick. Then Tom. His sister. And whoever else. Good for him getting off the WSL on top.