The World Surf League and Swedish disposable furniture giant IKEA team up on another exciting environmentally-conscious surf-inspired line: “The surfing lifestyle has many important insights about being constantly on the go, such as organising, mobility needs and handling humidity!”

Chas Smith

By

Watch now. Buy later.

Well here we are, again, enjoying each others’ company, winding down the day or maybe winding up the day, thinking thoughts about our surfing and its surf-adjacent bits. Like Make or Break, the upcoming Apple Television program which will feature Kelly Slater and also reigning champion Gabriel Medina chasing his next crown exclusively in Brazil. And IKEA’s newest collaboration with our extremely environmentally conscious World Surf League.

I tried not to think about the latter, really tried, but have been direct messaged, emailed, propositioned by agencies so many times over the past few days that I think you must enjoy.

So here.

By teaming up with WSL, IKEA wanted to learn more about the needs and demands of surfers. The surfing lifestyle has provided many important insights about being constantly on the go, such as organising, mobility needs and handling humidity.

“These needs are relevant for many more people than surfers and inspired us to create products that enrich everybody’s lives with similar demands. With this collection, we hope to spread the joy of the surfing lifestyle in the home and everyday life of many people”, says Wiebke Braasch, Designer at IKEA of Sweden.

The range of KÅSEBERGA includes more than 25 products intended for the home or wherever life takes them. Among those are a hand plane for body surfing, a beach chair, a portable grill, a coffee table and a bag uniquely designed to function well for beach clean-ups.

Together with the World Surf League and the reputable surfers Kassia Meador and Rob Machado, the design process has revolved around including functionality, more recycled materials and promoting a more circular lifestyle. As a result, a big part of the products in the KÅSEBERGA collection are made of recycled polyester, while others are made of renewables, such as bamboo and cork.

“It has been an honour and a pleasure to team up with Rob Machado, the WSL and IKEA to create KÅSEBERGA. A collection of ocean-inspired home goods and on-the-go surf essentials in the most functional high vibe low impact way. For the ever-growing global community of earth-conscious surfers and beach lovers”, says Kassia Meador, surfer and business owner.

“Watching the IKEA KÅSEBERGA collaboration come to life and working with their designers on developing these sustainable products has been a truly rewarding experience for us at WSL,” says Cherie Cohen, WSL Chief Revenue Officer. “IKEA’s sustainability initiatives align closely with those of the WSL and our fans. We are confident that these products made using recycled and renewable materials will be hugely popular with surfers, ocean lovers, and design enthusiasts.”

KÅSEBERGA, named after a small city in Sweden with one of the most southern surf breaks in the country, will launch globally in May 2022. Availability may differ depending on the region. For more information, contact your local IKEA.

Buy soon.

Be inspired now.

Feral monkey wars continue at iconic Uluwatu in Bali after “rare and sacred” white monkey returned to wild after savage attack is nearly killed, again, by rival troupe!

John Kennedy

By

The white monkey is being forced into retirement. A permanent enclosure will be built within the Uluwatu temple, complete with a pool and a garden. 

The villagers of a traditional market that caters to surfers in Bali are dealing with a violent and very different sort of localism.

A large wild Macaque, having staked a claim in one of the empty stalls during the pandemic, is refusing to leave and is threatening anyone that comes near his “spot”.

“That thing has taken control of the fruit basket line-up, says” Surfer/Juice bar owner Sam Gavin. “He reminds me of those fuckin’ angry locals in South Oz that I know. Teeth baring and chest beating and all”. 

And speaking of sacred apes, the sacred white monkey of Uluwatu can’t catch a break.

You remember him, the brave leader of the Uluwatu troupe during the pandemic monkey wars up in the Bukit.

Terribly wounded after the final territorial confrontation due to the defense of prime locations of the returning tourists, the white monkey, who is believed to be a mystical manifestation of Hanuman the Monkey God,  was taken under care and nursed back to health.  

Since then he has also become a mascot to visiting surfers, who bring him bananas in hope of swell. 

Anyway, an easy target.

And, when released, the white monkey was again jumped by marauding members of a rival troupe just outside the Uluwatu Temple. 

Captured and treated, the sacred white monkey is being forced into retirement. A permanent enclosure is being designed for him within the Uluwatu temple, complete with a pool and a garden. 

“Given that the white monkey’s new role is as a mascot for Pura Uluwatu,” says one temple official, “and has become a valuable tourist attraction, such a special enclosure is justified. The surfers love him.”

The latest is the job offer is for someone to become the white monkey’s security guard.

OnlyFans star and brother of many-time World Surf League champion John John Florence professes appropriate admiration for prone wave riders: “As is the case with most big slabs, the bodyboarders always paddle the biggest heaviest sets of the day!”

Chas Smith

By

Heroic.

But what is there not to love about Nathan Florence, brother of Olympian and many-time World Surf League John John, OnlyFans pioneer? The middle child of a now-legendary Hawaiian family has never been afraid to go his own way, carve his own path, become the professional surfer we need.

Most recently, the boy who refused to follow dirty ol’ BeachGrit’s example of openly “trashing” the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater, took to the largest picture/video-based social network on the channel to praise bodyboarders.

Per Instagram:

As is the case with most big slabs the bodyboarders always paddle the biggest heaviest sets of the day so sick to watch them go at it! @samthomas_ here knifing into a bomb!! Full session up on the youtube now!

The “full session” is quite something, taking place at the notorious Shipsterns Bluff, and very much worth your time.

But do your recall the epoch when bodyboarders or “dick draggers” or “lids” were the sworn enemies of surfers? The enmity seems silly now what with SUPs and e-foilers doing their thang and I very much agree with Florence in his assessment. So much so that I had a dream last night that I was weaving through a giant sketchy tube on my belly.

Should we all ditch pretense and just lay down?

It’d be a lot cooler if we did.

Your thoughts, please, below.

Surf legend Maurice Cole blasts the World Surf League over performative environmental posturing at just-wrapped Bells Beach event: “Simply put… green washing seems to be the WSL’s Modus Operandum!”

Chas Smith

By

Also stealing the whole kitty.

Legendary surf figure, and Torquay’s first son, Maurice Cole, days ago, pulled a hammer from the re-enforced loop of his handsome cargo shorts and hammered the World Surf League over its performative environmental whatnot, plus taking the entire door, at the just-wrapped Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach.

Robber barrons.

My friends at Surfers Appreciating Natural Environment (SANE) were invited to a Bells tree planting session with the Surf Coast Shire (SCS) and the World Surf League at the start of this years event….where SANE did all the work …set up photo/film opportunities…which was used on the @wsl website……where the claim is that the WSL has been revegetating Bells for 50 years….check out the WSL webpage…

…the longtime shaper and pioneer began before really laying in.

We all know that since they started in 1988 SANE has led the charge and done most of the work to revegetate the Bells reserve, doing working bees every month in the Bells Reserve for 34 years!

The WSL have continually ripped off the local Surf Coast Shire surfing community groups here who actually have had to continually fight the WSL and the Surf Coast Shire from inappropriate commercial development. The WSL still take all the gate money from the local community, which is the only contest in the World that charges an entry fee for spectators.

The latest 3 year fight was to stop the WSL building a viewing platform at Winki-Pop as the WSL might want to use the platform at Easter for a few days. The cost/angst and years of fighting the inappropriate development proposed by the WSL, created disharmony and distrust between the recreational surfing community and the Govt organizations such as the SCS and Surfing Vic. Local and international surfers cannot trust the WSL greenwash machine and now the WSL are giving the impression they are leading reveg efforts at Bells and caring about the local community.

I know how upset the guys from SANE are about being used by the WSL with the planting of a few plants, and there is a meeting on Weds morning to discuss how they were abused by the WSL, and simply put….green washing seems to be the WSL’s Modus Operandum…….. we all want an Easter Pro, but not at the continuing expense of recreational surfers who have to fight the ongoing presence of Green Washers!

 

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A post shared by Maurice Cole (@mcsurfboards)

This is not the first time the WSL has been accused of posturing for the sake of social approval in areas of equality, care about longboarders and, of course, environmentalism.

A partnership was recently announced with a manufacturer of cheap Chinese SUVs.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

Make or Break.

Swellian Lord Vaughan Dead on the wild success of Ain’t That Swell, why BeachGrit commentary is “the number place in the world for comedy” and reveals new project “that might be the most fucked-up thing ever in surfing!”

Derek Rielly

By

"I’m terrified to try and defend myself. When you love everything you open yourself to be torn down by some really smart people.”

The last time we saw Adam “Vaughan Dead” Blakey, director of zeitgeist smashing surf films, one half of the long-running Ain’t That Swell podcast and frontman of the Goons of Doom, he was at the Rip Curl Newcastle Cup squawking ecstatically, as if he wanted to seize local boy Ryan Callinan in his arms and pull him down between his thighs.

When his hind legs aren’t quivering and he isn’t easing his crimson dingus out, Vaughan is a man who straddles better than anybody the fine line between positive noise and toxic slime.

The surf films he makes with pal Nick Pollet are more fun than candy striped short shorts.

The band he fronts, The Goons of Doom, with all its happy beer-drinking anthems.

He loves the BeachGrit commentariat, says “It’s the funniest place ever, the amount of energy and fucking brains going into so much tear down… it might be the number place in the world for that style of comedy.”

Loves it but he don’t engage.

“I don’t feel smart enough to properly articulate myself in that way… I’m terrified to try and defend myself. When you love everything you open yourself to be torn down by some really smart people.”

His latest project, with Nick, is a stop-motion film voiced by the superstars of surfing, three years in the making. It reveals in six months.

Vaughan, it hardly needs to be said, is a startlingly original and hard-boiled lover of surfing.

Essential.

Photo: Steve Sherman/@tsherms
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